By Phil Hecken
On Friday and yesterday, there had been some speculation that the new Dolphins alternate jersey would be orange, and some additional chatter that the new alternate would be revealed at noon yesterday.
In a bit of a let-down, the Dolphins revealed they would be sporting a 50 seasons patch:
But, they also announced they would not be wearing an orange alt, but a throwback, showing what appears to be their first jersey (at least the blue one is), via this tweet:
We will be wearing throwback uniforms against the Giants.
Uniforms will be unveiled and go on sale in July. pic.twitter.com/bPV5ybH5lT
— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) May 9, 2015
If you didn’t recognize the player on the right, that’s Frank Emanuel (who played four seasons for the Dolphins, but is wearing #50, which ties into their 50 seasons theme):
So — depending upon how Nike produces these throwbacks (and assuming they will be the dark aqua color), they could be pretty sweet. As you can see, both from the SI cover and from this training camp photo, the original dark unis appear a lot darker blue than the lighter/slightly greener aqua they wore more recently and now. I think the actual color is closer to this, but it’s still darker than the current color. The darker blue is also confirmed by the GUD (it could be the darker blue was only worn in the preseason).
Of course — the Dolphins could also go with a white throwback, since they didn’t specify which one they would actually wear (also, I believe they Dolphins will be required to wear this alternate for five seasons, so it will be interesting to see if they choose the white throwback). I have no knowledge, of course, but I’d bet they go with the blue.
It would have been nice if they had revealed the uniforms yesterday, instead of teasing them.
According to Paul (and other sources), the Dolphins were supposed to be doing the alternate jersey unveiling next Wednesday — now they’re putting that off until July. That’s disappointing (especially given now that the alternate won’t be just a orange version of the blue/white jerseys). Of course, the Dolphins do have a white helmet still, so swapping on the original stripes and logo won’t be a problem.
Are you guys more pleased with a throwback or an orange jersey? And, given the limitations of recreating throwbacks from 50 seasons ago (no sleeves, much tighter cut, different materials, etc.), do you think Nike can pull it off?
Happy Mother’s Day
Of course, you know there will be plenty of pink at the ballpark today (in the past it’s been shoes, sweatbands, bats, ribbons) so I’m sure there will be more of that today. If you’re taking mom to a ballgame today — well, you got a great mom.
To all the mothers out there, Happy Birthday.
UWFFL NEWS
by Rob Holecko
Well, we’re back for one final hurrah here in the Spring 2015 season – it’s time to crown two last champions of 2014-15 and put a bow on this year’s UWFFL competitions.
In our international segment, the La Lega Internatiozale di Uni Watchers Fantacalcio, it’s Adam Cain’s New York Sharks, who had the best record in the league all year long, facing Andrew Seagraves’s Metallurg Petropavlavsk-Kamchatsky in World Bowl XVI.
New York has preferred to wear white at home this season, their first in La Lega, and it has proven successful. They cruised through the regular season with a 14-2 mark, 3 1/2 games better than the next best team at 10-5-1. After playoff victories over Barcelona and Stockholm, the Sharks as the #1 seed find themselves with home field advantage and uniform choice in the title match.
Metallurg Petropavlavsk-Kamchatsky went 9-7, winning the Pacific Division on the final weekend of the season, and were the #3-seed in the playoffs. They wore purple at home in their Quarterfinal win over Amsterdam, but debuted a sharp-looking orange uniform set in the semifinal match against #2 seed Leipzig. Upsetting the Locomotiv, they find themselves now in the title game here against the Sharks.
For World Bowl XVI, the Sharks will stick with their white home uniforms, while Metallurg will again wear the orange uniforms they found success with in the last round. Both teams are wearing the World Bowl logo patch on their jerseys.
Our final competition drawing to an end this week is our tournament-within-a-tournament only for our Canadian Teams, the Maple Leaf Cup. Reaching the title game are the British Columbia Lumberjacks and the Calgary Alpines. Calgary, like New York, is another white-at-home team, and they again break out their white jerseys over red pants for the Championship match. British Columbia is going with their green-over-silver alternate look which was successful this season.
