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Uni Watch

The Columbus Blue Jackets and the Art of the Poster

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For all posters, click to enlarge

I mentioned in yesterday’s Ticker that I loved the gameday posters that the Blue Jackets have been putting out. The one shown above is my favorite so far — the overhead perspective, the slightly bleached-out colors, the brilliant conceit of mowing a field of Maple Leafs logos.

Here’s another really good one, with a Blue Jacket defeating Johnny Canuck in a log roll:

As you all know, I’m not a big fan of military metaphors in sports. But when you’re playing a team called the Jets, it’s not out of line to envision the game as a battle of air squadrons:

This next one is particularly clever, because it doesn’t include any representation of the Blue Jackets at all. It just shows the Islanders facing rough waters and stormy weather — a good way of suggesting that the visiting team is entering hostile territory while simultaneously poking fun at the Isles’ old fisherman identity:

In yesterday’s comments, someone asked if these posters were strictly digital or if printed versions were available. I put that question to Blue Jackets communications VP Todd Sharrock, and also asked him a few other things about the posters. Here’s how he responded:

The idea for the posters came from our digital media and marketing group and the artwork has been created by one of our in-house graphic designers, Anthony Zych. It started as something he was doing in his spare time for fun. Right now they are digital only and distributed via our social platforms, but I think there has been some discussion about adding a print element, as there have been requests for them.

I’d like to know more, so I asked if I could interview Zych, who appears to be a pretty talented guy. Sharrock said he’d get back to me on that — stay tuned.

Meanwhile, kudos to Zych for coming up with these tremendous designs, and to the Blue Jackets for recognizing his talent and showcasing his work. Let’s hope they keep putting out more of these.

As long as we’re talking about gameday posters, reader Aaron Husul alerted us to the work of Arsenio Garate, an illustrator in Mexico, whose created an extensive gallery of NFL gameday designs, many of them featuring the 49ers. I don’t love these as much as the Blue Jackets designs (in part for stylistic reasons and in part because a bunch of them have a Transformers vibe that isn’t my bag), but some of them are very clever, like this one for the Packers/Broncos game that took place on Halloween weekend:

Gameday posters are a genre of sports design that I hadn’t really thought about until now. Could be a whole new rabbit hole for us to explore. I like.

• • • • •

T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it yesterday, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s design for the December — the ugly sweater design — is now available. We’re offering it in three formats: a standard short-sleeve tee (American Apparel or Teespring Premium), a long-sleeve tee, or a sweatshirt. I love how it turned out and can’t thank my Teespring partner, Bryan Molloy, enough for the sensational design (click to enlarge):

This shirt will be available through next Tuesday, Nov. 17. Again, you can order it here. Thanks.

• • • • •

Mike’s Paul’s Question of the Week: Mike couldn’t come up with a question this week, so here’s one from me: As longtime readers are well aware, I occasionally show old ticket stubs from games I attended as a kid. I saved all of my stubs in those days, up until I finished college. Did you save your ticket stubs when you were a kid? Do you still have them? What about nowadays — with tickets often taking the form of PDF printouts or even smart phone bar codes, do you still save the “stubs”? If you’re younger and grew up in the non-stub era, do you feel like you missed out on anything?

Just to be clear: I am not pining for the “good old days” here. The convenience of PDFs is tremendous. But as is so often case when something is gained, something has also been lost. I do miss a good stub.

•  •  •  •  •

The Ticker
By Mike Chamernik

NFL News: To drum up the excitement for tonight’s Color Rash game, the Bills splashed red all over Buffalo. The campaign is called “Seeing Red.” Also, here are the Bills’ socks for tonight’s game. … We also got a peek at what the Jaguars and Titans will be wearing for next week’s Color Rash game. … Players use a number of tricks and modifications to gain an edge with their uniforms. I like the LB who soaks his jersey in water before games (from Phil). … A man in Milford, Ohio, painted his house in Bengals stripes (from Jonathan Daniel). … Here’s a good oral history on “I’m going to Disneyland!” Between that phrase, the Gatorade Dunk, and the Ickey Shuffle, the late 1980s were the best era for football celebrations (from Brinke). … Josh Claywell‘s local youth football league wears NFL team uniforms. The jersey logos are insanely big (think of the MLB’s “Turn Ahead the Clock” game for football), and the Bengals team wears striped helmets and striped pants. The Steelers team wears a helmet logo on only the right side, as well ”” no good photo of that, unfortunately. … On last night’s episode of The Goldbergs, which takes place in the Philadelphia area in the 1980s, the family dog wore a customized Ron “Paworski” jersey. The show has had its share of Philly uniform-related jokes in prior episodes. (from Chris Flinn).

