Skip to content
 

Purp Walk

Welcome to 2015’s installment of Purple Amnesty Day — or the Purp Walk, as I’m calling it this time around — the one day of the year when we grudgingly acknowledge the world’s most accursed color. I’m getting hives just typing this, so let’s get started.

People sometimes say I have “purplephobia.” But as I explain to them, that’s not the case, because “phobia” means fear. I don’t fear purple; I loathe purple. If anything, purple should fear me.

So then people ask why I dislike purple so much. As I always explain, I actually think purple in nature is quite nice — violets, plums, eggplants. But purple as a human-imposed design element has always struck me as tasteless and tacky. It’s the diva of colors, the Celine Dion of colors — loud, abrasive, never content to do just enough when it can do way too much.

And I’m not alone. As a culture, we seem to understand purple’s tackiness. Not a single U.S. state uses purple as one of its official colors, and only one country on Earth does so (that’s Finland, and they only use purple as a secondary color). It’s no accident that we rarely see a purple house or a purple car. Now if we could just eradicate purple clothing, accessories, and yoga mats too.

But do I think teams like the Vikings, Rockies, and LSU should stop wearing purple? No, of course not — they chose their colors and now they’re stuck with them that’s part of who they are. And so today Uni Watch grits its collective teeth and salutes this most loathsome of hues and its adherents with a three-pronged purple program, as follows:

1. As always, Purple Amnesty Day is the one day of the year when I’ll accept orders for Uni Watch membership cards with purple-inclusive designs. So if you’ve been waiting for your chance to order a card with a Ravens, Kings, or Northwestern motif, now’s your chance. As of 3am Eastern tonight (to allow a full day’s worth of ordering opportunity for folks on the west coast), the door will slam shut and you’ll have to wait until next year’s Purp Walk.

2. If you look very closely, you may notice that a few elements of the website that usually appear in green — my favorite color — are purple today. I find this more than a little distressing (think of battery acid being poured in your eyes, then multiply it times 1,000, and then imagine that happening all day long), but I’m trying to tell myself that it’s a therapeutic form of torture or something like that. Assuming I don’t slit my wrists in desperation, the site will revert back to normal tomorrow.

3. Teespring designer Bryan Molloy, who’s been working with me all year to create the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club designs, has created a spectacularly hideous Purp Walk shirt. It is not part of the T-Shirt Club program (no sleeve patch, no back design) and does not have to be purchased in order to qualify for the “collect ’em all” year-end bonus prize. It’s just a little something for all you purple-philes out there. Dig (or shudder, as the case might be; click to enlarge):

Appalling, right? The shirt is available here until 3am Eastern tonight (again, to allow a full day of opportunity for west coasters). And then I’m going to do my best to forget it ever existed.

That’s it for this year’s Purp Walk. If you need me, I’ll be over in the corner, curled up in a fetal ball and slowly rocking back and forth.

(Major thanks to Scott M.X. Turner for coming up with the term “Purp Walk,” and to webmaster John Ekdahl for his assistance in changing the site’s look for today.)

• • • • •

A very interesting memorial patch: The Royals wore Kansas City Monarchs throwbacks yesterday as part of their annual salute to the Negro Leagues. For the most part, it was a very nice production: The uniforms were beautiful; they had added visual interest provided by uniform numbers on the upper-left thigh; everyone went high-cuffed with stirrups (although some of them appeared to be two-in-ones); the team went the extra mile by providing Monarchs batting helmets (and those helmets were matte, which felt like the right move, because the real Monarchs didn’t even have batting helmet); and even the groundskeepers had throwback outfits. Here are some photos from the game:

The Royals asked their opponents, the Yankees, to take part, but the Yanks declined, opting instead to make a donation to the Negro Leagues Museum. Both teams, however, wore a “28” sleeve patch (click to enlarge):

That patch was a memorial for Ernie Banks, who played for the Monarchs in the early 1950s before joining the Cubs (and who, of course, died last winter). So the Royals and Yankees added a sleeve patch for a player who never played for either of them, and in the process imposed a contemporary sleeve patch onto a throwback uniform even though that patch was never worn by the original team. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a patch that fit those descriptions before.