Both teams are wearing the Maple Leaf Cup logo patch on their jerseys as well.
For those of you who submitted potential expansion teams to compete in the UWFFL, the time is now here to prepare for the Summer Developmental League. On Thursday May 14, we will announce the alignment and format for the Developmental League, and the first games will begin the weekend of May 23. There are many teams battling out for few spots in the Fall UWFFL leagues, so competition will surely be fierce this summer. Later this summer we also will be expanding the La Lega Internazionale to 24 teams and may have a Uni Watch contest to decide a few expansion teams, so stay tuned.
For any of you who didn’t get to design and submit a team before this year’s March 31 deadline, in a few months we will open up a new group and begin accepting expansion candidates for the 2016 year.
Uni Tweaks Concepts
We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.
So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.
Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.
Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.
And so, lets begin:
First up today is Robert Siergiej who wants to fix the Peyote Coyote throwbacks worn by Arizona:
Phil,
Not quite satisfied with the Edge-ified Coyotes throwback, I realized that it could be tweaked to produce a jersey that better emulates the original Phoenix jerseys. It seems that after eight years, we’ve moved to the point where teams don’t have to be so constrained by a few specific templates.
Because the actual jerseys have curved shoulders and sleeves at an angle, the shoulder piping could be done straight across. I’ve also added a wider collar.
I’ve also done a little editing of a photo of the actual throwback to see how my tweaks would look.
And here’s a comparison of the details with the original:
–Rob Siergiej
Rob wasn’t done with his Coyote tweaks however:
Based on Mike Engle’s comment last Friday, I decided to take a shot at adding some green to the Coyotes’ modern look. His idea included adding outlined numbers, so I added those too.
I’ve got two variants – one with the modern fonts, and one with the Coyotes’ original font. Personally, I found the latter easier to work with – the Coyotes’ current fonts are a pain!
–Rob Siergiej
And we close today with Bill Reese who has a new look for the Red Bulls:
Hey Phil,
One day somebody will buy the New York Red Bulls of MLS and re-brand them. Many Red Bulls fans feel the same way. I’d have them wear these jerseys under the monicker Metro 96 S.C.
Thanks for all you do, and for reminding us that we’re not alone in our uni obsessiveness.
Bill. Brooklyn, NY
Let’s go Metro!
And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.
EPL Tracker
Each Saturday or Sunday, Alex Gerwitz will be tracking the kit combinations (shirt/shorts/socks) of the teams in the English Premier League from the previous weekend and the current weekend.
Here is the EPL tracker for Weeks 35 & 36 (click to enlarge):
Too Good…
for the Ticker
Got an e-mail from Tristan Ridgeway, entitled, “From Opie Taylor to Greg Brady” and which is in follow-up to some comments from UW earlier this week.
There is a slideshow below, if you can’t view slideshows, click here.
As a follow-on to Matt Shepardson’s ticker offering about an old ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ episode (The Ball Game; Oct. 3, 1966) featuring Opie Taylor’s Little League uniform, attached are some screengrabs from a ‘The Brady Bunch’ episode (The Dropout; Sept. 25, 1970) featuring Greg Brady’s Pony League uniform. You can make out the Pony League patch on his left shoulder, and the number 53 he wears on the back (as tiny as it is!) was also the uniform number of Don Drysdale, who guest-starred in the episode. (Trivia: When Greg returns from the baseball game, entering the kitchen, his uniform is filthy. When dad Mike goes to talk to him in the boys’ bedroom, the uniform is completely clean.)
Thanks, Tristan. Great Stuff.
