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Uni Watch

Peyton Manning Tributes Riddled With Uni-Related Errors

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As you’re no doubt aware, Peyton Manning will be announcing his retirement today. The graphic shown above, which was posted on the NFL’s Twitter feed, is one of several uni-related responses to the news. As you can see, they cut some corners on the graphic, most notably with the NOB font, which doesn’t match what the Colts or Broncos use. (Looks more like the Steelers’ NOB font.) I’d say that’s forgivable, since this is a stylized graphic that wasn’t meant to be photorealistic.

The same can’t be said, however, for this next graphic, which the NFL also posted yesterday:

This time they got the NOB lettering right, but they botched the “1,” which should have serifs at the bottom. This one definitely was meant to be photorealistic, so this mistake is a lot less forgivable, especially for something as simple as a block numeral for a team that hasn’t changed its jersey design in decades.

Then there’s this graphic, which was tweeted yesterday by the Broncos:

This one’s a real puzzler, because the Broncos got their own number font wrong. The serif on the one should be a horizontal nub, not pointing down diagonally. How could a team mess up something so simple regarding its own uniform?

Meanwhile, here’s a good look at the helmet models Manning wore during his college and pro career:

It’s also worth noting that Manning spent the first part of his career playing for the team with arguably the NFL’s most conservative uniform design, and then moved to the team with arguably the least traditional uniform. Ah, but let’s not forget that he also wore this throwback in 2010 — probably the most unusual uniform (or at least the most unusual helmet) of his career:

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Good thing he changed to a two-digit number: The Lakers honored Kobe Bryant yesterday by wearing socks featuring his uniform number, marking the first time an NBA team had ever worn a piece of equipment to honor an active player.

I’m usually not a fan of glorifying someone who’s still playing (I say wait until after he’s retired), whether it’s Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., or Mike Singletary. But those situations all involved patches — numbered socks seem a lot more acceptable. And hey, it could’ve been worse: Look at the two other sock designs they were considering.

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Gromm•It update: Who doesn’t love butter? Additional photos and info over on Gromm•It.

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Like riding a bike: That’s Phil at far-left, along with his curling teammates Catherine and Omoy on the right. Their fourth player was unavailable last night, so a certain uniform columnist subbed. I hadn’t curled since last year (was unable to participate this winter due to a series of circumstances not worth explaining here), so I was worried about being rusty, but most of the muscle memory was still there. Felt really good to be back on the ice.

We ended up with a tie. Here are our some additional shots courtesy of the Tugboat Captain, who came down to watch (if you can’t see the slideshow below, click here):

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The Ticker
By Paul

Baseball News: Penn State and UMass had a white vs. white softball game yesterday (from Travis Wells). … Check out this old Pirates spring training visor. Now we just have to find a photo of someone wearing it back in the day (from Adrian Bischoff). … Cards and Nats went red vs. red yesterday (from Evan Knode). … Fresno State and San Diego State played each other with both teams wearing black jerseys and red caps (from Jared Buccola).

NFL News: Hey, did the Vikings paint a white outline on their helmets’ earholes in 1970? Sure looks like it in this photo. Also, always nice to see the visiting team’s name on the goalpost (from Peter Fredrickson).

Hockey News: You’ve heard of a hat trick, but how about a boot trick? After Dartmouth player Brad Schierhorn scored his third goal in a recent victory, injured teammate Ryan Bullock threw his protective boot onto the ice (from Tris Wykes). … The latest project by DIY genius Wafflebored is — well, see for yourself. … Check it out: an NHL jersey in space! (From Brian Rak.)

Basketball News: Bucks and Thunder went black vs. orange yesterday in Milwaukee. … Storming the court after an upset victory might be banned. … “In South Carolina, Abbeville faced Timberland for the 2-A State High School Championship yesterday,” says Ronnie Poore. “It seems Timberland was unaware that they were the visiting team and had to don dark pinnies over their white jerseys.” … Evansville and Northern Iowa went orange vs. purple yesterday (from Joe Ringham). … Throwbacks yesterday — with a crazy stripe on the shorts — for Purdue.

