As you may have noticed in the left-hand sidebar, our friends at Grey Flannel Auctions are running another catalog auction. Here are some of the listings that caught my eye:
• Here’s something fascinating: This 1957 Willie Mays jersey has smaller, snugger-fitting buttonholes, because, according to the auction house, “Mays preferred a tighter-fitting shirt.” Never seen or heard that before.
• Whoa, check out this full-length Milwaukee Braves satin jacket!
• Nearly two decades on, that inaugural Devil Rays design still sends shivers down my spine.
• This is interesting: We’re all familiar with the star-spangled top hat in the Yankees’ logo, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that hat used in any other Yankees-related context — until now. That’s Yanks then-manager Bucky Harris in that ad.
• Oooh, you don’t often see one of the Cowboys’ early “star” jerseys. Look closely and you can see that it has a crossover collar seam, which was standard for Cowboys jerseys at that time.
• Remember when the Colts added grey to their color scheme in the early 1980s? You can see that reflected in the sleeve stripes of this coach’s sideline sweater.
• Check out the extra bit of paint on the raised center ridge of this old Rams helmet. Love how they tried to get the full extent of the horns in there, even though the colors don’t match (or maybe they just didn’t fade at the same rate over the years).
• I’ve written several times over the years about the All-American Redheads. Very cool to see one of their beautiful uniforms, complete with shorts and stirrups.
• Everyone knows Ichiro Suzuki has worn his first name as his NOB during his MLB career (except when he played for the Yankees, obviously). But not everyone knows he also wore his first name while playing in Japan. (The full story: While he was in the Japanese minors, he was on a team with two other players named Suzuki. They all wore their first names. Ichiro was the only one to make it to the Japanese majors, where he continued to wear his first name. When he joined the Mariners, he requested and received permission from MLB to keep wearing his first name.)
• Love this: Moses Malone’s high school letterman sweater!
• Oh baby, check out this 1952 warm-up jacket, worn by Tommy Heinsohn, featuring a spectacular chain-stitched chest patch and the always-awesome Butwin label.
• Speaking of chain-stitching, dig this magnificent Syracuse Nationals jersey. The script and numbers are densely chain-stitched, as you can see here.
• And we wrap up with this really nice Celtics shooting shirt. Love that format — Durene fabric, zip-polo collar, horizontal stripe on hem panel. Sweet!
Want to see more? You can browse through the entire auction catalog here.
Click to enlarge
Fantasy sports: The two screen shots shown above are from yesterday’s Mets/Braves game. As you can see, there were a lot of empty seats. That’s not surprising — it was a weekday afternoon game in cold, drizzly weather. I was watching the game, and they showed enough full-stadium views to make it clear that the crowd was very small.
As we all know, teams now list their attendance in terms of tickets sold, not turnstile counts, so the box score from this game shows an “attendance” of 31,783. That is, of course, utter fiction, and it would be nice if box scores listed these numbers as “Tickets Sold” instead of “Attendance,” but whatever — that’s not what I want to talk about here.
What I want to talk about is that this game recap includes the following sentence:
On Wednesday, [Mets starter Steven Matz] threw 7.2 scoreless innings as the Mets beat the Atlanta Braves 8-0 before 31,783 fans in a cold drizzle at Citi Field.
That too is utter fiction. It’s not a rejiggering, or a reinterpretation, or an expansive view of how to define the word “attendance” — it’s just factually inaccurate. The crowd wasn’t anywhere close to 31,783. Less than half of that, I’d be willing to wager.
MLB can inflate its attendance figures however it wants, but that doesn’t mean reporters have to play along with that fantasy world. Reporters are supposed to be in the facts business. That’s particularly true of sportswriters, whose lifeblood consists of statistics and number crunching.
Look at that sentence again. What’s so hard about replacing “31,783 fans” with “a sparse crowd”? If anything, the sentence would make more sense that way, since it goes on to mention the unpleasant weather. If you need to mention the ticket sales (which, frankly, seems like a much less important bit of info to report than an accurate description of the crowd that actually bothered to show up), mention it somewhere else in the story.
I don’t mean to single out Roger Rubin, the guy who wrote that article. Most MLB game recaps do the exact same thing. It’s one of those quiet little examples of systemic bullshit that has somehow become the industry standard, even though everyone involved should know better. It would be nice if it could stop, and if reporters could stick to reporting reality, not fantasy or propaganda.