College Football News: Western Michigan wore white at home with flag-patterned feathers on its helmets last night (from Ted Chastain). … Syracuse will wear all-navy uniforms with a jersey patch this weekend against Clemson. … More and more fans are buying and wearing counterfeit Ohio State jerseys (from Phil). … South Carolina will wear black jerseys and pants this weekend against Florida (from @willchitty4). … Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer announced he will retire at the end of the season, so the Hokies will wear this helmet decal for him. … Temple has two players named Nate Smith starting on its defense, so they go by their MIOB in real life. Coaches and teammates call them “Nate D.” and “Nate L.” (from Andrew Hoenig). … Albany players will wear soldiers’ names as their NOBs this Saturday (from Dick Holbrook). … “Before becoming a regular reader of Uni Watch eight odd years ago, I wouldn’t have given this shot a second thought,” says Jason Hillyer. “Now I wonder if someone made sure that the left side of the BG coach’s jacket collar was strategically turned under for this halftime interview.” ”¦ UIW, an FCS school, has managed to cram several awful design tropes into this weekend’s uniform.

Hockey News: The Penguins wore camo warm-ups last night, and the Blackhawks will wear their own version tonight (from Phil). … The San Diego Gulls wore camo last night. … Oh boy. The Indy Fuel will honor cops and firefighters with “Guns-n-Hoses” jerseys this Saturday (from Jacob Wilson). … Looks like the Iowa Wild will wear flag jerseys this weekend (from @elichtenberg). … Will Scheibler sent in some footage of soldiers playing hockey during the Korean War. ”¦ Camouflage jerseys last night for the AHL’s Ontario Reign (from @Lloydguy82). ”¦ Some Canadian hockey teams wore small poppies on their jerseys yesterday, and then there were the Brantford 99ers, whose poppies were juuuust a wee bit larger.

NBA News: The Mavericks finally debuted their fan-designed skyline navy alternates last night, creating a color-vs.-color game against the Clippers. The Mavs’ Twitter account was delighted by that. … The Bulls are letting fans name their new D-League team. The contest has a few stipulations, but everyone who submits a name will get a “buy one, get one” voucher for a Bulls D-League game in 2016-17. … There isn’t a ton of ABA footage out there so I don’t know how common this was, but Nassau Coliseum’s court sure had a lot of paint inside the 3-point line. That’s from Game 6 of the 1976 ABA Finals, the league’s final game. … On Tuesday, Celtics G Evan Turner said that, if he had the power, he’d make himself the NBA logo. A fan whipped up a concept for him. It was even shown during the Celtics telecast.

Soccer News: In addition to Veterans Day, yesterday was also Remembrance Day in the UK and Canada. Teams from those countries wore poppies in recent days. … New uniforms for Japan.

Grab Bag: PTI’s Tony Kornheiser a wore a poppy on the set yesterday (from Alex Hider). … New logo for the Appalachian League (from @MyPintOfView). … A company called Rhone Apparel sees opportunity in serving the men’s athleisure market, like what Lululemon did for the women’s sector (from Tommy Turner). … A Georgia high school cross country runner was disqualified for wearing a headband while running at a meet.

 
  
 
Comments (93)

    I posted the following in yesterday’s entry moments ago, foolishly not realizing it wasn’t today’s. It’s been reposted here so it will more likely be seen.

    Your site, your rules. But language evolves and will continue to evolve. The use of “gear” as a synonym for sports team jerseys and other apparel has gone on long enough and is widespread enough that pushing back now, however noble the principle, seems like an attempt at holding back a rainstorm and a denial of the nearly irreversible path our language has taken over the course of decades. New terms are created and old ones acquire new meanings regularly. This just one case of many. If you want us to stop using “gear” in this manner, I’ll abide, and in fact only post very occasionally anyway, but I disagree with this ruling and hope you’ll reconsider.

    I have ALL my ticket stubs in a baggie in my nightstand. Even as a brat teenager, I handed the ticket to the attendant in a way so he wouldn’t rip off the date/opponent for me.

    Don’t have any ticket stubs from as a kid – only as an adult.

    Have the ticket stub from the only NHL game I saw. Have the movie ticket stub from a date with an ex-girlfriend. Have some stubs from the last few years – not really collected but laying around. They are from local hockey and baseball games, and occasionally get used as bookmarks. Never have done the PDF printout for tickets and don’t have a smartphone.

    I save ticket stubs in whatever jacket I wear to an event, except…

    As a very long time NY rangers season ticket holder, I have the receive cardboard, nicely printed tickets. However, I print a pdf on game day and save the mint ticket. My 1994 payoff tickets are mounted and I will do the same the next they win the Cup

    “Meanwhile, kudos to Zynch” He’s Zych above that.

    Thanks for getting an answer to my question. I wonder if they thought of using these “posters” as program covers.

    And to answer your question: I’ve been collecting my stubs seriously since the mid-’70s, and while I have a few from before that (a couple from Forbes Field, for example), I regret not having kept more.

    On the rare occasions that I end up with a printout for a ticket, I’m really disappointed. I strongly prefer cardboard.