Soccer News: The two biggest teams in the Argentina Primera Division have the same sponsor, which leads to an odd-looking situation when they play each other (from @EsWookieGrande).

Grab Bag: For those of you who live here in NYC, the Fashion Institute of Technology will soon be launching a big exhibit devoted to uniforms, which I’m pretty excited about. … A series of payments from Nike, including one that has been characterized as a half-million dollar bribe, has led to a scandal in Kenya. Further info here. … Ohio State’s lacrosse undershirts have a slogan — “Burn the Boats” — printed on the shirttail. “It’s fairly common to see words on the tails of undershirts in lacrosse, although it’s usually player name or team name, not a slogan,” says Kevin Mueller. … Several of the curling skips at this year’s Tim Horton’s Brier are wearing baseball caps as part of their uniforms. “This practice is becoming more common than I can remember in the past,” says Wade Heidt. … The U.S. Navy is considering larger uniform sizes to accommodate fatter sailors. … “Nike has reduced the branding on pro golfers’ caps this year,” writes Brendan Hickey. “Last year’s caps included the logos for Nike’s RZN golf balls and Vapor clubs on the side, but this year’s caps are blank on the sides.” … Here’s your chance to vote for the latest NASCAR paint scheme of the week. … Snowboarding’s popularity is fading. … New wrestling singlets for Missouri. … Thanks to global climate change, organizers of the Iditarod have had to bring in snow via train.

 
  
 
Comments (41)

    Regarding the serif for the 1 in the Broncos tweet, my guess is they were trying to make it look more like a stylized “T” to spell out Peyton.

    Agree. But it wouldn’t look like a T at all with the standard nub serif for the Broncos’ “1”. And if they made a long horizontal serif to make it look like a “T” it would likely look more like a 7 than a 1.

    I don’t think they were trying to match any official fonts at all on that one. So I’ll give it a pass.

    The frankenjersey image, though, that’s inexcusable.

    Broncos tweet wasn’t trying to make the # the uni font. I think they just used the numbers from the same font used for “Peyton” and stylized the 1 to get a hint of a T.

    Re Vikings “white” earhole

    What appears like white paint is a helmet interior pad.

    It is where the paint wore off. Back in the day, teams often painted their helmets versus using impregnated shells.

    these guys are right… back then the paint wore off on those parts all the time… when you were putting on your helmet you held around the bottom with your thumbs and through the ear hole with fingers to pull the helmet apart far enough to get your head in, and those contact points would get the paint wore off over time.

    here’s a cowboy helmet you can see the same type of thing….but it looks more like it wore off due to sitting the helmet on it’s side.

    link

    I don’t think the Vikings painted white around their earholes.
    My two theories:

    1. Paint scratched off the white shell (note the bottom edge of some helmets are also white).

    2. Just padding showing through.

    On the Broncos’ graphic, in addition to the wrong serif on the 1, the 8 looks noticeably fatter than the one on their uniforms.

    Evansville’s teams are the Purple Aces. So WHY are they wearing Orange? Ugh.

    Paul is certainly not given to hyperbole when it comes to his curling prowess, but he deserves props for his performance last night — he was fantastic! He not only landed several opening shots in the house (he played lead), by so doing he set us up for some big ends, only to have his skip fail to come through at the end. He curled and swept GREAT last evening. It is like riding a bike — and Paul curled as if he’d been playing on our team all season. On the other hand, I played as if I’d never picked up a broom in my life.

    Great curling, buddy — take a well-deserved bow and welcome back. Looking forward to putting the band back together this fall!

    How can a league curling game end in a tie? Who buys the drinks? Skips should draw to the button for the win/drinks.

    Agreed, but the rules were established before the season started. After six ends (we’re, unfortunately, on a tight sked due to ice time — this isn’t a traditional curling club, we’re basically renting sheet time) if the game is tied, it’s over. And the way I curled last evening, I’m glad we didn’t have to draw to the button.

    Curling matches don’t end in a draw. Ever. You play an extra end. If you don’t have time to play an extra end, you draw to the button. If you don’t have time to draw to the button, you finish it with darts or some other game in the lounge. Its not European Soccer.