OK. Now, onto the ticker…
Uni Watch News Ticker:
Baseball News: The Cubs were the Cubs yesterday (thanks to Leon Frager), as Jonathan Herera wore the wrong gray top. And here’s the evidence (from Christopher Overholt). Who had the over/under at 15 games before that screwup happened? …There is lots to love in this Ogden Dodgers photo of Buckner, Lasorda, Garvey, and Valentine (nice find by Douglas Ford). … Also from Douglas, which is cooler? The contrast of the crooked bill Al Oliver’s cap under the straightness of his helmet OR that hip “SCOOP” necklace? … Check out this Astros Style Uni — that’s Myers Park HS in Charlotte, NC sporting their version of the Astros sunrise jersey (thanks to Joshua Edney). … The St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles, of course) have a pretty nifty website through the team’s historical society (from Mike Chamernik). … John Daly served up cocktails at US Cellular Field on Friday night, and he wore a customized jersey for it. Says submitter Mike Chamernik, “The 91/95 represents the two years in which he won Majors.” … Yesterday’s ticker mentioned that Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz is wearing a “44” on this catching helmet. Interestingly enough, he’s also wearing “44” on his batting helmet. Submitter Matt Connelly asks, “Any idea who ’44’ is?”
NFL News: According to this ESPN article, we can expect less white, and more navy blue on the Titans this season. … Looks like the Steelers will again be wearing the “bumblebee” throwbacks again in 2015.
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Hockey News: Ryan Callahan had a torn jersey and was forced by the referees to change on the bench (from Nick Hanson). That’s the before – here is the after. … “Just sending an awesome hockey pic (too bad about the excessive patches). Penticton Vees vs Portage Terriers at the Canadian Junior A Hockey Championships,” writes Jim Wooley. “The Terriers could do without the Black but other than that these both look great. Was always a fan of the North Stars look. We need more green in hockey!”
Grab Bag: “Did we know that Batman cleats were a thing?” asks Cassian Wykes. “(This) photo is from a New Hampshire lax game I attended today.” Here is a link is to the seller of such shoes. … “The Grizzlies really should think about updating their logo banners at the FedEx Forum,” says Jeff Shirley.
OK — that’s going to do it for this Mother’s Day. Everyone enjoy it. I’ll catch you next week. Thanks to Alex, Rob and the concepters as well as those who sent in for the ticker.
Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.
Peace.
“(W)hy should private entities be expected to provide free marketing services for a government agency’s recruitment drive? These teams already pay taxes.”
–terriblehuman
“Not all mothers are heroes and not all heroes are mothers”
Happy Mother’s Day to mine who is BOTH!
About the Junior ‘A’ Championship; Junior ‘A’ is very popular and highly supported in Canada, but for the most part it is small town Canada (aka, most of Canada), so the patches are forgivable given the limits on funding, and it also helps the smaller regional and national businesses. As the late Pierre Trudeau once said, “Canada is like a mouse sleeping next to an elephant,and one night the elephant will roll over”.
“Check out this Astros Style Uni” – you say that as if it’s something special and hasn’t been done by pretty much every single high school and college in America over the last couple of years.
It seems like the number of instances in which a MLB player wears the wrong uniform keeps rising. How the hell does it happen once? Doesn’t anyone pay attention?
MLB.com makes light of it on its homepage this morning, referencing this Cubs mistake, the Dodgers mistake earlier this season and Fernando Rodney wearing the Mariners BP jersey instead of the dark-colored alt last season.
As a Dolphins fan of 40 years I am thrilled about the throwback and can’t wait to order one. My hunch is the aqua jersey since the game they’ll wear it is at night and the Dolphins traditionally wear aqua for night games.
Like Phil said I hope Nike doesn’t mess this up.
In that picture of Buckner, Lasorda, Garvey and Valentine, are Valentine’s stirrups on backward?
When the wrong uniform is worn, like the Cubs incident last night, who is at fault? Is it the player…or the equipment manager? I always assumed that the a freshly laundered uniform for the days game is put in the player’s locker before the game by the equipment staff. But then again, I’ve never been in the big leagues, so I have no idea…
The Dodgers MiLB photo is from 1968. It is the Ogden Dodgers (Pioneer League), not the Oregon Dodgers.
Count me as disappointed in the Dolphins just wearing a throwback. They wore a ’73 throwback in 2003 (I think it was supposed to be for ’72 but it had orange socks for some reason), and that’s pretty close to the ’66 version, so we’ve basically already seen that. They should have gone back to the late 80’s/early 90’s version with the double outlined numbers if they wanted a new throwback uniform.