    My fiancée got me a “ticket diary” a few months ago. Not only is it pretty cool to have everything in one place, but I had a fun couple of nights looking up the scores of games to write in next to the tickets. I’ve also noted pitchers of record and goal scorers for hockey and soccer.

    Rabbit hole, not rabbit whole.

    Western Michigan wasn’t wearing feathers on their helmets. That’s the neck and mane of their horsey head logo.
    link

    The idea for the CBJ posters probably came from Eleven Warriors, who have been doing throwback game posters forever.

    link

    I was about to comment about Eleven Warriors’ game posters. Those things are gorgeous, and are available as PDF downloads so you can print them on larger posters.

    I save pretty much everything that has to do with my current girlfriend and our events, even if it’s a lame PDF. Otherwise, I’m sorry but PDFs will become scrap paper. Thankfully, I have a ticket stub, albeit very plain looking, from the Chris Heston no hitter.
    Now, for concerts, as a way to compensate for a lack of tickets of any form (I see a lot of jazz), I like to buy the CD and then get it autographed. I really like remembering the circumstances of meeting the players, even if the exact date could only be ascertained if I combed through my Facebook for evidence. My favorite jazz autograph is a ticket stub though. Dianne Reeves, Peter Martin, and Reuben Rodgers all on a ticket stub from NOLA Jazz Fest 2008.

    QotW: Did you save your ticket stubs when you were a kid? Do you still have them? What about nowadays – with tickets often taking the form of PDF printouts or even smart phone bar codes, do you still save the “stubs”?

    Yes, I saved pretty much all my ticket stubs starting from around age 12 through probably somewhere around age 35 or so. I am 46 and still have them. However, I have not collected them for quite some time. I think for me, I stopped not only with the PDF printouts, but also I got married and now have little kids, so I don’t get to escape and go to movies or concerts or games very often. I keep my stubs on my nightstand shelf, but I haven’t looked through them in quite a while.

    When I was a teenager and in college and in my first job, I used to just put them in a large glass Nebraska quasi-stein I got through some bogus school fundraiser as a kid. We moved to Atlanta, and I started to go to more events with ticket stubs, so I continued to populate the stein on my dresser. After graduate school at Auburn, I moved to Chicago in 1998, and the whole Ikea/putting-things-in-storage-bins was taking off. Since I lived in a tiny studio apartment, that made sense to me, so I bought several small plastic containers for various items. I put all my ticket stubs in one of them — semi-categorizing them into movie stubs, concert stubs, game stubs, and misc stubs.

    It was fun to flip through them occasionally — looking at much of the history of my social life. There were tickets from my first baseball game (White Sox at Old Commisky in 1977) and from two of my favorite games I attended (Braves clinching the World Series over the Pirates in the bottom of the 9th in Game 7, and the 11th no-hitter ever thrown by the Red Sox at Fenway). There’s the era of rock or heavy metal / hair band tickets (Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Metallica, Def Leppard, Rush, etc.) as well as broadway shows and musicals (my favorite remains How to Succeed in Business without really trying, which I saw in New York in 1995). There’s also movie stubs — which I remember thinking were somehow a badge of honor, that I’d seen the movie prior to it coming out on VHS at the video store. I have movie stubs from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, etc. that are rather nostalgic, especially now that my kids are just beginning to watch movies…

    While not all are ticket stub related, I actually have a whole host of odd little collections that most people would find a little odd. For example, I have saved almost all of my airline ticket stubs from about 2000 to present. (Though now that I use my airline app for the stub, I don’t collect many of them any more.) I also have saved almost all of my hotel room key cards from various trips from about 2000 to present. I have conference name badges with speaker or moderator ribbons hanging in my office at work. And I have a stack of airline safety cards I collected for a period of about 6 years or so.

    I mentioned about that I got married. This was at age 40. Thus, when you get married and move in together a lot of things are open to suggested changes. And as you have kids, some of those things tend to get pushed aside. However, I still hold on to them all, even though my wife finds it a little odd.

    For example, I studied at Universiteit Twente in Ensched, Netherlands for graduate school. Enschede is where they brew Grolsch beer. The students stayed in what were termed “pods” with essentially a bunch of dorm rooms built around a central, community living space with a living room, study area, and kitchen. As I went over to the kitchen to get a Grolsh, I noticed the students had one of those bottle openers fastened to the wall, and below it was a large trash can. The can was almost completely filled with bottle caps. It got me to wondering how many beers that represented and how long that must have taken to fill.

    When I returned to the states, as I mentioned, I moved to Chicago after graduate school. I put a small container in the corner of one of my kitchen counter tops, and every time I cracked open a beer, I tossed the bottle cap into the container. I did this starting from around 1998 until I got married in 2010. When we were dating, I noticed my bride-to-be was eyeing the kitchen and figuring out what changes she would make. Obviously (in her eyes), the corner bottle cap collection had to go, as did most of my other odd collections. As you can imagine, it had grown to new levels by then — containing probably about 95% of all the bottle caps from the beer I drank at home for 12 years.