T-Shirt Club reminder: The Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s second release of 2016 — the hockey design — is now available. Here’s the base design (which you can click to enlarge), followed by the three shirt color offerings:
The shirt is available here from now through next Tuesday.
Also: Yesterday I showed you a goalie design that we’d been tinkering with, and a bunch of you said you wanted to see that on a T-shirt — done and done.
Here’s the base design, and the three color options:
This shirt is not part of the T-Shirt Club, does not have Club’s jock tag graphic, and neither counts toward nor is required for 2016 “Collect ’Em All” eligibility. It’s just a bonus design that we’re offering for those who want it. You can get it here for the next week.
Never a dull moment: I have an annoying medical condition (not life-threatening, just annoying), and yesterday I began treating it with a fancy-shmancy drug that I’m administering to myself via an injection pen.
This means, among other things, I’ve had to get a sharps container (see above), learn about sharps-disposal procedures, and so on, all of which is kind of fascinating. A whole world of laws and protocols that I’d been sort of dimly aware of but had never really thought about.
I realize this is nothing new to those of you who have diabetes and give yourselves insulin, or to the countless people with other conditions that require home injection. To me, though, it’s a whole new world of functional specificity — and I sure do like functional specificity. Even when it comes packaged as part of an annoying medical condition.
Incidentally, after I posted this same photo/info on Facebook yesterday, longtime Uni Watch reader/pal Joe Hilseberg left the following comment:
I used to work for BD, the company that makes your sharps container. The one-color logo used on it is actually the wrong version. There was a second version that was supposed to be used for one-color applications. The package/labeling guys were not under the marketing/design teams for some reason, and this error constantly occurred. They also have recently rebranded and it doesn’t look like the new logo has made its way to containers either.
Faaaascinating. Everything comes back to uni watching, eh?
Membership update: A few new designs have been added to the membership card gallery (including Michael Blomquist’s late-’70s Twins throwback design, shown at right). I have a few slots open on the current sheet, so people who sign up now will get their cards with a very short wait.
Also, keep in mind that Purple Amnesty Day — the only day of the year when I’ll accept orders for purple-inclusive card designs — is coming up on May 17. Get ready, all you Vikings, Ravens, Rockies, and Northwestern fans!
As always, you can sign up for your own custom-designed card here, you can see all the cards we’ve designed so far here, and you can see how we make the cards here.
The Ticker
By Mike Chamernik
Baseball News: Cubs P Jon Lester has famously had problems throwing to first, but he didn’t have an issue yesterday. A Pirate hit a comebacker that got stuck in his webbing, so he tossed the entire glove over. First baseman Anthony Rizzo made a heads-up play by dropping his own mitt to catch Lester’s toss. … Also from that game, Pirates P Juan Nicasio wears one batting glove, on his top hand (from Nick Orban). … The White Sox cut long-time P John Danks on Tuesday. Carlos Rodon wrote Danks’s No. 50 into the back of the mound last night (from John Chase, via Phil). … There’s a lot going on with this Norfolk State uniform, what with the bold jersey design and the pants that are almost at biker shorts height (from Tris Wykes). … Nice striped stirrups for the Montgomery Biscuits last night. The Biscuits tweeted that pic to Paul and Phil, and the Bowling Green Hot Rods saw it and one-upped them. Additional photos and info about the Biscuits’ stirrups here … Here’s an early photo of Ted Williams batting while wearing a shinguard. He’s said to be one of the first to wear one (from Peyton Cooper). ”¦ The other day Paul wondered if Steve Cishek was purposely undoing his left stirrup. Tim Dunn notes that the Mariners closer made it through a save opportunity yesterday without popping his stirrup. … Some Mets players practice with weighted balls and softballs. Think of the concept of using a batting donut, but for baseballs. OF Alejandro De Aza said it’s a popular training method for Dominican-born players (from Tommy Turner). … The Mets just finished a nine-game homestand without wearing their blue alternates, which is unusual for them. … The Salt Lake Bees will wear Star Wars jerseys in July (from Paul Cherrington).