We agree on this one. Late 80’s and early 90’s would’ve been a much better option.
Not just double outlines…floating outlines!
Miami’s unis did get cooler in 1987, with the floating outlines and the dolphin logo on the sleeves. To be fair, I still think that the 1997-2012 period had the coolest logo ever, but during that period, they used drop shadows, navy detailing, and a darker aqua that just wasn’t as good as the lighter shade from the early ’90s.
My choice for a throwback set would be white-over-aqua, with the white-topped striped socks.
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I always found this to be their best look.
That picture with the batman cleats shows a VERY wide (no pun intended) range of how high school uniforms fit the kids.
Mr. Siergiej, those green-injected modern Coyotes jerseys look great! I always thought that going from Peyote to monochrome was a little too heritage-scrubbingly stark, so this does a great job at bridging the gap!
***
Not only did Ryan Callahan’s jersey tear in half, but Tyler Johnson’s basically lost an arm in a game-ending scrum with Max Pacioretty. At the risk of succumbing to confirmation bias (straighten out those shirt tails, damn it), these jerseys royally suck at holding up to NHL hockey. On the replica level, I like the longer sleeves, but that’s it. Good riddance, Reebok. Dear CCM, you know hockey, so won’t you please resurrect your templates instead of stamping your name on the Reebok slop?
They may not have been able to unveil the throwbacks because Nike hasn’t perfected the dark aqua fabric dye yet.
Or forgot how to …
Dirty these up a bit, and you have Nike’s color palette:
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Oh wait, they’re going to need some “Volt.”
Why are the Dolphins required to wear their alternate for 5 seasons. Is this some NFL brand continuity thing?
The rule, as far as I’m aware, is that NFL teams must wait 5 years between uniform changes.
I’m not sure how that actually affects throwbacks and alternates though. Their current main uniform is going into year 3, so theoretically they should be able to change it in 2 more years. Does the new alternate cause a reset to that time?
I’m confused too.
Because Nike forgot how to make midnight green ink.
They’d have to know how to make it first in order to forget.
Nike didn’t have their logo on any midnight green Eagles gear until 2012 when the league switched over, and they were just using old stock and putting their logo on it. Last year’s mess was the first time Nike actually had to produce anything in that color.
I don’t think that they’d actually be required to *use* it for all five years; they just couldn’t come up with another alternate/throwback until that period was up.
Also, it doesn’t appear that an alternate has any effect on the five-year minimum lifespan of the current uniform set. Seattle, for example, broke out their green jersey in 2009, and then was still permitted to completely change their regular set three years later. Not sure why they were immediately allowed the “wolf gray” alternate, though…
Happy Birthday?
Clearly you are not a Mets fan.
Nice shoutout to Ralph Kiner, Phil!
On this Mother’s Day I too would like wish all the Moms out there a Happy Birthday!
I love the Dolphins throwback jerseys. Very classic look. The uniforms that they have today are terrible. They should look back to these jerseys or the 70-80’s style jerseys.
Great choice as a throwback. A classic look and hopefully they keep the the original grey face masks NOT the god awful aqua masks. (The current white mask look better than the 80’s – 90’s style.)
Not sure why they’d have aqua face masks for a ’60s or ’70s throwback.
Still…those aqua masks rocked.
Lazy EQ mangers or cheap owners don’t want to change the mask or pay for a mask change
The Dolphins vs. Giants game in Miami will be really sweet looking if Miami goes with aqua throwbacks against the Giants’ throwback looking white road set.
The reason the Dolphins are testing the waters with a throwback is obvious: the merchandise didn’t fly off the shelves. The 70’s throwback was discussed a lot by fans when they were in the design process.
I browse eBay often for NFL game worn/issued jerseys, and the Reebok stuff from a few years ago is quite nice compared to what was actually sold at the retail level as “authentic” for most teams. I’m not only referring to cropped sleeves; there are instances today with NIKE where you don’t get the correct fabric for $300.00 (e.g. Chiefs).