    With the stubborn eccentricity built up over 20 years into my adult life as a single man, I refused to completely get rid of them. However, I acquiesced and keep them now in our bar area. Now that my collection contains nearly 18 years of bottle caps from my beer consumption, I have three large jars full — probably about 1/3 of what I originally saw in that trash can in Holland :)

    Hope I didn’t bore anyone — just thought I’d share. Great question, Paul!

    Me too.

    I keep bottlecaps in a clear craft organizer. They make great bases for my DIY games, so I separate them by brands to correspond to what I’m making.

    Tickets: I’m pining for the stubs. I only have a handful, which I use as bookmarks now. The only one I *thought* would be a collector’s item was my stub for the midnight showing of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. After realizing it’ll never be considered a classic (nor was it bad enough to be as infamous as Plan 9 From Outer Space), I gave it to my Star Wars-loving son.

    Thanks — sure, I will try to remember to take some pics this weekend and hopefully figure out a way to post a link here.

    I like the Blue Jackets vs Leafs poster, but it seems like it would make more sense to be raking the leaves.

    Small correction to the item in the soccer section regarding teams wearing poppies. The games shown were all from the weekend & not Nov 11.

    For big leaves, like maples and oaks, mowing is just as effective as raking, and hugely easier and faster. You can just mow and mulch, or you can mow and bag as in the poster, but if you’ve got that much ground to cover and the leaves are more than like an inch across, mowing is the way to go.

    Agreed. I use a rake for two purposes: making a pile for the kids to jump in, or to gather some leaves to add to the compost pile. Otherwise, mow & mulch.

    I still have a bunch of old movie stubs where I’d write the movie name on the stub itself.
    Some game stubs; my favorite are 2 Phillies/Cubs tickets from 1995 I never got to use because of the revamped schedule after the strike. They wiped that game from the schedule. I just never got a refund, tickets only cost $10 total. I still have both White Sox/Indians stubs when I went to then-Jacobs Field. And my ticket for WrestleMania 13 at then-Rosemont Horizon.
    The PDF sheets just get tossed, except for the first Amy Grant concert I saw in 2011. That has a place of honor next to my computer.

    Both Mr. Zych and Mr. Garate have some great stuff out there! I especially like Mr. Garate’s world cup mascots.

    QotD, Yup, saved almost every one. Programs too. As a kid I’d tape the ticket to the roster/scorecard section of the program. I need to free up some time to go throug my old programs to extract the stubs from them.

    Now? Well, the Boston Celtics don’t have game programs anymore, and the Boston Red Sox are giving us season ticket holders a card to enter the park.

    ABA game: they weren’t real big on the continuation rule back then, apparently.

    Might be nice to go back to disallowing three steps, a pump fake, and then the shot after a foul being called continuation.

    QotW: Saved as many of my ticket stubs as I could. Sporting events went into a Ziploc bag. Music stubs went inside the CD jewel case. Two years ago, I scanned all my stubs and posted them on ticketstubcollection.com. When they redid the site recently, my name got taken off the stubs, so I can’t link to the whole album, but here are 2 of my favorites:
    link
    link

    The Seattle Sounders do the match day poster thing as well, with fans creating one for each game. Some of them are really cool. I’ve considered buying a couple.

    link

    Same with Orlando City: link

    I think several clubs around MLS do these posters, but researching that would take more time than I have to spend right now. It could be a really cool topic for a future post.

    I had a convo on twitter with Paul yesterday, they switched hosting services. All I had to do was resubscribe and it is back to normal.

    On yesterday’s topic: I think that it’s worth mentioning again that wearing team-logoed apparel is simply a way for a person to express himself/herself. The important point is that it is no different from wearing apparel that features a non-sports logo or design. Whether I wear my green star Esperanto hat, or my Kiss shirt, or my Chelsea warmup jacket, I am displaying something that reflects my tastes, preferences, values, personality, etc. I am 100% in favour of this kind of self-expression as a mode of living in society, despite the well-documented drawback that the marketing of team apparel has come to drive some aspects of uniform design.

    On today’s topic: Anthony Zych and company are going to face a challenge when the Blue Jackets play the Blackhawks! I am imagining a sophisticated version of this:

    link

    That surely won’t happen. But this poster series should remind anyone who needs reminding why Native nicknames are problematic.

    Straw man argument. Nobody said self-expression via clothing should be outlawed. My position is that the sale of jerseys is bad for the uni-verse. But hey, lots of self-expression has negative effects — yes, that’s part of living in a free society.

    In any case, yesterday’s discussion was about the terminology (“gear” vs. other terms), not about the merits of the clothing itself, which is a separate issue. If you have anything to contribute regarding the linguistics, feel free to do so in yesterday’s comments section. Thanks.