I’m not opposed to any of this, especially because I suspect many people didn’t know Banks had played in the Negro Leagues, so the patch is educational. But it’s definitely a different approach than we’re used to seeing. Thoughts?

•  •  •  •  •

PermaRec update: I’ve written about all sorts of found objects over the years. But until now, I’ve never written anything about a found coffin (shown above). Get the full story over on Permanent Record.

• • • • •

Phone case reminder: In case you missed it last week, the Uni Watch smart phone case, shown at right, is now available. Additional details here, or just go straight to the ordering page.

• • • • •

Baseball News: LSU softball helmets have inspirational messages along the brim. The first letter of each words spells out “Tigers” (from Jay Vean and Jimmy Thomas). ”¦ 1971 throwbacks yesterday for the Rochester Red Wings. ”¦ The newly relocated West Virginia Black Bears will unveil their new uniforms today. ”¦ Tristan Ridgeway notes that former MLBer Hubie Brooks used to wear Brooks footwear, which had the company’s name — which was also Hubie’s surname — on the back of the shoe. “Must have looked nice with his NOB,” says Tristan. ”¦ The Mets will be going G.I. Joke for tonight’s game against the Cardinals. Fortunately, I already have other plans for the evening. ”¦ In a related item, Kansas desecrated the flag over the weekend. ”¦ Josh Hamilton, working himself back into shape in the minors wore mismatched pants yesterday (and, yes, also a mismatched helmet, but that’s standard for MLBers who are rehabbing in the minors, because all MiLB helmets are double-flapped and the MLBers are allowed to keep wearing their single-flapped big league helmets while rehabbing). ”¦ I like this Nashville baseball jersey display, which is apparently at a local library (from Lee Wilds). ”¦ The Pensacola Blue Wahoos wore really cool alternate jerseys on Saturday. The sublimated artwork on the jersey was created by local artist Guy Harvey. The jerseys will be auctioned off to benefit the Pensacola Museum of Art — a nice change from the usual charities (from Kourage Kundahl).

NFL News: More and more colleges and high schools are using impact-recording sensors in their players’ helmets, but that technology hasn’t yet been used in the NFL, in part because the players’ union has some concerns about it.

Hockey News: Looks like Alexander Ovechkin has been wearing his Capitals gear under his Russian uniform at the World Championships. ”¦ Sometimes kitsch crosses over some invisible tipping point and becomes beautiful, as in the case of this Blackhawks fan.

Soccer News: Everton’s new kit has leaked (from Andrew Rader). ”¦ Another problem with DayGlo uniforms: They fool the ad boards (from Timothy Burke). ”¦ “Liverpool players all took their end-of-season lap of honor wearing Steven Gerrard’s No. 8 jersey in honor of the departing captain (and wore next season’s New Balance jerseys instead of this year’s Warrior shirts),” says Yusuke Toyoda. ”¦ Also from Yusuke: “A British radio commentator creates a detailed — and beautiful — pre-match cheat sheet for every match.”

Grab Bag: A play currently on Broadway features a lot of spanking — like, really hard spanking — so the costume director had to come up with padded underwear that could protect the actors’ derrieres while also preserving the authentic sound of a spank. ”¦ Saturday night’s middleweight title bout between Gennady Golovkin and Willie Monroe Jr. took place at the Forum in Inglewood, California, so Golovkin wore Lakers-colored gloves, trunks, and footwear. ”¦ Over in the UK, the Liberal Democrats party may scrap their logo after their recent poor showing at the polls. ”¦ The Rochester Knighthawks — that’s a box lacrosse team — are wearing NY Rangers-inspired jerseys and shorts this season. ”¦ My friend Lara Cohen informs me that the Brannock Device — aka my Very Favorite Object, which I like so much that I have it tattooed onto my arm — appears in the new Mad Max movie as the gas pedal on the “war rig.” I was kinda on the fence about the movie, but now I might have to see it. ”¦ Love this bike with a design inspired by the five Olympic rings (thanks, Brinke). ”¦ One observer thinks Aussie football teams have too many alternate jumpers. ”¦ Speaking of Aussie football, the Greater Western Sydney Giants have unveiled their jumpers for the Indigenous Round, to be held on the last weekend of May (from Graham Clayton). ”¦ Someone out there has gotten himself a Yankees-Jets-Devils mash-up tattoo. … Here’s weird one: In China, Michael Jordan is losing a fight for the trademark rights to his own name (thanks, Brinke).