NFL News: Washington team President Bruce Allen talked about how the team no longer wears white or burgundy pants (from Tommy Turner). … Also, Washington announced its rookies’ uniform numbers (from Andrew Cosentino). … Former S Tyrone Carter played ball at the University of Minnesota and with the Vikings. A UMN restaurant has his Vikings jersey on display, but he never wore No. 23 with the Vikes. He wore 37 and 22, wearing 23 only with the Steelers from 2004 to 2009. He wore 22 in college, too (from Tony Sullivan).
College Football News: New uniforms for the College of Idaho (from @SodaPopinskiCU). … New white jerseys for Juniata College (from Clay Reichart).
Hockey News: Check out the star-spangled uniform worn by the U18 Affton Americans club hockey team in St. Louis. “Yowzers!” says Jeff Whitener. … Prototype alert: R.J. Liebe, an athletic lettering company located outside of St. Louis, mocked up this jersey for the Blues in the 1970s, but it was never used on the ice (from Ross Augustin).
NBA News: Unsurprisingly, the NBA has spelled out some limitations on which types of companies can advertise on its jerseys in a few years. … A young Brooklyn intellectual has an extensive Air Jordan collection (from Tommy Turner).
Soccer News: New jerseys for Leicester City, the EPL’s longshot champion, have leaked (from Tim Cross). … New home kit for Chelsea. … The Taliban is intimidating the family of a kid in Afghanistan who received a jersey from Lionel Messi (from Rob Yasinsac). … Two items of note for the new uniforms for Bristol City FC, a club in the second tier of English soccer: The Robins chose a smaller uni manufacturer, Bristol Sport, and the jerseys will have two hashtags on them (from Michael Mrozinski). … FC Dallas’s Tesho Akindele says the MLS won’t let him have his first name as part of his NOB (from Will Pry). … Stockade FC of the National Premier Soccer League unveiled what the club will wear for its inaugural season. … Did a new jersey for Manchester United leak? (From Graig Sakuma). … New home kit for Celtic (from Rob McLeod).
Grab Bag: Great collection here of the best neon signs in Chicago (from Thomas Juettner). … U.S. Olympian Nick Symmonds is selling advertising space with temporary tattoos on his body as a protest of athlete exploitation. Symmonds, who said he wants “to look like NASCAR out there,” once made $11K from an ad deal. He has to cover up during U.S. Olympic trials and the Summer Games (from Markus Kamp). ”¦ Adidas is selling off parts of its golf division, including TaylorMade (from Brinke). ”¦ You can now design your own swim trunks using your favorite Instagram photos (from Jason Hillyer).
Rams helmet description from auction site:
…”The helmet is the old Rams logo that is a blue and yellow swirl design.”
Swirl? SWIRL??
In all my born days I have never thought or heard of the Rams having a swirl on their helmet.
…at least its not a “counter-clockwise swirl” per George Costanza…
…with or without a knuckle.
The knuckle is presumptious…
I use the pinch, which is rather presumptuous.
Is Ted Cruz writing their copy?
Better than a Tori Amos raspberry swirl.
How does one throw 7.2 (point two) innings?
It’s shorthand for 7 and 2/3rds. Doesn’t make mathematical sense.
At least there is an (somewhat reasonable) explanation. Whew!
Thanks.
A pitcher who throws into the 7th, gets only 2 outs and then relieved, is credited with throwing 7-2/3rds, or 7.2 innings.
If you go into the 7th and only record 2 outs, you’ve only pitched 6 & 2/3rd innings.
You mean 6.2 innings, of course.
The “point” is a decimal point. Decimal means 10th. He actually pitched 7.67 innings.
The “point” is a decimal point. Decimal means 10th.
You’re assuming a base-10 system. But pitching increments are essentially a base-3 system. Think of it that way and 7.2 (which I agree is awkward) is easier to take.
As long as one is hip to any entity’s nomenclature (words, symbols,etc.), said entity can use anything it wants to represent anything it wants.
I have learned something today about Baseball jargon/lingo/nomemclature.
Technically, in a base-3 system, that would be written as 21.12. But I know what you mean.
I come here for pretty pictures of fabric. Today, I get a history lesson and actually learn something about Ichiro. Don’t make this a habit, Paul.
I donno, man — pretty sure Paul, JTH & I were among the 39,077 fans at Sunday’s Mets/Giants shindig.
I mean, the place was clearly almost at capacity.
Ha! Phil, our experience on Sunday and the game recaps that followed are actually what got me thinking about this. Here’s an article that says the game took place “before 39,077 in raw conditions”:
link
As you and I can personally attest, the crowd that day was definitely less than 10K.