    Gear refers to work clothes and equipment. To a ballplayer, the uniform, cleats, bat, gloves, etc. are “gear”. To a wannabee like myself, they are just things.

    The Ohio State article begs some questions about what is and isn’t counterfeit.

    Is it truly counterfeit if you know it isn’t made and/or authorized by the team, and the NCAA has rules against such apparel, yet you buy it anyway? Are DIY jerseys then also “counterfeit”?

    To me, a “counterfeit” jersey implies some sort of deception on the part of the seller towards the buyer. Saying, “Yes, it’s authentic” when it’s not. Here, there isn’t really any seller or buyer deception, though. Everyone seems to know the NCAA and school doesn’t want this jersey made, but people want it and sellers are willing to make it, knowing the risk to both themselves and the buyer.

    It’s almost moreso conscientious objection than true counterfeiting, if you ask me.

    Counterfeit in this context only has to do with whether registered trademarks and other protected property are being used without a license. The deception or lack thereof probably doesn’t enter into it.

    [I am not taking a position on the specifics of the OSU article, the making of DIY jerseys, etc. Just the trademark aspect.]

    ed

    I always kept the ticket stubs from games I attended. Not sure i still have all of them but I have quite a few. Back in the early 60’s Yankee game stubs were just that…’stubs’. Not much to look at as they contained not much more than the game number, the date and the seat location. Years later I went back and filled in the details. Much more prized by me are the stubs from playoff and World Series games I attended in Baltimore and Houston. Some are pretty nice with team and/or Series logos on them.

    Nowadays with the advent of ‘print at home’ PDFs I just trash the tickets after the game. Even worse are the new ‘credit card’ type season passes I get from the University of Houston for football and basketball. I don’t need to tote more cards around in my wallet so these are a pain to keep up with.

    At least the Texans still produce quality tickets (if not quality football). Almost always they feature a player so flipping through them gives a nice sense of the team’s history. I keep one from each game. The exception was the year they put fans on each ticket. Lousy idea. I didn’t bother saving the stubs that season. I don’t need to look at some yahoo wearing a costume.

    I have just about every ticket stub since I turned 12 or so, so that’s from 1994 on. I save them in the 9 pocket sheets meant for trading cards. With the long skinny tickets, they only hold 6 per page so that they aren’t sticking out of the top. For the standard Ticketmaster ticket, I can get 9 on a page. I have them for every concert and sporting event I’ve attended in those years and probably have 500 of them at least (partial Cubs season tickets are the vast majority). I also saved all of my airline ticket stubs from 1994 through 2010 or so when the app became so much more convenient. I also save the random occasional Amtrak stub, my student IDs from High School & College as well as any super unique hotel keys or other travel passes (Disney World, etc…). I will eventually do something with all of my Cubs stubs (ideas include: under a glass bar top if I ever build a bar and using as a border like the wallpaper borders), but who knows.

    As far as PDFs go, I try not to use them, but they are becoming much more common, especially if you use StubHub or a site like that, and I hate it but the convenience is nice. Hopefully the Cubs continue to offer unique looking season tickets and don’t make everything online. I’m willing to pay a bit more for the paper tickets.

    One other thing that is cool to document your attendance is the MLB Gameday App (not sure if other sports have it) that allows you to track your attendance. It goes back to 2005 and I’ve entered each one of my paper stubs/PDF games in there (247 of them to date) and it tracks the score of the game and which parks you’ve been to (13 for me since then, but 30 in total) and the teams records that you’ve seen. It’s pretty damn cool.

    I hold on to ticket stubs from significant games I’ve attended. The most recent, and possibly the last-ever thanks to the disappearance of real tickets, were Nationals Park opening night in 2008 and the 2007 Habs game where Larry Robinson’s number was retired.

    I am pining for the “good old days” on this one. Yeah, home-printed tickets via PDF are tremendously convenient. But every PDF ticket I’ve ever seen, both sporting and cultural events as well as travel tickets, has been both ugly and badly designed. Tons of wasted space, poorly organized information, dreadful graphics. One of the advantages of the PDF format is that the designer can control the details of layout and presentation, yet most PDF tickets make little use of that aspect of the format, instead letting text spill all over the place and splitting important information apparently randomly across the document. Home-printed PDF tickets could be beautiful, well-designed artifacts that would inspire people to hold on to them just as used to be common with ticket stubs, but they’re not and they don’t. The ugliness of print-at-home tickets is a shame, not because they’re ugly, but because they don’t have to be.

    I don’t love these as much as the Blue Jackets designs (in part for stylistic reasons and in part because a bunch of them have a Transformers vibe that isn’t my bag)

    That’s actually Iron Man in his Hulkbuster armor from this year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron film. As a fan of both Transformers and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’m just going to shake my head and move on.

    QOTW: Surprisingly, I’ve only managed to keep one ticket stub, and it’s from a game that was never played – The 1996 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. My sister had managed to score a couple of tickets in case the series came back to Joe Louis Arena for game 7, but the Red Wings were eliminated in Game 6 at the old McNichols Arena. I stuck the stub in a Red Wings CD case, which I still have.

