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March Sadness

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Brutal game last night in the Big Ten tourney, as Wisconsin and Nebraska looked like they were having an intrasquad scrimmage and wearing factory rejects that they picked up at the dollar store. Lots of additional photos here, if you dare.

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Friday Flashback: With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner, my latest Friday Flashback column on ESPN looks at the history of St. Paddy’s-based uniform promotions — not just green unis but also the Miami Floridians’ “O”-based NOBs from 1971 (shown above). Check it out here.

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That’s mighty white of you: The Muskegon Lumberjacks are having a “Beach Night” promotion tomorrow night. The uniforms, shown above, are pretty clever — as long as all of the players are white. Rumors that the team is also giving away flesh-colored crayons are almost completely untrue.

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Mission district: Here’s something really interesting: Most BYU students — about 99% — are Mormons, so their baseball players’ gloves include the national flags of the countries or states where they served their Mormon missions.

(My thanks to Steve Rosenbeck for this one.)

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Too Good for the Ticker: Oh man, check out the completely awesome gopher logo used by the 1926 Minnesota gymnastics team — tremendous! I don’t know if the school’s other sports used this logo, but it should really be revived as a throwback, pronto.

(Major thanks to Justine Buerkle for this one.)

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The Ticker
By Paul

Baseball News: Several images purporting to show MLB Asian heritage jerseys have been circulating on Reddit over the past 36 hours or so. I had my doubts about them for various reasons, and then Chris Creamer told me his sources confirmed that the images weren’t legit. Now it turns out that they’re concepts by the same guy who floated the phony All-Star Game pillbox caps last summer. … Pedro Alvarez, newly acquired by the Orioles, will wear No. 29 (from Andrew Cosentino). … Green St. Paddy’s Day caps for Millersville (from Tyler Freeman). … The Mets will give away a Noah Syndegaard-en gnome. … MLB Gameday does a good job of capturing the D-backs’ bloody pant cuffs (from Bryan Holdcroft). … Several new ’80s-themed jerseys for the Frisco RoughRiders (thanks, Brinke). … David Price, now with the Red Sox, usually goes squatchee-free, but he had one yesterday. … New camouflage jerseys for Mississippi State, only this time it’s a hunter’s camo, not military camo (from Phil). … Hmmm, do the MLB umps have new shirts this season? … Burkburnett and Nocona — those are two Texas high schools — went orange vs. orange with striped stirrups yesterday (from Adam Ostrow). … Really dislike the way the Blue Jays’ spring training caps and jerseys have mismatched shades of blue. The party line is that the navy cap matches the darker shade of blue that appears in the lower portion of the Jays’ logo. That may be true, but so what? Still looks ridiculous (screen shot by Yogi Combs). … The Double-A Binghamton Mets will be getting a new name for 2017. Details a team-renaming contest will be announced on April 7. … The Nats are letting fans vote on which player should be honored with Sept. 9 bobblehead giveaway.

Pro and College Football News: A restaurant in Gloucester, Va., called the Patriots Grill uses Flying Elvis to denote new menu items (from Mark Hall). … Here’s a set of NFL/NBA uniform mash-ups (thanks, Phil). … UCF is telling fans which colors to wear for 2016 home games (from @DaveDoop).

Hockey News: National Wild Turkey Federation jerseys — yes, really — for the Wichita Thunder. … You know the “crooked N” jerseys that the North Stars wore during the 1967 preseason? A game-used specimen is currently available on eBay. Interestingly, the listing says the jersey was later used by a minor league team and then by a VFW team (from Paul Ricciardi). … Very nice green St. Paddy’s day uni for the Rochester Amerks (from Chris Meehan). … A Canadian man is involved in a legal dispute because he refused to remove his Edmonton Oilers cap for his driver’s license photo (from Mike Styczen). … The Hartford Wolf Pack is going G.I. Joke this Saturday. … The Red Wings wore white at home last night, forcing the Jets to wear blue on the road for the first time in the team’s history (from Mike Cole). … Here’s a video in which Ottawa 67s coach Jeff Brown explains the story behind his practice helmet, a vintage Jofa he’s worn since his NHL playing days (from Aaron Husul). … Just what you’ve been waiting for: NHL-branded ketchup (from John Muir).

NBA News: Corn Week jerseys for the D-League’s Sioux Falls Skyforce (from Ryan Brown). … Here are the NBA’s top five “sneaker free agents” (thanks, Mike). … I put this in the NFL setion, but I’ll put it here too: a set of NFL/NBA uniform mash-ups (from Phil).