Reporters should report reality, not fantasy.
As I was driving home, since we left early, the game was on the radio. Howie absolutely made a point to excoriate MLB for their “attendance” figures. He said (paraphrasing) “today’s official attendance is 39,077 — but anyone with eyes knows that’s not the case. But that’s how the National League counts the figures.” He then went on to poke fun at the “announced” attendance. Josh was fairly non-plussed at all this.
Do you mean Josh Lewin was nonplussed at the bullshit attendance figures, or nonplussed at Howie for harping on it?
Just curious: did he actually say “how the National League counts the figures”, not “how MLB counts” or something like that? I know the AL and NL used to do it differently (one used turnstiles, the other used sales, but I forget which was which), but they’ve long since standardized on ticket sales. It’s kinda funny if he’s still thinking of it in terms of the league rather than MLB.
That was my first thought as well. It used to be that the AL announced tickets and the NL announced turnstile. Now its all tickets.
link
Sorry for the delay — yes, nonplussed at the BS attendance. You could almost picture the eyeroll as Howie mentioned it. (I think Howie/radio guys are obligated to mention it.)
“Just curious: did he actually say “how the National League counts the figures”, not “how MLB counts” or something like that?”
~~~
Maybe he said MLB. I thought I heard NL, but it could have been just what I wanted to hear.
So what are we to make of the alleged sellout streaks of teams like the Giants, Red Sox and Phillies?
To get truly accurate figures, we’d need to know how many tickets were sold, how many tickets were issued and how many people walked through the turnstiles. The three figures would be vastly different.
Typically I’ve seen it reported as “an announced crowd of [X].”
FYI, the NFL does it on actual attendance (tickets “taken” at the gate).
At Nats game they announce “Tickets sold” rather than attendance.
Why is the attendance relevant in a game story at all, much less in an opening paragraph? Unless it’s an extreme high — super loud with the upper deck shaking at Shea back in the day — or super low, the number of people who are in the seats doesn’t really have an impact on the game.
It’s a sports writing cliche.
Maybe MLB puts it in their guidelines for anybody writing a recap? Make it seem like there are more. Any reporters work on this page who do sports writing?
There is no such thing as “MLB guidelines for anybody writing a recap.”
I thought in Japan, the common name follows the surname. Ichiro Suzuki would be the same as saying “Lukas Paul” or “Hecken Phil So, he really was putting his last name on his jersey for all intents and purposes.
No, you’re thinking of China. That’s not how it works in Japan.
It does also work that way in Japanese, in which his name is “Suzuki Ichiro” (Hungarian’s the same way–Franz Liszt’s actual birth name is “Liszt Ferenc”). So if we want to be perfectly pedantic about it, we’ll say Suzuki uses his given name on his jerseys, rather than his surname.
However, in an English-language context, “last name” seems perfectly cromulent–no American or Japanese reader can really fail to understand what we’re getting at here.
How about this: His family name is Suzuki (just like mine is Lukas).
Confusingly, that is exactly how it works in Japan. But most Japanese reverse their name order when dealing with the West, whereas most Chinese do not. So China’s Mao Zedong is Mao Zedong in America, whereas Japan’s Suzuki Ichiro is Ichiro Suzuki in America.
And why do they have English NOBs?
You thought right, Rich P. Japanese naming convention is the same as in China: family name first, given name second. Ichiro is just an unconventional sort of lad.
It is the case but the Japanese tend to display anglicized names as First name LAST NAME (family name to be in all caps) more often now when dealing with English speakers. Chinese and Korean still write names with the family name written first.
I vaguely recall reading something along the lines of Ichiro going first name on back because “Suzuki” being a common surname (which seemed to be the case on the Orix Blue Wave).
What is up with link I’ve never seen a 5 like that!
Probably a backwards 2. Based on this photo:
link
I don’t know about a backwards 2, as the drop-shadow wouldn’t quite work… maybe it was a regular 5 that got put on upside-down (180° rotation), and instead of removing the entire number to re-apply it they just trimmed a few pieces off?
Whatever it was, the card design is based on that photo, because that’s what the enrollee asked for.
Attendance vs tickets sold has always driven my crazy in sports, and especially concerts. Not to mention the phrase “sold out” there’s VERY rarely an event of any kind where every single ticket and standing room location is sold. Most promoters/venues set sell-out at 90% sold, though some play with it to massage the numbers. Drives my anal retentive mind crazy.
