Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper broke new ground in the star-spangled sweepstakes yesterday, as he used a star-emblazoned bat for Independence Day. Hard to argue with the results, as he had three hits, including a dinger (plus he wore stirrups). Kinda surprising that the bat didn’t have red/white striping, though.
As for the rest of MLB, it was pretty much a star-spangled shit show, but we all knew that was coming. A few notes:
• The most interesting move came from the White Sox, who had been assigned to wear a red cap, so they decided to go with red socks, shoes, undersleeves, and so on. They normally wear the red accessories with their 1983 beach blanket throwbacks, so they just used those in place of their usual black accessories — smart move. Interestingly, the base coaches wore the beach blanket throwback helmets, but the players didn’t.
• Cleveland’s Al Rosen memorial patch got bumped from the right sleeve to the chest to make room for the American flag sleeve patch. Ditto for the Cubs’ Ernie Banks memorial. But the White Sox’s Minnie Minoso memorial patch moved from the right sleeve to the left sleeve.
• The Giants’ championship sleeve patch, which normally appears on the left sleeve, didn’t move to a new spot — they just didn’t bother wearing it. As you can see in that photo, they also didn’t wear their Lon Simmons memorial patch, which normally appears on the left sleeve. I guess Majestic couldn’t be bothered.
• It’s interesting to note that the American flag patch was smaller than the Rangers’ Texas state flag patch.
• The sublimated flag pattern on the players’ caps also appeared on the umpires’ caps.
• Brewers catcher Jonathan Lucroy did the Captain America thing with his catcher’s gear. So did Rangers catcher Carlos Corporan.
• Padres reliever Shawn Kelley wore one “stars” sock and one “stripes” sock during pregame warm-ups. It’s not clear whether he wore them during the game, because he went low-cuffed.
• Mets reliever Alex Torres, who wears that protective head wrap over his cap, had a new head wrap for yesterday’s game. It matched the Independence Day cap’s shade of blue (which was different than the Mets’ usual blue) and also matched the logo, but it did not have the sublimated flag pattern. Why does Alex Torres hate America?
(My thanks to everyone who contributed info and photos. Sorry, yesterday was hectic, wasn’t able to keep track of who submitted what. Thanks for understanding.)
Baseball News: Minor league and summer league teams that pandered by wearing ugly stars/stripes costumes over the weekend included the Bowie Baysox, Birmingham Barons, Buffalo Bisons, Sacramento River Cats, Springfield Cardinals, Albuquerque Isotopes, Nashville Sounds, Green Bay Bullfrogs, Long Island Ducks, Mississippi Braves, and Gwinnett Braves, among many others. ”¦ Here’s a new one: The Inland Empire 66ers wore flag-emblazoned socks yesterday (from Kyle Parant). ”¦ The Eugene Emeralds’ scoreboard listed yesterday’s teams as “British” and “Colonies” (from @calebteaches). ”¦ Doug Sohn, proprietor of the late, lamented Hot Doug’s sausage emporium in Chicago, has been setting up shop at Wrigley Field this summer in a personalized Cubs jersey (thanks, Mike). ”¦ The Lake County Captains wore Ohio State football-themed jerseys the other day. ”¦ Longtime Uni Watch supporter/pal Rob Neyer has written a great piece about bobblehead promotions. Highly recommended (thanks, Brinke). ”¦ “For postgame interviews, Hiroshima Toyo Carp are wearing T-shirts with drawings of the result of the game. That one is from the Carps’ 7-1 win over the Swallows — hence the ‘C7-1S’ notation.” ”¦ Here’s something you don’t often see: an American League pitcher with a dirty uniform. That’s Cleveland P Trevor Bauer, who had some baserunning adventures during Friday’s game against the Pirates. ”¦ A Red Sox cap, a Cubs cap, and a Pirates throwback cap were all shown in Saturday’s installment of Hi and Lois (from Angela Noel). ”¦ Rays 1B James Loney had a stirrup glitch on Friday night. ”¦ In case you hadn’t heard, minor league uniforms can have a novelty factor (from Kurt Esposito). ”¦ Cubs rookie Kris Bryant has already learned how to suck up to his shoe company. ”¦ Odd number font last night for the Asheville Tourists. ”¦ From this morning’s Mets report by ESPN.com’s Adam Rubin: “The Mets have a wrestling-style belt they award to their player of the game. [Rookie pitcher Steven] Matz, charged with ensuring the belt made it to California [for the team’s current road trip], failed in that responsibility. ‘I didn’t realize. I forgot,’ Matz said. His penance: Teammates put all of their uniform belts in his locker. Matz had to rehang the belts in each locker.”
Pro Football News: How was this Colts patch made with an upside-down helmet logo? ”¦ Here’s a rarity: The CFL’s Montreal Alouettes currently have Nos. 0 and 00 on the team at the same time (from Evan White).
Basketball News: A top international prospect had to sit out the FIBA U19s due to a sneaker contract dispute. Douchebags (thanks, Brinke). ”¦ Kansas will wear “USA” jerseys for today’s World University Games tilt against Brazil.