    It looks like they either screwed up the Photoshop or tweaked the Jaguars’ Color Rash uniform. The original teaser showed white numbers with a black outline surrounded by teal, while the photoshopped leak has the black and teal reversed.

    link

    re: Columbus vs. Winnipeg – nice subtle dig in that the Jets are shown as MiGs…although CF-18s would have been more accurate.

    ed

    I was wondering if they were deliberately MiGs, or if they were meant to be CF-18s (very similar-looking planes to a layperson) and the artist just got the visual reference wrong. After all, I have to assume these are put together very quickly.

    The planes representing the Blue Jackets are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they’re F-22 Raptors, pretty much the only American fighter that we refuse to export to our allies. On the other hand, no F-22s are actually based in Ohio.

    Is it just me or does the Jaguars helmet in that color rash teaser look all black? The dividing line between the gold and black on that embarrassment generally runs straight through the ear hole.

    link

    Maybe just wishful thinking.

    QOTW, I framed all three stubs I had from the 2005 MLB playoffs.

    One for the division series against Boston, one from the ALCS against LA, and one from the World Series.

    Jags Color Rash uni: If Blake Bortles stands in the pocket like a statue wearing mono gold, he might look like … a statue.

    QOTW:

    I keep tickets to what I deem significant games or events I attend. I got to attend a game at Hinkle Fieldhouse last weekend during my first trip to Indy. Used a pdf printout from Stub Hub but grabbed a discarded ticket before I left.

    Probably my favorite stub is from when I attended the Dodgers vs Red Sox game played at the LA Coliseum on 3/29/08.

    I do keep my ticket stubs! Unfortunately, the first one I kept (for some reason) was from a Ted Nugent concert (1977), so I don’t have my first two concerts (KISS, 1976 and 1977). I do have lots of gems, though, including some my band took part in (like opening for Misisng Persons) and some favorite shows (U2 and The Alarm, 1983, leaps to mind).

    Although I don’t have ticket stubs from my youth (1950’s)I have kept:
    1-April 27th, 2001, the first major league game my son attended (Yankees) and
    2-July 18th, 1999. David Cone’s perfect game.

    QOTW: Used to keep concert ticket stubs, but tossed them decades ago. When I attended the 1993 MLB All-Star Games at Camden Yards I dropped like $1.50 on a clear sleeve to protect the ticket, which I shoved into the inside pages of the game program I bought. Just pulled it out and lo & behold, in addition to that stub is a 2003 Masters badge. Funny thing about that is, my best friend had been attending Masters’ practice rounds for years when one day in early 2003, totally out of the blue, he received a letter from Augusta National offering him a pair of Masters badges (which of course are renewable annually for life). So he invited me to accompany him to his very first, official, Masters round – only to have it wind up being the first Masters round in 20 years to be cancelled due to the weather. So we trudged around the course for an hour-and-a-half, I bought some Masters, umm … garb, and we left (though I did return for a 2004 round at his invitation).

    Ticket price of a 4-day Masters badge in 2003? A whopping $125. Price of a ham & cheese sandwich, chips, candy bar & 16-oz. beer w/a souvenir cup at the Masters concession stand in 2003? $7.

    I have many ticket stubs from the fifties and sixties that I saved. This year when I went to Camden Yards I had then send me the tickets by mail. They were bland ticketmaster ones and I did not save them. I do miss the stubs. The best ones I have are from the Army football games we used to go to in West Point. They are gorgeous.

    QoTW: I can’t remember when I stopped collecting (saving?) my ticket stubs but I still have them. For the most part the ones I really wanted to keep were “firsts” or “last” though. First game at Fenway, First game at the old Boston Garden, last game I saw at the old Boston Garden, first game at the Vet when I stayed with friends in Ocean City, NJ

    Being in the Coast Guard and being stationed various place there are a lot of firsts in my collection, first games at Candlestick and the Oakland Coliseum, first Rangers game at MSG, etc.

    This is not a knock against anyone but I think because they are first or last games is what made most of them special for me.

    I just came in to say thanks for the Youtube link regarding the huge amount of red paint used on the old ABA New York Nets floor. The link features some great footage of Dr J in his prime. He made this one finger-roll shot over (either Dan Issel or Bobby Jones, I think) after an interception that was just extraordinary.

    I saved all my game and concert tickets from when I was a child until I was in my mid-20s and realized my life was becoming inundated with crap. I didn’t throw out my old ones but became more selective about what I kept.

    My favourite ticket was one that I didn’t keep – Game 6 of the 1985 World Series in Toronto. I was a poor college student, bought (with friends) a strip of 8 tickets, and returned them for a refund. I kept a photocopy, I should have kept a ticket.