Not to mention the phrase “sold out” there’s VERY rarely an event of any kind where every single ticket and standing room location is sold.
Are you saying that a team/promoter will inaccurately announce *after the fact* than an event was a sellout? Or are you saying that they’ll claim *before the event* to have no more tickets available to sell, when in fact they do have more tickets?
If the latter, why would they do that?
Radio station giving away tickets; “this event is already sold out, only 500 tickets remain and we have 50 to win.” That was a line I heard on my wife’s radio station (I use bluetooth music from my phone, no commercials!) describe an event happening at the DTE in Detroit.
Believe it or not,moth.you’ll often see concert dates added because the first show is advertised as “Sold Out” (such as the Guns N’ Roses show this coming summer at MetLife Stadium) while in actuality some tickets for the first show can be pulled on Ticketmaster. You’ll also see advertisements they’ll literally say “Few tickets remain for sold out show” to try and drive demand but making an event seem bigger. It drives me crazy.
Really, this happens all the time for concerts. Now some of the tickets sold might be to scalpers who can’t flip the tickets so there are empty seats, or what not, but I’ve been to many a sold out show.
Tiny proofreading correction for the Heinsohn item: “a spectacular chaint-stitched chest patch”
New contraction – Chaint – Ain’t chain-stitched.
Fixed.
Good to see the advertising limitations on future NBA jerseys. So Roto Rooter is still in play for the 76ers?
Proofreading: “Star-spangled top hot”
Thanks. Fixed.
I totally know what you’re talking about with the Mets attendance. I covered a bunch of DePaul basketball games in 2012-13. Team wasn’t very good, and the Blue Demons play in an arena outside of Chicago, fairly far from campus.
December games were the worst. The games were against nonconference mid-major teams (Gardner-Webb, UMBC, Fairfield, etc.), and all the students were on Christmas break. I’d go to the games and see the entire upper balcony empty, the sections in the lower bow behind the basket empty, and the courtside and other seats along the baseline sparsely filled. You could sit where you want, and if you were within 3 seats of someone, it might feel like you were encroaching on their personal space.
Anyway, I would guess that maybe 900 people actually showed up to these games. The announced attendance, of course, was always 7,000 or more. The school counted ticket sales and unused student tickets. I found it all amusing.
Unused student tix were counted?!
Wow, that really takes some chutzpah.
This is, clearly, propaganda. But to what end? Like, would they be embarrassed to admit that only 900 people were there? If so, why? Like you said, everyone was off on winter break, it’s a nonconference game, etc. — of course the crowd’s gonna be smaller. There’s no shame in that. Why not just admit it?
I worked for IUPUI in Indianapolis. They announce tickets used. Their average attendance is probably somewhere around 1,000 – 1,200. The place they play in holds about 6,500 for basketball. I think the PTB use the attendance as a way to shame more people, especially students, into going to the games.
Could it be a recruiting thing? Or a way to sell to advertisers? Saying “we average 7,000 fans a game”, or something like that might sound appealing to either or both of those groups. Half a dozen or so games with low attendance could drag down the average.
Certainly there’s no shortage of chutzpah when businesses (and schools) are negotiating with recruits or advertisers.
Here’s some more info: link
There’s a difference between “attendance” and “paid attendance,” and it varies wildly. This year, DePaul had an actual average attendance of 2,395, but a paid attendance average of 5,514. The discrepancy is due in large part to the number of tickets the school gives away to students, charities, and other groups.
Wait, so PAID attendance includes tickets given away for free? Seems like they really mean ISSUED tickets when they say PAID.
In MLB, teams are allowed to claim a game is “sold out” even if the tickets sold is below capacity. MLB considers the more eye-roll-worthy “tickets distributed.” As long as the total number of distributed tickets exceeds the capacity of the stadium, it can be called a “sellout” even if many of the tickets weren’t sold or are still available.
During the Red Sox’ recent sellout streak, they routinely gave away hundreds of tickets for free to every game to keep the sellout streak alive. In addition, even if not all seats were sold, they were allowed to use the sale of standing room-only tickets to count towards attendance.
link
At first glance of the Mets Pics, I assumed it would be something about Cespedes’s compression sleeve matching the vendors.