• • • • •

What Paul did last night yesterday afternoon: I love Staten Island pizza. In fact, my Very Favorite Pizza in all of New York City is in Staten Island (that would be the very wonderful Joe & Pat’s), and there lots of other Staten Island pizzerias that I also like. But last July I read a New York Times article about a Staten Island pizza joint I hadn’t been aware of. It sounded good, so I put it on my list. And yesterday, accompanied by my friends Jon and Karen, I finally went to check it out.

The short version: It was good but not amazing. Afterward, we went for a few beers at Liedy’s Shore Inn, the century-old tavern on Staten Island’s north shore that has a bit of a David Lynch vibe. As we were parking down the block, I noticed two adjacent businesses with interesting signs. The first was for a tire repair shop whose sign painted apparently had some sort of problem with the uppercase “I”:

I’ve seen signs where all the vowels were lowercase, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen one specific letter singled out for the lowercase treatment. And I kinda like it, because the dots on the “i”s make the whole thing feel more playful. I like.

Next door to that was an auto body shop with the worst (read: best) name ever:

All in all, a fine outing — good pizza, good drinks, good signage sightseeing!

 
  
 
Comments (113)

    Today makes me really, really wish I had a picture of my childhood home to share. My parents painted our house in a lovely shade of lavender for the sole purpose of pissing off the neighbors. It was glorious.

    I don’t know, I guess it just never came up. I was like 10 or 11 years old at the time. It was the early 90’s and my neighborhood was a little bit weird. After my place turned purple, the house across the street went dark blue and another one chose carnation pink. Another 2 houses were yellow. I guess that’s what happens when you’re on a dead-end street and everyone hates one particular neighbor.

    Sadly, after my parents divorced and I moved out, the house was repainted white, and eventually sold.

    Well, we’ve made real progress the week, The Jeff. We’ll see you next time.
    Oh, please leave the Kleenexes here. The next patient may need them too.

    “My parents painted our house in a lovely shade of lavender for the sole purpose of pissing off the neighbors. It was glorious.”

    ~~~

    Welp, there goes the neighborhood

    There’s a house three doors down from me (well, I move on Thursday and sell my place on Friday, so that won’t be the case) that’s pink. And it’s just hideous.

    …and did you really need to make all of the links (and consequently our names) purple too? This is like Bizzaro world now. I feel like I’m in that episode of Sliders where everything seemed normal, but the 49ers had beaten the Jets in the Super Bowl instead of the Dolphins and a landmark in California was known as the Azure Gate Bridge.

    Well done, sir. Well done. Purple everywhere on Purple Amnesty Day. Surprised the side panels aren’t a purple camo…just to go all full-bore offensive.

    How do you choose/switch between mobile and web versions? My phone used to use the mobile version, but one day it switched over to web, and I’m not sure why.

    Feature, not a bug?

    The daily update is usually while I’m on the bus or train to work. Reading UW is a great argument for using mass transit. I don’t read on my work PC because if I did, I’d read it ALL DAY long. :)

    Purple border…purple links…purple apples…The Jeff’s old purple house…and purple Troll…!

    link

    Yeah.

    So, on the topic of purple, how many teams have actually used it and paired it with something other than yellow/gold or black?

    The only team I can think of is the Frankfurt Galaxy from the WLAF.

    Are you just going for football? Otherwise…

    Charlotte Hornets – teal, cyan.

    Toronto Raptors – red

    Milwaukee Bucks – green

    New Orleans/Utah Jazz – green, blue/bronze(?)

    Arizona Diamondbacks – teal/bronze

    Clemson – orange

    Just off the top of my head from Arena football, a sport I am far too familiar with:

    Milwaukee Mustangs: Teal.

    New Orleans Voodoo: Red, black.

    (If you’re guessing, yes: It was the 1990s!)