    The Pee Wee Bengals post reminded me I saw a take on what Cincy might look like if they replaced the silly white side panels with stripes (black would be better still): link

    Hudson High (Michigan)

    Those Columbus poster are gorgeous. I’d be tempted to hang one on my wall even though I have no affiliation with the team.

    QOTW:
    I’ve saved every stub since I was 10 or so (early 90’s). To this day I’ll still pay to have tickets left at Will Call so I can have a paper stub rather than the printout.

    Question O’ Th’ Week: I’m 24 so I grew up in the era after stubs and have always had my tickets scared via barcode, but I have always saved the ticket itself. I even go so far that I do my best not to hastily shove it in my pocket and generally try to keep it in good shape. I do so because I use them as bookmarks. I do this for any event that I get a non PDF or print at home ticket. I usually try to do will call so that way the box office gives me an actual hard copy ticket. They work really well and serve as a nice reminder that I should “get out more”.

    I was at game 3 of the World Series and the Mets were offering to turn PDF tickets into ‘real’ ones at the main team store, for a price of course.

    I’m very opinionated about this weeks QoTW.
    My brother used to put all his stubs on his mirror to display and I thought it looked cool. I’ve saved every sporting event and rock show ticket I’ve ever received from age 10 to today. Even in the situation where I get will call or no physical ticket, I’ll cut out a card sized piece of paper to list the venue/date/act/openers to make sure I can document and add to my collection.

    The issue I have is how to display them. You can get some scrap book set ups, but my collection is in the hundreds, and no book I’ve seen can contain it, and i’m not crafty enough to do it myself. I’d love it if anyone had some ideas.

    if you do end up talking to Zych, could you ask him why he depicted the Blue Jackets as jets rather than going with something like jets being shot down by cannons, which would have made link.

    Sure do save the ticket stubs. My dad even brought me back ticket stubs from games he went to, and the they’re mixed in with mine so I can’t tell exactly which games I went to as a young’un. But it’s all good.

    I loved the old cardboard-esque MSG tickets from early-mid 1980s Rangers games, and then in the late 1980s they printed tix with B&W photos of old-time Rangers heroes. Those were cool.

    I would happily go to a ticket office on gameday to get an internet order printed on ticket stock but that’s less and less of an option. On a recent stubhub order I couldn’t even find info on the new mobile-friendly website about the stubhub stadium offices anywhere on their site. They want as little as possible to do with face to face service.

    One thing I can’t find nowadays, is a good non-leather-bound magnetic-page binder to keep the stubs in. Regular photo albums don’t work since the tix are all different sizes. I had one that was perfect but that company doesn’t make that style anymore. Does anyone have soem good suggestions?

    Re: Blue Jackets Posters – I particularly like how the Islanders poster actually depicts the Columbus skyline as viewed from the mighty Scioto River (average depth: 5 feet):

    link

    Long time reader and first time commenter here! I REALLY REALLY enjoy the website!

    I’m a 61 year old Mets/Jets/Rangers fan (could my life possibly be any worse?) who has been saving tickets stubs since the early 1960s. I don’t have one from every single game I’ve attended, but I do have a good assortment.

    Somewhere in my collection are two unused tickets to the NY Titans-Buffalo Bills game at the Polo Grounds on December 8, 1962. My father, who was a police officer for the old N.Y. Central Railroad, was called in to work that day to cover for someone who was sick, so we couldn’t go.

    I still save PDFs, but I don’t usually keep a printed copy, I just save them on my hard drive.

    I also have a pretty good selection of scorecards/programs/yearbooks, mostly from the 60s-70s-80s.

    I’d be happy to elaborate if anyone wants to discuss..

    Thanks Paul, and everyone!

    Qotw:

    I saved ticket stubs as a kid. My mom had an extra recipe box, which I used to store them & other random things. I truthfully don’t know where they are, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they met their demise during one of my wife’s purge modes.

    There really wasn’t a whole lot special about them, to be perfectly honest. The few whose appearance I can remember were basically a light tan w/ basic printed font & dark tan border, and the same thing but with green a season or two before or after that… probably about 2″ x 4″ or so.

    And I’m with Paul on the new ones. I like the convenience of not having to stop by will call or wait for them in the mail (or making a separate trip to the box office). Usually print ’em out, but I don’t believe I’ve saved one of those yet. Perhaps I should begin to do so on some sort of photo paper or something.

    I saved the ticket stubs (both mine and his) from every Red Sox game my grandfather took me to between 1975 and 1987 (when he retired and no longer got free tickets). When he passed away in 1997 I tucked one stub from each game into his suit pocket before they closed the casket. I still have the other stubs.

    I saved ticket stubs and still do, for significant events. Printed out .pdf files just aren’t the same at all.

    SB

    I have saved tickets from every pro or college game I have ever been to. Hundreds by now. The transition to digital tickets makes it harder. Also, when I was an undergrad at FSU, we got paper tickets, but by the time I was in grad school, they moved to a system where the tickets are loaded onto your student ID, so there is no physical ticket. Every game I went to where I did not have a physical ticket, I would hunt around the stands after the game for a ticket in good shape that I could keep.