The most egregious note from the Bruce Allen interview: “He also said last season that burgundy pants aren’t an option because Nike doesn’t make burgundy pants for the team.”
Sounds like the tail wagging the dog, but maybe it’s just proof of who the dog really is in today’s sports culture, huh?
Dan Snyder likes his fans to see this mashup look of “remember when we were good” graphic elements that if hearken back to the days when the team from DC didn’t have a myopic, tone deaf to public opinion owner and a boot licker as a GM.
Re: Fantasy Attendance Figures
I wonder if there is a difference between the articles written by folks who work directly for the athletic industrial complex (MLB, ESPN, Fox Sports, etc.) and those who write for more “independent” sources (i.e., employed by newspaper sports departments, AP, etc.).
Those who work directly for ESPN, MLB, etc. seem to have crossed the line from journalist to promoter in a lot of sports.
I can’t speak for MLB.com reporters. But to say that an ESPN beat reporter is a “promoter” is unfair. Adam Rubin, who covers the Mets for ESPNnewyork, is as good as it gets. Analytical, critical when he needs to be, etc.
Also, there’s this other guy I know who writes for ESPN. Covers some obscure beat — uniforms, I think…..
ask Red Barber what happens to announcers who announce the actual (small) attendance at a game.
I love how Paul’s devolution from uni-watcher to overpriced cotton shirt hawker is complete… 24 bucks for a tee?! …And that’s without any league licencing fees included?!?! YES PLEASE!! Good thing I’m made of money! I will gladly help Paul root against advertisers while wearing one for his site!!
The last time I checked, Paul was not Kim Jong Un. Wear it or don’t! Cripes.
Kim Jong-uni
*SNAP!
Someone make THAT shirt!
That *is* a good idea!
You must be new here. We’ve already covered this:
link
About the hockey shirt in particular:
1) It’s a five-color design.
2) I’m splitting the profits with Teespring and with my designer.
3) Jock tag adds a few bucks to the cost, because it has to be screened on separately. (This is why the goalie shirt costs less.)
If you still think the price is too high (or if you just like playing “Gotcha!” because that’s more fun than actually thinking about the reality of a given situation), I respect your position.
Strangely enough there was something else that bugged me about that quote from the game recap.
“[Mets starter Steven Matz] threw 7.2 scoreless innings”
No he didn’t! He threw ‘seven and two thirds’ innings, not ‘seven point two’, or ‘seven and two tenths’ innings. I know it’s just a convention of the nomenclature, but that’s always bugged me since I first got into baseball as a kid.
A silly thing, I know, and not on the same level as the attendance thing (hopefully that went without saying), but it’s just one of those things that’s always irked me.
Would you rather they said “Matz threw 7.667 scoreless innings”?
What’s wrong with 7 2/3? Are we worried someone might think, “Wow, he threw 72/3 innings; that’s 24 innings!”?
In reality it’s a bad convention to me, but there is no great alternative. It also doesn’t capture how much of the partial inning he really threw, rather than just counting outs. Again, it’s weird to me that you might say a pitcher threw 7+ innings if he pitched into the 8th but didn’t get anyone out, but wouldn’t say 7.2+ innings if he ran into trouble after getting the 2nd out. Maybe I’m just asking too much out of a box score.
I know this is a massive nitpick, but it’s just an irrational pet peeve of mine.
While 7 2/3 would be my preference I can see how some could think it’s clunky in an article. And while I don’t love 7.2 I can’t really think of a better shorthand to use.
Some ideas (off the top of my head) –
7(2)
7-2
7’2
7:2
7i2o
Are you against using a “K” for a strike out too? How about E6?
The longer the white tops over burgandy pants look stays away for the Washington football club… THE BETTER. Ugly!
Agreed. I’ve always (yes, even back to the 70’s) loved the gold pants.
I especially never cared for the 1 white, 1 gold stripe on the burgandy pants.
Bronco rookie numbers are listed link.
I could see why the home team would care to publish its “tickets sold”… er… attendance figures. Makes it seem like more people were there than actually were, plus they made money off the ticket sales regardless of whether the people show up or not (obviously, I’m sure they like them to arrive, for concession sales & perception). But I guess it’s just become a crutch for writers who didn’t attend the game (and for media outlets running the story created by a 3rd party) to flesh out the story and provide some ancillary details. I could see a beat reporter from the local paper providing a more accurate recap than, say, someone who writes the story using the box score.