    And if you’ve counting silver:
    New England (Hartford CT) Seawolves: Black, silver.
    Cleveland Thunderbolts: Black, silver.

    Man, was I tired earlier. Can’t believe I blanked out on the Suns and all the ones Uni Troll mentioned.

    Not team colors, but link (purple/red) and link (purple/lime green) have used purple in their change kits with other colors.

    No, let’s forget that ever happened.

    Also, I was answering the question about whether purple was used in combination with colors other than gold or black.

    Though honestly, that purple/black/white number was better than the white/black from the same season: link

    Warrior did pretty decent home kits, horrendous away kits:
    link
    link

    Also Hibs of the SPL have often worn purple change kit, though I think they’re wearing white road unis this season.

    When the Fremantle Dockers entered the Australian Football League, their colours were purple, green, red and a white anchor, which they kept until the 2011 season:

    link

    Finland may use purple as a national color, but Dominica is the only country with purple on its flag.

    What Negro Leagues uniform would the Yankees have worn yesterday if the team hadn’t declined the opportunity?

    Logically, the New York Black Yankees (pretty sure they threw back to them once, in 1996), but there were a couple of Negro League teams (Cubans, for example) they could have gone with.

    1919 Pierce Arrow Model 66 A-4 Tourer won best in show over the weekend at the Pinehurst Concours d’Elegance event for retired rich white people…

    Take a deep breath and behold.

    link

    Terribly disappointed with the Yankees yesterday!! Reading what Paul said about them “declining” has angered me. It looked odd/out-of-place/almost inappropriate to see the Yanks in their straight-legged, pajama, ‘usual’ road greys.

    One thought did cross my mind when I saw they weren’t wearing Black Yankees throwbacks… The game was an early 1950’s Negro League throwback… would it have been too much to ask for the Yanks and Majestic to get together and produce the pre-1973 Yankee road uniform?? Minus the useless white lettering/numeral trim/sleeve cuff striping?? Regardless, the team could have bought in and gone high-cuffed as well… Disappointing.

    On the YES network, David Cone misspoke… commenting on the Monarch unis, specifically the hosiery….. “Royals players in Monarchs uniforms, high socks the order of the day… even some wearing old-school stirrups”. As Paul mentioned.. most were 2-in-ones… and some wore soccer socks.

    Isn’t it MLB protocol for the home team to furnish throwback uniforms for the road team?

    I believe so, but that doesn’t mean the road team has to agree to wear them.

    Cone did misspeak but newer versions of two-in-ones now seem to look more like stirrups than previous versions did. Very few players wore the stirrups yesterday for the Royals.

    As for the Yankees not wearing throwbacks, they usually don’t. Only times I know of that they did were that game in Detroit in 1996 and a game in Boston in 2012 when they wore 1912 NY Highlanders uniforms.

    Also the scoreboard at the Big K referred to the Royals as the Monarchs.

    Nice touch for the Yanks to go along with the patch for Ernie, but the pajama bottoms are terrible. If you don’t want to behave, you should suggest that they do it at a different home game.

    typo: “came up with the team”, I think you mean “term.”

    Also, no fan of the color purple but that t-shirt is better, I think, than June’s offering.

    You are RIGHT in regards to purple. There is no place for it in sports… The only instance that I can recall where a shade of purple made a good, lasting impression in sports was Al Unser Senior’s “Johnny Lightning Special” Indy 500 winning car (1970 & 1971) and THEN it was still more blue with only a “hint” of purple.

    There’s some room for it; as the saying goes, “only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Paul has no objections to purple in nature; so if a team or school takes its color from nature, such as the Rockies (purple mountains’ majesty) or New York University (the violets that bloomed in the neighborhood), perhaps that’s not so bad.

    So you’d be fine with (insert your favorite team) changing their colors to PURPLE and PINK (for good measure)? I mean, if you’re going to be lax on Purple, then you can’t exclude Pink either.

    Purple is an awful, awful color best left out of professional sports. I cringe anytime I see a grown man wear a Charlotte Hornets ANYTHING! I guess they have no mirrors in their home.