College Hoops News: The uniforms for the court-mopping crew at the B1G tourney have ads for the mop manufacturer Libman. Matching green Chucks, too. Here’s how they look from the front (from Cork Gaines and Tyler Pasek). … The girls’ team from Mineral Point High School in Wisconsin has checkerboard-patterned socks. And yes, they also UNC-style unis, but the socks are the real attraction (from Holly Anderson).

Soccer News: New logo for the Rochester Rhinos. … Legendary soccer star Pele is going to auction off a ton of his jerseys, trophies, and other memorabilia.

Grab Bag: About six weeks ago I wrote about reports that the Wounded Warrior Project, which is connected to many college teams’ camouflage uniforms, was wasting contributors’ donations on mismanagement and lavish spending. As a result of those reports, Wounded Warrior’s CEO and COO were fired yesterday by the group’s board of directors. … Here’s a great article on the 100th anniversary of the font used in the London Underground, pretty much the basis for modern sans serif typography (big thanks to @MBDChicago). … Adidas is suing APL for ripping off sneaker designs (from Jason HIllyer). … A new American rugby league unveiled its inaugural uniforms earlier this week (from Wesley Eustis). … Hong Kong cricket player Nadeem Ahmed wore clear goggles last night. … Here are some famous corporate logos redesigned in a very minimalist style (thanks, Brinke). … “Check out this screen shot from last Sunday’s NASCAR race in Las Vegas,” writes Jared Pike. “The Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5 cars are running fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, respectively!” … The G.I. Joke trend has come to NASCAR, courtesy of the Geico No. 13 car, driven by Casey Mears. Rather incredibly, the camouflage pattern features the Geico gecko, because nothing says “support for the military” like corporate self-aggrandizement. Douchebags (from David Firestone). … Two of my favorite things: Bread clips — which I wrote about for BusinessWeek three years ago — can be made into little kitty cats! (Great find by Chris Bisbee.) … With the looming possibility of the Republican presidential nomination being decided by a contested a convention, an operative for Donald Trump’s campaign had this to say: “[Our delegates] are going to go and they’re going to wear their Trump uniforms and they’re going to do everything they can for Donald Trump.” It’s not clear, at least to me, what he meant by “Trump uniforms.”

 
  
 
Comments (48)

    One of my favorite Bloom County strips involved Oliver Wendell Jones (who is black) wearing a “flesh colored band aid” (which was white) on his head.

    Knew Nebraska/Wisconsin would be lead, watched it for two minutes.

    Coincidence Badgers tanked after month in Bill Cofield specials? No, can’t wait for Under Armour.

    Wouldn’t the Mineral Point High School socks more aptly me described as “gingham?”

    Gingham is always is white plus another color
    Plaid can be any combination of colors
    The lines in gingham have the same width
    The lines in plaid have different widths

    Looks like Gingham.

    SB

    I can see the BYU nation flags expanding into football, sticker on back of helmet – state flag for missionaries who served in the U.S.

    The Winnipeg Jets did wear blue on the road, dating back to their WHA days. I guess we’re talking about these new Winnipeg Jets, which began in 2011.

    On the mashup did anybody notice the Jets logo is 78-97 primary across the chest. Great choice. The Magic stripes look great on the Jags jersey. Kind of wish could see more of Seattle/LA. The Lions one looks kind of disgusting.

    Wisconsin-Nebraska photo: something interesting always happens, uniform-wise, when these two teams face each other. Is that why the Huskers were admitted to the Big Ten?

    “Beach Night” uniforms would have worked better if they used a bronzed skin tone; never mind if it made (most of the) players look sunburned.

    Saw the flags on the baseball gloves and thought it was a World Baseball Classic promotion. The Philippines was the first team eliminated in WBC qualifying, the Dominican Republic will take part in the actual tournament, and I didn’t know Chile was in the tournament, too. Just kidding.

    I was scrolling through the NBAxNFL mashup. “The Lakers and Rams”. Wow it still hits me pretty hard, the whole LA Rams thing. Draft Night is going to be strange. Sucks for StL. :(

    I love that the internet (specifically Reddit) are trying to sabotage the Nats bobble head giveaway by votng fairly consistently for Papelbon. Though there is a little separation. Some want Ollie Perez.

    If the glove picture is supposed to recognize countries that the BYU players went to for their missions…that is a Texas flag on the glove on top, not Chile. I’m assuming it’s supposed to be Chile…but it’s definitely not.

    There is a bit of weird wording there, though.

    national flags of the countries or states

    States can’t really have “national” flags, so… it’s not hard to see why someone might miss that when skimming.

    By definition – state means nation. Overtime, American states have devolved into provincial roles.

    The Flags on the baseball gloves feels kind of self-satisfying. Like “hey look at how nice I am. Look at the sacrifice I made to help others.” Which totally defeats the purpose of charity.