    As a Canadian I’m embarrassed that we ever told you Yanks about curling.

    If you’d like to rewrite the rules for the club, Mike, you’re more than welcome. Until that time, we play by them.

    I don’t disagree that matches shouldn’t end in a draw. But ours do. And I’m pretty certain I could have taken the other skip in a race of any length, but the way I was tossing last night, a draw to the button might not have ended well.

    Sadly, we don’t have a “lounge” (it’s not a curling club in the true sense of the word — it’s four sheets set up on a hockey rink that hosts public skating throughout the day. We have a “warming room” and we’re lucky to have post-match brewskies and waters). There are no tvs, no lounges, no darts, games or chance or otherwise. Sadly.

    If you ever get north Phil, we’ll get you out for a game at proper Canadian curling club.

    Dumb question: you curl on a hockey rink? Do they pebble it before your match and scrape the pebble off after?

    They pebble beforehand, then repebble for the second group. I am not sure what they do after the last group has finished but I assume they just run the zamboni over it, as the rink is used for skating the next day.

    And while I have curled at a couple of proper clubs, it has never been competitive..just tossing a few rocks here and there. I need the real thing.

    Glad to see wrestling get some love, I don’t know how I feel about the stripes though.

    The 18 in the Denver tweet is the same font as the rest of his name. They weren’t trying to use the uniform font.

    I have a bunch of Rob Ullman’s books on Ebay, search “sexy women in hockey jersey” if interested.

    maybe the NFL was trying to incorporate link into that frankenjersey image by using that number font for the 1.

    Yeah, probably not

    What troubles me most about the frankenjersey is that it got the mesh and unmeshed parts of a jersey wrong.
    The nameplate is meshed while the body isn’t but in reality it is the other way around. I have never seen a meshed nameplate.

    Nope. They got that aspect of the jersey correct and yes you have seen them. It’s just hard to tell unless you look really closely.

    Mesh nameplates are definitely a thing.

    Not sure if link will work but if not, go link and click on the image to zoom it in.

    Ha! I just realized that I could have linked to the exact link to demonstrate what the Broncos’ 1s look like.

    I really like the Peyton Manning touchdown graphic, but they missed an opportunity with Jacob Tamme (Tight End #84). Since he caught touchdowns from Manning with Indy and Denver, they could’ve done some sort of split jersey thing. How often does that happen, anyway (Quarterback and receiver combo on two different teams)?

    Good question! One combo that immediately comes to mind is Kenny Stabler and Dave Casper, who both moved from the Raiders to the Oilers in 1980.

    Re: soccer teams with same sponsor. This very thing happened for years in Portugal among the three biggest clubs (Porto, Sporting CP, and Benfica), who often had the same telecom companies. I guess there are only so many big national entities with the money to sponsor big teams (in Benfica’s case, they got fly emirates this season)

    In the past, it also happened with Celtic and Rangers in Scotland.

    I think it’s a case when you have two teams that are hugely popular, and whose fanbases utterly despise everything connected to the other team, a potential major sponsor doesn’t want to risk alienating half their market.

    Back to Argentina…there was a time when Coca-Cola sponsored both Boca and River (it might still be the case). They wanted to put a Coke sign on the outer wall of La Bombonera (Boca’s stadium), but Boca refused to have it in Coke (and River) red. So the white Coke script was painted on a black wall.

    Didn’t the colts wear a white version of that throwback in 2004 on a thanksgiving game against the lion’s.

    If you look at the Kansas City Chiefs of that era, many of their players had the fronts of their helmets worn completely white. I remember Dave Butz of the Washingtons having the same thing with his helmet during the ’83 Super Bowl run.

    Good god, Paul… your Gromm-It experiments get better and better. You’ve pretty much managed to cover all of my favorite foods. Have you considered trying various condiment packages?

    The latest project by DIY genius Wafflebored is – well, see for yourself.

    It only now occurs to me the Flying-V sweater is the only hockey jersey I like which lacks waist striping.

    True story, I broke my wrist my first attempt curling last year. Fell backwards, tried to catch myself and compound fractured my wrist. Probably the only time a curler was rushed off in an ambulance

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