    That radio commentator’s info graphic is beautiful. Those things always interested me, but being hand drawn just takes it to a whole new level of neat.

    The uniform up in the top left corner is a great tie-in here too.

    Purple NY Giants in purple 1913-1917

    There is a Jim Thorpe colorized photo showing the purple.
    Someone also recreated the paneled purple uniforms in a video game. I can’t link either site properly with my work computer’s internet filter, but they are easy to Google image search:

    “new york giants” colorized jim thorpe
    “new york giants” colorized 1916

    Cooperstown Dressed to the Nines NYG 1913-1917

    link

    I took advantage of Purple Amnesty Day a while back to get a membership card with the 1916 Giants road uni on the back. It’s a thing of beauty!

    I just bought a Purple car a couple months ago. I know you’d love it, Paul.

    I guess I’m in the minority in liking purple? My alma mater (a small D2 college) wears purple and gold, and I attended a lot of their games even before going to school there. I’ve worn purple all my life and will continue to do so. I think the site always looks great, but the purple today is a nice change!

    I have two alma maters that use purple. I am sooooooo happy to be done with that. It helps that they both treat their alumni poorly, so I’ll never have anything to do with them again!

    Both Wimbledon and the Westminster Kennel Club use purple and green as their official colors.

    purple? purple? you act like it can make your skin crawl as bad as the number eight. preposterous! farsical! down right un-corny. what is wrong with your brain-pan lukas? clearly you are a right proper defective. so get get on board with the juggernaut that is the people’s movement to ban the wicked number before the holy stalk of corn strikes you down and puts you in a purple grave for reverse golden calf spite. i’m just looking out you sexy sexy man.

    still an unfortunate situation, but better. no pizza and no beer make homer something something. but my mind was shocked into straight by work 22 softball games the last two days where it was a struggle just to make that happen without dropping dead let alone worry about glutten dust in my sirracha or what not. but seriously, my brain-pan is a bit more stable.

    and clearly my language/typing skills are their usual above reproach good-ish. for the love of corn… “working”. how do you forget a friggin ing?! i type something once a year because this site crashes my commodore and i can’t even get that right, just down right pathetic.

    check that skip, maybe i am still a bit off. evidently i have developed a johnny two-times tick with the get get and tt rr on top of the intentional sexy sexy.

    okay, that does it, over and out out.

    I never reealized all of the hatred for purple, I’ve always loved when teams used it. This is coming from someone that is an LSU and Rockies fan though.

    Purple > BFBS or GFGS any time.
    A friend of mine growing up had neighbors who painted their house a garish purple. The late afternoon sun reflected into my friend’s dining room. A lovely purple haze.

    How awesome are those Monarchs’ uniforms, combining the soutache trim with pinstripes? About time for a major league team to take up that look; I recommend the Mets.

    Purple has been my favorite color for as long as I can remember, so Happy Purp Day to all!!!

    This picture is a great one to share today since it features my purple Paul Reed Smith guitar and the Durham Bulls excellent logo…

    link

    One of the etymological origins of the word purple comes from Greek antiquity and is derived from the mucus of a small sea snail used to produce a dye. Paul may be channeling this on some subconscious level. If he has an aversion to snails, this may well be a clue.

    Ironically, the beautiful burgundy that graces Uni Watch is close to the color of that snail mucus dye, known as Tyrian Purple. Paul has been using purple all along!

    The site looks GREAT today. It’s a great shade of purple – a couple of shades lighter and it’s the plum-purple that looks sharp with any suit. Purple Amnesty forever!

    The groundskeeper in the Royals/Monarchs photos is none other than the legendary George Toma!!

    Ernie Banks played for the Kansas City Monarchs in 1953 after being discharged from the Army that summer. He signed with the Cubs in the fall of 1953.

    So while he didn’t play for the Royals or Yankees, he did play for the team the Royals were identifying with for the day. You can call it a bit of reach and an attempt to jump on the Banks boat. The Royals play at the Cubs the last weekend in May. The Negro League museum, which is located in downtown KC, is putting together a bus trip up to Wrigley for that weekend to celebrate Banks, and the Negro Leagues as a whole. Two very prominent cities when it comes to the Negro Leagues.

