Monday Morning Uni Watch

Before we get to anything else, I want to thank the many, many readers who approached me and had kind things to say during Saturday’s Queens Baseball Convention. I was blown away by both the quantity and quality of the salutations. Thanks, people — much appreciated.

Now then: Not a much uni-notable action in yesterday’s conference championship games. But with the Super Bowl match-up now set, reader Jay Braiman has crunched some numbers for us, as follows:

The AFC is the home team this year, so the Broncos will likely wear orange in the Super Bowl. The Broncos are 0-3 in orange in Super Bowls, 1-1 in white, and 1-0 in navy blue. The only other team to wear three different colors (i.e., two different colors plus white) in Super Bowl games is the Patriots.

The Broncos are the first team to change the primary color of their home (i.e., colored) jersey after winning the Super Bowl, and then get back to the Super Bowl. They’re the first team to play in the Super Bowl wearing one color, then play in the Super Bowl wearing a different color, then play in the Super Bowl wearing the first color again. They’re also the first team to play in two Super Bowls wearing two different primary jersey colors with a uniform design that is otherwise the same.

Not much uni-notable surrounding the Seahawks. They’re the third team to lose one (and only one) Super Bowl in one uniform set, then go back to the Super Bowl in a different uniform set (the others were the Patriots, who did it twice, and the ’Skins). They’re also the second team to use a single decal (or decals) to create mirror images on either side of the helmet, the other being the Bengals.

This is the 11th Super Bowl in which neither team’s helmet logo contains any letters of the alphabet. The Broncos are the only team to play in different Super Bowls with and without letters in their helmet logos. For the record, teams with letters in their logos are 20-9 in Super Bowls against teams without.

Peyton Manning’s No. 18 and Russell Wilson’s No. 3 represent the largest numerical difference between numbers worn by starting Super Bowl quarterbacks. The previous record was 12, way back in Super Bowl II, in which Green Bay’s Bart Starr wore No. 15 and Oakland’s Daryle Lamonica wore No. 3. Wilson ties Lamonica for the lowest number worn by a starting QB in the Super Bowl. The only other difference of 10 or more was in Super Bowl XXII, which featured Doug Williams wearing No. 17 and John Elway with No. 7.

Peyton Manning is the first quarterback to start in a Super Bowl wearing No. 18. The only starting Super Bowl quarterback wearing a higher number was Johnny Unitas, who wore No. 19 in Super Bowl V.

Quarterbacks wearing double-digit numbers are 12-10 in Super Bowl games against quarterbacks wearing single-digit numbers.

Wow. I think I speak for everyone here when I say Jay needs a new hobby deserves a pair of Super Bowl tickets for his efforts. Thanks, man!

As Jay noted, the AFC is the designated home conference this year, so the Broncos will presumably be wearing orange. That means the Seahawks will be wearing white — but which pants will they wear? They usually go solid white on the road, but they went white-over-navy for two games this past season — Week 10 against the Falcons and Week 15 against the Giants. Personally, I much prefer that look — here’s hoping they go with it. (I guess they could theoretically go with the gray pants, but that seems really unlikely.)

Either way, this is almost certainly going to go down as one of the worst-looking games in Super Bowl history. If you’d like to nominate any other games for that distinction, feel free to do so in the comments.

Raffle results: The winner of the game-used Bengals jersey is Al Rottini. Congrats to him, and my thanks to all who entered.

’Skins Watch: The Houston Independent School District board has voted to ban culturally insensitive mascot names (from Patrick O’Neill). … Also from Patrick: Florida State is attempting to stop a T-shirt company from selling an FSU shirt with a “Scalp ’Em!” slogan. … Steve Shapiro was at his son’s elementary school in Pittsburgh and saw that some 6th graders had done a class project on whether the ’Skins should change their name. … ’Skins CB DeAngelo Hall has clarified his statements about the team’s name (from Tommy Turner). ”¦ Remember that Canadian football team that recently stopped calling itself the Redskins? One of the primary activists who was advocating for the name change has received death threats and other menacing communiqués, all of which has led to a police investigation (from Matt Walthert).

Baseball News: Buried within this story on Saturday’s memorial service for Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman is the news that the team will wear a memorial patch for Coleman in 2014. It will be based on this design (from Andrew Domingo). ”¦ You know that famous photo of Mike Tyson clowning with Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry? Here’s a video of that encounter (from Steve Dodell). … Last week I mentioned that camo was out and stirrups were in at Auburn. Here’s more info on that.

NFL News: The great collage illustrator Stephen Kroninger created illos of the four conference championship quarterbacks (from Sean Kane). … Bill Kellick was watching an old Browns/Bengals game from 1984 and spotted two things that amused him: a random station wagon parked on the sidelines and a mascot who seems to have gotten lost on his way to the Bears game. … Remember the China Bowl, which was proposed but never played? Here’s the football that would have been used for the game (from Ryan Perkins). … See that Dolphins jersey that Kenny Kaplan was wearing back in 1985? “When I bought that jersey, it only had sleeve stripes — no numbers,” he explains. “So I painted the numbers on with acrylic paint, which basically dried into kind of a plastic form and the numbers never wore off. Too bad I didn’t keep the jersey.” ”¦ Marshawn Lynch’s well-documented affection for Skittles is presumably to blame for this guy who attendeded yesterday’s NFL Championship Game (thanks, Phil). ”¦ For reasons that aren’t entirely clear — and that I suspect I’d rather not know — Austrian TV anchors apparently wear camouflage when discussing the NFL (Phil again).

Hockey News: The Maple Leafs revived their Winter Classic uni, only without the WC patch, for Saturday night’s game against the Habs (from David Feigenbaum). … Here’s a good shot of former Red Wings player Gerard Gallant with a football facemask on his helmet (from David Hamen). … Minnesota and Ohio State played an outdoor game on Friday night. Here’s a good photo gallery (from Mike Menner).

Basketball News: “I noticed Nuggets guard Nate Robinson wearing a Raiders hat in Friday night’s postgame interview — a general ‘no-no’ here in Denver,” says Pete Tognetti. “I know he played briefly for Golden State, but I wonder if his team owners, or anyone at Altitude (the Stan Kroenke-owned network that airs most if not all Nuggets and Avalanche games) will say anything.” … This is weird: One year the Hawks’ media guide listed Armond Hill as wearing No. 24 but showed him wearing No. 28. Basketball-reference.com doesn’t show him having worn 28. Hmmmm (from Douglas Ford). ”¦ Nice throwbacks for La Salle on Saturday (from Al Salazar).

Grab Bag: Here’s the Japanese speed skating uni for the Olympics (from Jeremy Brahm). … Kenny Kaplan sent in a photo of himself in his 1977 University of Texas lacrosse uni. “It was a little different than the football uniforms, as it had three sleeve stripes compared to two for football, and a black outline on the numbers and letters,” he says. “I still have that jersey and it’s in mint condition!”