    QoTW: A few years back, I took all my old ticket stubs (or at least the most colorful/interesting ones) and made a rather large (poster-sized) collage, which I framed behind glass and is currently hanging in my foyer.

    There are some interesting ones in the collection, for example:

    – the original Charlotte Hornets first ever win (vs. Clippers)
    – Hall of Fame Game between expansion Panthers and Jags in 1995
    – first ever Panthers home game
    – a game that never took place: I was going to see the Atlanta Braves with a buddy on Sept 13, 2001. Game was cancelled for obvious reasons.

    If you guys are interested and Paul would be willing to post it, I’ll take a couple of pictures and email them to him. It’s a real conversation piece and a lot of guys have said “I should’ve thought of that…”

    As a kid to this day I’ve kept every ticket stub from every game, movie, and concert. Such a glorious collection and happy 6 year old me had the idea.

    I love ticket stubs…a PDF or printout just ain’t NEARLY the same. I especially dig the fancy STH versions, but it’s almost impossible to get them when you’re in a minor league city and generally buy on the secondary market, as I do. For posterity’s sake, I generally try to find a discarded ticket stub from someone sitting near me, when I can…and I’ve even been know to drop 2 or 3 bucks on a stub from a game I attended on eBay after the fact. Sick, I know. Thankfully, I’m usually lucky to attend a dozen pro games per year.

    I’ve saved most of my ticket stubs, all the way back to the mid 1970’s. I did not keep my very sporting event back in 1970, a Detroit Red Wing Montreal Canadiens game at the old Montreal Forum. The other day I saw on television the same two teams playing in Montreal and I wondered – how many people who saw their first sporting 40+ years ago, could say that virtually the same uniforms of both teams are worn today.

    Too bad we can’t see that Jets uni tonight with white pants.

    QOTW: I have saved most of my ticket stubs since I was a kid, but I also print out and/or save PDFs and e-tickets to my phone and laptop computer. I have a few ticket stubs up on one of my bedroom walls.

    This color on color matchup isn’t as bad as I thought. I do like the red Bills jerseys and and striped socks although it would look so much better with white pants. I do like the Kelly green for the Jets and the chrome green on the helmets but again would look better with white pants. The one good thing no white sanitary socks. Much cleaner look without them.

    I’ve been saving my ticket stubs for many years, and love reminiscing while looking at them. I despise PDF printouts because they are ugly, cumbersome, and a waste of my ink. I’ll gladly pay a tiny bit more for a real ticket. Just last week, I went to a pricey new movie theater and was disappointed when their ticket was printed on receipt paper. It just seems cheap. I hope real stubs make a comeback. I’m glad to see everyone else enjoys collecting them too.

    Also, these Columbus posters are awesome. Great art is beautiful, and this is solid work. It reminds me of the posters Dave Matthews Band does for every concert. Nothing like a unique souvenir/depiction of an event.

    Color on Color needs to return to the NFL. There is enough differentiation in HD; I’m sure all all-white or “all-light” unis could be summoned up for those occasional “same base color vs same base color) contests (e.g. Bills v Seahawks, Raiders v Steelers.) /all black.
    For the Jets, aside from keeping the lighter shade of green for the dark jerseys (please, shoulder stripes are nice but the contrasting white sleeves are iconic to the team) their only other lasting uni-positive-aspect from Thursday night’s awful display against Buffalo is the helmet upgrade: the new green metallic-flake facemask, stripes and side decals really pop in HD (even on my Samsung Galaxy phone.)
    As for the Bills, the all-red unis under their white helmet just screamed “Boston Patriots.” Wonder why the facemasks, helmet stripes and decals weren’t “color rashed?”

    I thought I was nuts keeping all my old ticket stubs, but I have them all in a small box in my home office. Everything from my my prized possession of the 1969 Michigan vs. Ohio State stub down to one we made up as kids for the World Series of Wiffle Ball at my buddy’s house (aka Millsaps Lakefront Stadium). Even have one passed down from my dad for a 1946 NBL game between the Toledo Jeeps and the Buffalo Bisons as well as my floor pass for an NCAA 2nd round game used for my time as my school’s mascot. The evolution of tickets is amazing and they don’t quite hold the same pizzazz as they used to (except my latest NHL Winter Classic stub) but I keep them all as sort of a synopsis of my life, of what I’ve seen and how things change. I’ll never give them up.

    I’ve diligently kept every concert ticket neatly organized in a ticket stub journal and will still order the physical ticket if it’s an option. I really wish I had’ve done the same for my sports tickets as I’d love to look back to see what teams and players I’ve watched.

    My latest goal is to see all 30 NBA teams play on their home court. For that I’ve been printing out the ticket and filing in a binder alongside pictures from outside and inside each arena.

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