    I’m not the most knowledgeable about Mormons and the missions, but this sort of irks me. Feels less of honoring the country and more of “look at me”.

    Is missionary work considered charity? I don’t really think of it that way. And all Mormons are supposed to do it, so I don’t think anyone is gaining spiritual bragging points in that way.

    Or, it could be a thing they do in remembrance?

    Keep their missions field in their prayers at all times. Honoring where they served.

    Don’t always have to look at it negatively, even if it is organized religion. There’s positive motives out of a lot of religious people.

    After living in another country for 2 years (10% of their lives, and basically 100% of their adult lives), it becomes your adoptive home. You love the people and the place.

    Not a look-at-me move, but more of a way to honor the country and culture.

    Let’s see….your MLB team wins its first pennant in 15 years, so what do you? You change your name, of course!

    Sounds like great management up there in Binghamton…

    “Minor league teams shouldn’t have the same name as the majors anyway”

    ~~~

    Says who (besides you)? They can have any gaddam name they want, but the way franchises seem to be swapped/sold and are not always tied to the apparent “parent” club, it might make more sense for them to no longer carry the big club’s moniker. But just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it.

    Like I said, it’s lazy, and like you said, it makes more sense not to. My local team (the Columbus Clippers) have been affiliated with the Pirates, Yankees, Natinals and Indians. Would you rather have a team change it’s name 4 times, or have it’s own identity?

    Why is the minor league team in Columbus called “The Clippers” anyway? Isn’t Columbus landlocked!?!?!

    I assume it’s because of that old explorer guy the city is named after. It’s the Ohio equivalent of teams in Buffalo using a buffalo in their logo.

    I grew up with the Toledo Mud Hens, and I still don’t really know wtf a Mud Hen is.

    I spent a couple minutes Googling this and didn’t instantly find an answer about the origin of the team’s name, so I’m declaring it lost in the mists of time. The name only dates back to 1977 and you’d think it would be easier to find.

    The Clippers were originally a Pirates franchise. Even though pirates didn’t sail on clipper ships, maybe they just ran with it.

    Who knows. Maybe there was a scissors manufacturer based in Columbus and the meaning has changed over time.

    I think exactly the opposite: minor league teams should all have the nickname of their parent club. And the team should change nicknames when it changes affiliations. That’s preferable to a minor league team having its own identity, because a minor league team is not an entity in itself. A minor league team is a place where a Major League club sends its players for training.

    For the fans in the minor league city, it is better for their team to have the name of the parent club, because that’s the organisation to which all of their team’s players belong. So that’s where the team’s fans’ Major League attention should logically be. This is especially true in a place like Binghamton, whose team has had the same affiliation for decades.

    Obviously minor league teams can do what they want. And the desire to sell merchandise is an incentive to have names separate from the parent club. This is unfortunate, in my opinion, because it leads to some very ugly design. There is nothing more lazy than the umpteenth logo featuring a snarling animal. I’d prefer a dignified Major League look any time.

    Except in the case of the Kissimmee minor league club that was better off that they didn’t adopt the parent team’s nickname when they were a Houston farm club.

    They went with the Kissimmee Cobras.

    One problem with this…

    My local minor league team is the Charlotte Knights, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.

    Let’s say they were the Charlotte White Sox…then I’m talking to my buddy and he asks me, “hey, did the White Sox win last night?”

    Now I gotta ask him, which one?

    A Canadian man is involved in a legal dispute because he refused “to remove his Edmonton Oilers cap for his driver’s license photo…” this reminded me of a tweet i saw the other day about such issue, only with a fox hat: link

    Holy @#$%&!!

    About the only thing more awesome than those Minnesota North Stars 1967-68 pre-season jerseys being unearthed and sold would be someone unearthing the first-year Oakland Seals pre-season jerseys with the SEALS wordmark above the logo. Unfortunately, wealth has eluded me in this life so I can only look on with my nose pressed against the window…

    -Jet

    link

    Cardinals on purpose don’t give fielders with the same last name a first initial on their back. Havn’t since previous ownership

    I don’t see what’s so brutal about a red-on-white team playing a white-on-red team.

    The uniforms of both Wisconsin and Nebraska each have some unnecessary elements that detract from what would otherwise be clean looks. But they aren’t all that bad; and the matchup is pretty unremarkable.

    I read thru the statement issued by the Wounded Warrior Project. To summarize: The media’s figures were inaccurate, we really didn’t spend that much on administration, we can prove it with accounting double-speak. But since no one trusts us anymore, we’re going to axe the CEO and COO. We will tighten up, though, so please support us.

    Screw these guys.

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