Grab Bag: New home soccer kit for Manchester City. … This is pretty awesome: a bunch of old TV station-identification screen designs. Some real beauties in there (big thanks to Andy Moeschberger). … Cyclist Andrew Talansky, who won the U.S. time trial championship back in May, finally got a chance to wear a stars/stripes jersey in the opening stage of the Tour de France (from Jeff Mayer).
Well… if we ignore how stupid the whole concept of these uniforms is… they didn’t look that bad.
“Odd number font last night for the Asheville Tourists”
That’s the way I do my “7” sometimes I wish this keyboard had that.
I love the post game shirts from the Hiroshima baseball game. Far more clever than pie in the face chocolate syrup shtick.
Just putting this out there…Lucroy’s gear looks kind of good *ducks*
While I don’t like the MLB-wide Stars and Stripes alternates – or any MLB wide alternates or any Stars and Stripes alternates – I do think there are respectful, classy and smart ways to incorporate elements of Old Glory’s design into a uniform. When USA Soccer wore red and white striped shirts, or my personal favorite was what USA Rugby wore to the Vegas 7s a few years back – red, white and blue hoops – I think it looks pretty good. Red and white striped socks? Maybe with a top band of blue and a few stars on it? Wouldn’t look bad at all
My White Sox looked great!
AMEN TO THAT!
I love seeing the White Sox in the red pinstripes. A refreshing change. Too bad they cant keep that look.
They weren’t in red pinstripes. The pinstripes were black, as usual:
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But the red accessories (shoes, socks, sleeves, etc.) may have tricked your mind’s eye into thinking that the pinstripes were red.
Red pinstripes for the White Sox should stay in the 70s.
Isn’t that how Asheville’s uniform numbers always look?
Those TV station ID screens are perfect candidates for colorization.
(Of course, I’m creating work for others since I don’t know how to colorize. Am I ready for Management yet?)
Those pics were published in January 1951 (so they are likely from some months before), and color TV wasn’t authorized until summer 1951, so they were more than likely black and white. Colorizing them would be ret-conning. :)
Bryce Harper also had all-blue stars and stripes on the straps of his batting shin guard. Not sure if that was proprietary to the brand or an actual thing for the day..
I love Harper’s bat. It’s an individual move that brings a bit of fun to the day, but doesn’t mess with the uniform.
Honest question – setting aside the poor design, should widespread use of the Stars and Stripes on the 4th of July really be considered pandering? Why should MLB be barred from joining in one of the central facets of Independence day?
If they had used military imagery, one could fairly characterize that as pandering to the non-stop, sometimes out-of-place celebration of the military. But I don’t see it as “pandering” for them to use national flag imagery on the celebration of our nation’s founding.
Once again MLB has screwed up a great American Holiday and tradition. Baseball belongs with the 4th as much as do fireworks, parades, and picnics. Simply put, a great tradition. Why does MLB feel the need to degrade that with crappy uniforms and with caps (especially this year’s versions) look like cheap Walmart caps or C-Store caps. Ugly!!!
Actually, Lucroy’s and Corporan’s catcher’s gear look more like MLJ’s the Shield than it does Captain America. The Shield WAS created first.
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The Braves-Phillies game was a far less offensive sight than it could have been, and less than lots of the other games out there: both teams already had a blue/red/white color scheme, and Philadelphia’s unis already had something of a star motif going. It’s kind of sad when mere low-level tackiness on a holiday counts as a “win.”
The American flag patches should have the Union (stars) in the upper left. The military has it on the right to show how the flag would look when running into battle, but isn’t it pretty ridiculous for baseball to copy that?
Charging into battle… running towards first base… Close enough.
Fighting in a war…playing a baseball game…close enough.
Yeah, pretty much. A baseball game or any other sporting event is a “battle” between 2 opposing sides. (Why do my sarcasm tags never work?)
Sure, it’s dumb for the flag patch to be on a baseball jersey, but if it’s going to be there, following the same protocol that everyone else with a flag-patched uniform uses kinda makes sense.
Just knew they wouldn’t let Kansas wear their name on their uniforms for the World University Games. But this doesn’t mean they can’t pull off some shenanigans for the 2nd half/last quarter of the gold medal game.
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Jayhawks Fly Together!
Harper’s bat wasn’t just “star emblazoned” – it had an american flag red/white stripe pattern on one side and a silhouette of the DC skyline on the other side…
See images:
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Well, although it’s a nit o fa Hobson’s choice situation, IF we are condemned to endure annual 4th of July stars and stripes hats, even this year’s gas station variety, I much prefer the stars and stripes jerseys with team trim highlights to the jarring sight of red or blue caps plopped down on black and orange, green and gold, black and gold, purple and black etc. That was an esthetic non-sequitir, tone deaf and just plain WRONG. This year the Pirayes actually looked reasonably good. And the White Sox did look great. And the A’s from a distance had a throwback feel to their blue and red days…so a pyrrhic victory for uni esthetics….
That should be Pirates…
The Toronto Blue Jays also briefly had both a 0 (Al Oliver) and 00 (Cliff Johnson) at the same time during the mid-1980s.