I don’t know how they can continue to gloss over the fact that their most expensive jersey has too many variances to be called authentic and valued at that price, in my opinion. So I don’t buy them, and their synopsis is that I want a bunch of doohickies added to the shirt and I will like it better?
I was disappointed when they unveiled their current jerseys. I strongly feel that the nike cordura with block numbers is a great match to the simple looks of the 70’s. I even like the poorly outlined tv numbers they had. I wish they would just do that and have no stripes for home and away. I don’t think the consumer is that hard to understand.
The Pirates are looking even more dreadful today than they usually do on Sundays. Those ugly throwbacks and pink today? Wow. Throw in some camo and we have a perfect ugly trifecta.
The Pirates are looking less fantastic than they usually do on Sundays. Those absolutely gorgeous throwbacks and pink today? Wow. Throw in some camo and we have two unfortunate additions to a uniform set that is a work of freaking art.
#Fixed
Those throwbacks are awful. The mustard and pullovers should stay buried in the bottom of the closet where they belong. I owned one growing up. I don’t want to be seeing them again now. Way to ugly and dated.
I’m torn on the Dolphins announcement. On the one hand I’m usually not a fan of most retro/throwbacks so automatically this is a downgrade to me. If they wanted to go with a throwback go with the late80’s/early 90’s era look which was much better.
On the other hand I’m also happy there was no new orange alt. I never did like the orange alt the last time. I was hoping for a navy alt this time.
I’d say that the 2013 re-design was a definite downgrade. It’s not a colossal train wreck like some of Nike’s other recent failures, but the font is goofy, there’s too little orange, the white face mask is boring, and the dolphin logo just lacks personality. Also, the set has no white-topped socks, so the aqua pants bring about Wrong Sock Syndrome.
But help me out with something here. What is the deal with the Miami Dolphins and *navy*? Seriously, what is the precedent for a navy alternate? I guess that a couple of video games from early ’00s showed a navy jersey in their uniform selection screens, but why? Did the ‘Phins ever wear a navy jersey, and maybe I’ve just never seen a picture, or something…?
Huh.
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First time I’ve ever seen this.
But…why?
Because fashion, yo. Navy was/is a team color for them, so the retail replica jersey existed. It’s basically no different than the silver Raiders or yellow Packers jerseys (both of which are actually still options in Madden 15).
They were so close to nailing this redesign. The colors are better than they were. But they need a better font with thicker and reversed colored outlines on the white jersey, pants, and helmet. The 2 blues together should not happen. Orange should be between them. The aqua neck and arm trim should’ve been kept along with the aqua facemask. The socks and the unitard look doesn’t bother me so I’ll let that slide But if they added a set of white socks with stripes matching the stripe pattern to wear with the aqua pants I would be OK with that.
I can’t speak for anyone else on the navy but for myself it’s a simple reason. Other than a few exceptions (aqua, teal, carolina blue) I hate lighter colors and prefer dark colors. Black is my favorite color followed closely by navy blue and marron/dark red.
I LOVE the aqua color they use now but if they went with an alternate color jersey as their 3rd instead of going the throwback route, where we agree on the era they should’ve gone with instead of the 60’s one, my dislike for lighter colors makes me wish they did a navy alt and not another orange one. Nothing more, nothing less. I just like the darker colors.
If you think Nike’s or Under Armour’s designers are talented and/or radical, do yourself a favor and check out some Paul Rand, who had more talent and radicalism in his pinkie toenail clippings than most sports designers will have in their entire careers.
Such absurdity. Paul Rand didn’t have the right mentality to make a dent in sports branding design. His work was static and lifeless. Sports designers add an emotional component into their work because sports are an emotional business.
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If you think Paul Rand’s work was “static and lifeless,” well, you’re entitled to your opinion. When it comes to that particular opinion, however, you are pretty much the definition of an outlier. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re wrong, but you do face a larger burden in terms of making a credible argument.
Someone in Harrison needs to give Mr. Reese a job because I would buy those Metrostars thowbacks ina heartbeat.