    Paul if you had waited three days for Purp Walk it would have been the first anniversary of my mom’s passing. My mom loved purple. She was buried wearing her favourite purple dress. There were purple flowers everywhere. My brother wore a purple shirt in her honour. As I sat in the church foe the funeral I actually thought of you and your distaste of purple!

    Hey Paul,

    How are u tracking who bought all of the shirts. I have used a couple different addresses during the year (in the middle of a move.) Also, my card was compromised so I have used multiple cards to purchase. Just wondering.

    Basically just going to ask for a show of hands — “Who’s bought all the shirts” — and ask you to prove it (i.e., provide photo of all shirts or confirmation emails from each purchase).

    I’M SORRY PAUL I ONLY CARE ABOUT HOW THINGS LOOK NOT WHO BUYS WHAT MERCHANDISE.

    /kidding!

    Happy Victoria Day to most of my fellow Canucks (only a stat. holiday in central and western Canada) :
    link

    With it being a holiday where I am, and seeing the purple partially substituting the green on the site for purple amnesty day, I had the thought: Ever thought of changing purple amnesty day to St. Urho’s Day (March 16th) – the celebration has it’s official colours as purple and green?

    As far as local teams that have had purple only one I can think of is the defunct Thunder Bay Whiskey Jacks of the Northern League.

    link

    My city’s official tartan (Head of the Lakes) has purple as it’s main colour (for the amethyst in the region):

    link

    My first hockey team started off with purple as it’s main colour – Westfort Pipe Trades:
    link

    link

    As a fellow Canuck and one-time resident of your neighbourhood (Atikokan 1990-1995), I just wanted to let you know that I understood all of those references. Especially the Whiskey Jacks.

    I’ve mentioned it before on this site, but if you liked NL baseball of that era, check out Neal Karlen’s book Slouching Toward Fargo.

    I’m kinda surprised the Vancouver Whitecaps, the only top-level western Canadian pro team in season, hasn’t referenced the day at all.

    There’s nothing really to reference. Its not like the day has a logo, or a colour theme, or a military theme to reference. I’ve never seen it referenced by any of the teams that play in May.

    Incidentally, Will S referred to it as a holiday in Western and Central Canada, I think its a holiday everywhere but Quebec.

    Victoria Day may be a holiday everywhere in Canada (National Patriots’ Day in Quebec), but I think it’s only a statutory holiday in central & western Canada.

    Unless I’ve been misinformed or my information is out of date, for the east coast I believe for most it’s a “no workee, no payee” for Victoria Day.

    mike2: I’ll write down the Slouching Toward Forgo book and hopefully at least have it a look.

    Little salty Paul. Send you the picture of the Blackhawks guy and you retweet and link someone’s response. Especially after the contributions lately…..

    I’m glad Paul doesn’t object to purple in nature, because apparently, the early Earth was covered in purple much like the planet today is covered in green:

    link

    Fascinating!

    The purple is so disconcerting that I’m going to pick a nit:

    “The uniforms were beautiful; they had added visual interest provided by uniform numbers on the upper-right thigh…”

    (The numbers were on the upper-left thigh)

    Hi Paul. What exactly distinguishes Staten Island pizza from others? Not sure I’ve ever heard it described, and I’m from that part of the country. Interesting.

    Thanks for creating the tee for purple day! I don’t plan to buy one and am ambivalent about that color (I actually like the old LA Kings purple unis), but it’s a cool idea for all of those readers who you’ve purple-deprived all year! I love the uni tee program anyway, but that’s a classy touch!

    Classic S.I. pies have a whisper-thin crust. The cheese is often put down in cubes (not shreds), so it melts in little pools. The sauce is often, but not always, applied *after* the cheese.

    A ‘Staten Island’ pie would also be called a Tomato Pie, for my Trenton, NJ brethren. Although a tomato pie will use the shreds of mozzarella. Sauce is always placed on after the cheese.

    Your visceral reaction to the color purple is the same reaction a twelve year old would have to eating broccoli. Except purple is just a harmless color not a disgusting vegetable, and you’re a grown ass man. Eat your veggies, remember that colors are just colors, and get over it.