Related story: About 5 years ago, the Cardinals had a Tues night game against the Nationals rained out that they planned to make up as a day-night doubleheader the following day. As I recall, they didn’t postpone it until a couple hours after the start time, when persistent rain and hail failed to let up. I had no plans to attend that game (though, incidentally, my sister did, but couldn’t attend the make-up).
At the time, I didn’t work Wednesdays, and a friend texted me mid-morning that he had an extra ticket, if I was interested. I met him down there; I think we ended up sitting in or near our actual seats (which were pretty good, just a few rows from the field in shallow right), but there were only a handful of other folks in our section. Man, was attendance sparse, even for a sunny day. The box score, of course, lists an attendance of just over 32,000; I located a story from the Thursday St. Louis Post-Dispatch by longtime Cardinals writer (and Babseball HOF member) Rick Hummel who actually noted that about 8600 of us physically showed up for the Wednesday matinee. The AP story (link) notes both the # of tickets sold (I suppose because it was one of the lowest-selling games in the 5+ year history of Busch III) as well as the actual attendance, so that’s something.
I guess it’s just become a crutch for writers who didn’t attend the game…
It has nothing to do with writers who didn’t attend the game. It’s a crutch that’s often being used by writers who *were* at the game (although it’s nice to see that the AP didn’t use that crutch in the game recap you linked to — thanks for that).
According to the LA Times story I linked above, tickets sold is relevant to revenue sharing which is why they use it.
link
But that’s bullshit. It explains why they care about the number of tickets sold (a real metric with real implications), but it doesn’t explain why they SUBSTITUTE that number for the number of fans in the house (a different metric with different implications).
If you want to report either, or both, go ahead. But don’t conflate one with the other.
Here’s the 1967 Science article about the design of the biohazard symbol: link
And an article about the evolution of the radiation symbol: link
Remember, it’s magenta not red.
Thanks for posting those!
Couldn’t Nike just buy all the advertising spots on the NBA jerseys and leave a swoosh there instead? Please? Tell these banks and airlines to go buzz off.
You have to love Moses’ sweater. That thing is perfect! The colors are awesome and it is brilliantly understated.
I noticed that the skater on the “official” club t-shirt is a left-handed shot (while the goalie is a righty). Was an official decision made to have all the athletes on the T-Shirt Club shirts be lefties? I know the idea was being discussed when the baseball short debuted, didn’t notice if a decision was ever announced. Either way, I think both shirts look pretty cool, lots of thought clearly went into both of them.
There was no discussion of handedness in either design. They just turned out the way they turned out.
Isn’t the goalie still considered a lefty shot?
It looks like Ted Williams is wearing two-in-ones in that picture. It can’t be, right?
A Pirate hit a comebacker that got stuck in his webbing, so he tossed the entire glove over.
Second time this has happened to Lester. I wish Nike would stick to apparel and leave equipment manufacturing to professionals.
Nearly two decades on, that inaugural Devil Rays design still sends shivers down my spine.
The original Devil Ray colors would have made for a spiffy tequila sunrise jersey, were it not the intellectual property of another team. Mind you, that didn’t stop the modern-day Rays from bogarting the Padres’ design.
Cheerleader Uniforms in the news.
link
Yup, was already in the Ticker a few days ago.
I remember when the ‘Rays’s logo was first introduced, it took me a while to discern what the black thing was. It looked like a jet (SR-71 Blackbird-ish) or something moving from left to right (not a manta moving right to left).
link
Regarding the Rams helmet – those oldest Riddell helmets had “clear” shells that were a little yellowed to begin with and got even more yellow over time. They were made of 3 pieces – the two sides were the clear material and were painted on the inside while that center ridge was a separate piece that was painted on the outer surface. That results in the ridge looking different from the sides.
Re: attendance. In April of 1979, the A’s played a home game. Announced ticket sales were 653, but only about 250 showed up. Percentage-wise, that’s a yuuuuge overstatement. About the 250 who did show, Herb Caen wrote “Can you name them?”
link
Thanks for making the goalie shirt a thing!
Looking at the number 24 on the all-original Mays jersey, it just doesn’t look right to me. I have never seen that exact shape number before and it certainly doesn’t match the photo they show. Anybody familiar with that font?