    Even more than your ranting on purple is the fact that you took exception to two teams honoring one of the greatest baseball players of all time, and at the same time promoting a museum that is the only one of its kind. It is an amazing museum that helps us all remember the days before integration and that great baseball was being played outside of the bigoted (at the time) MLB. Clearly you have never been, or you wouldn’t whine so much about a team wearing a patch on their sleeve.

    This article, to me, is like the color purple to you. In fact, just give me the battery acid to my eyes next time so I don’t have to read your useless words.

    Broccoli is not a disgusting vegetable. It’s only disgusting when it’s over-steamed. It’s actually pretty amazing when it’s freshly picked.

    Merriam-Webster defines phobia as “an extremely strong dislike or fear of someone or something”, so “purple phobia” would be appropriate here. I probably wouldn’t have brought it up, but it’s a pet peeve of mine when homophobics deny being homophobics by saying “I ain’t afraid of no gays.”

    Thanks for indulging my tangent. Carry on.

    Manchester City has used purple as its change color a few times over the years, with a purple with white pinstripes number around 2005 and the current purple with lime and black accents kit of this season being chief examples. Supposedly, former manager Roberto Mancini banned purple from City’s locker room a couple of years ago, calling it “a bad luck color.”

    My son graduates from high school in two weeks. His school colors are purple and white, and the graduation robes are a retina burning shade of purple. I wanted him to pose for Purp Walk photo; he refused. Teenagers.

    That shouldn’t stop you from posting a photo of the robe in two weeks, when he HAS to wear it, right?

    Surprised that you didn’t include any pictures of Royals fans from yesterday. They called it “Dressed to the Nines Day” and KC fans really went all out. They even dressed little kids in suits and Sunday dresses! It was pretty cool to see the fans come out in their Sunday best. The whole production of the game was awesome and everything had a really old-time feel. I know other clubs do similar sorts of things, but the Royals/Monarchs really put forth a lot of extra effort, I think. And the fans looked as good as the team.

    (It was also cool to finally see Royals fans outnumber NYY fans at the K for once. We’ll have to see what happens next week when the Cards come to town. They have a tendency to turn Kauffman into Busch West.)

    Love what you’ve done to the place! You should go with purple full time! Long live purple!

    Re: Ovie wearing Washington gear under his Russia uniform. Ovie kind of rolls his sleeves up, but the NHL put the kibosh on that, so his equipment manager sewed some jersey fabric that would be on the wrist anyway onto his elbow pads. So the end product is that Ovechkin can roll up his sleeves, but the NHL is satisfied that his equipment is sufficiently hidden under the uniform. In this case, he’s wearing his road alternate elbow pads. As if he took his hockey bag directly from his loss in Game 7 at MSG to the plane to Prague.

    Yesterday at the K it was also advertised as “Dress to the Nine’s Day”. Fans were supposed to wear their Sunday best to the ballpark as a throwback to olden times. I’ld like to the KC Star page but it now requires a subscription (except you can still scroll through the article and read it around the pop up)

    So if I buy the purple shirt du jour, will I be shunned at UniWatch gatherings?

    At one point, there was a Purple Amnesty Day card I briefly considered getting. Paul had included racing bibs before, and had also crossed into the realm of fictional works as well (although, in a way, anyone who gets their own name and number on a card for a team they didn’t play for is essentially engaging in a sort of fiction of their own, and link).

    But then I decided, nah, this idea would probably be going well beyond the spirit of the program. After all, the source material of the “fictional” cards has been sports-themed in some way, and my idea involved a link. There’s a fine line between being silly and fun, and being outright ridiculous, and a #42 Running of the Leaves bib, I believe, would’ve been well across that line on the “outright ridiculous” side.

    Speaking of “outright ridiculous”, though, the Mets are definitely way way waaaaaaaaaay over that line with their camo hat and jersey combo over their home pinstripe pants. I happened to catch an eyeful of that hot mess thanks to channel-surfing across ESPN. G.I. Joke Extreme!

    As a Rockies fan, I really appreciate that this is coming on a Purple Monday.

Comments are closed.