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Uni Watch

Jon Jay Honors Tony Gywnn with His Socks

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Click to enlarge

It’s a little hard to see in the photo shown above, but Padres centerfielder Jon Jay has been wearing socks featuring the image of former San Diego great Tony Gwynn. He goes low-cuffed, so you can’t see the socks under normal circumstances. But the socks occasionally get a cameo when Jay adjusts his pant legs after removing his shinguard following a base hit, as shown above.

Jay’s sock-borne tribute to Gwynn is probably common knowledge among Padres fans, but I didn’t learn about it until yesterday, when I read longtime Uni Watch reader/pal Tyler Kepner’s weekly “Extra Bases” column in The New York Times, which included the following:

A regrettable fashion trend in baseball, going back more than 20 years, is the way most players wear their pants: pulled down to their shoe tops, with no stirrups or socks showing.

“It’s been like that for a while,” said Jon Jay, an outfielder for the San Diego Padres. “But guys wear different stuff underneath.”

For Jay ”” for every game ”” that means socks depicting Tony Gwynn, the Hall of Famer who spent 20 seasons with the Padres through 2001. The socks are in the classic Padres colors ”” yellow, brown and orange ”” that Gwynn wore early in his career.

“Growing up, he was the best hitter around,” said Jay, like Gwynn a left-handed hitter. “I’ve always had a swing that went to left field, and he always hit that 6-hole ”” that was his patented move. I remember just always admiring his swing and the way he could hit the ball to all parts of the ballpark.”

These are the socks he’s wearing:

This isn’t the first time Jay has worn socks that aren’t exactly standard-issue MLB hose. Back in 2012, when he was with the Cardinals, he went through a period when he wore argyle socks (click to enlarge):

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Almost set to drop the puck: With the Stanley Cup Final(s) set to begin tonight, there had been some question about where the Sharks would wear the Final(s) patch, because their jersey is already a bit crowded due to the 25th-anniversary patch they’ve been wearing this season.

And now we apparently have our answer — the Cup patch will replace the anniversary patch:

And while we’re at it, here’s how the patch will look on the Penguins’ jersey, along with a shot of the Cup decal on a Pens helmet (the second and third photos can be clicked to enlarge):

(My thanks to Alex Hider for his assistance with this section.)

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For all fish photos, click to enlarge

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Culinary Corner: The Tugboat Captain and I recently saw the new Tilda Swinton movie, A Bigger Splash (very good — recommended), which includes a scene where Ralph Fiennes stuffs a whole fish full of aromatics and then grills it. We decided we wanted to try that ourselves. So on Saturday, that’s what we did.

We got a 4.1-pound red snapper. The Captain stuffed its cavity with lemon slices, thyme, oregano, scallions, garlic, capers, chili peppers, salt, pepper, and maybe a few other things I’m forgetting (see above), and then I used some kitchen twine to tie it up. We treated both sides with olive oil, salt, and pepper and then put it on the grill for about eight minutes per side. It didn’t quite seem done, so we gave it a few more minutes after that.

It turned out great, and was even more delicious when accompanied by the clams, asparagus, potato salad, and strawberry shortcake contributed by our friends Carrie, Rob, and Stephanie:

The thing about stuffing the fish cavity with herbs and citrus and such is that you don’t actually eat any of the stuffables — they’re just supposed to infuse flavor into the fish (same as when you put aromatics inside the cavity of a chicken that you’re roasting). Does that actually work? Tough to say — the fish was delicious, but I can’t honestly say I was getting any sense of those other flavors we stuffed in there. Would be interesting to do a blind taste test with two fish — one stuffed and one not — to see if there’s really a difference. Then again, maybe it’s better not to know, because the whole stuffing-and-tying process was fun, even if it didn’t contribute much of anything flavor-wise.

And yes, as you can see in some of the photos, there was Mets-themed beer. But that was just a happy coincidence, not intentional.

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Photo by Liz Clayton, click to enlarge

Hazy shade of winter summer: Yesterday we joined our friends Liz and Ed for lunch at a Uyghur restaurant in Brighton Beach (delicious). Afterward, we walked over to the beach, which was a very odd scene: A cold front seemed to be coming in right at that moment, bringing lots of fog with it. People were still in their sunbathing poses and carrying on with whatever they’d been doing, but the beach was suddenly coated with a soupy haze — I’d never seen anything like it on a summer day.

The following photos were taken by me, the Tugboat Captain, and Liz Clayton, respectively. All look much, much better if you click to enlarge:

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Baseball T-shirt 2nd chance reminder: We had some requests for the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s baseball-themed design (shown at right; click to enlarge) after I wore the tee in last week’s Friday Flashback video. So we’ve made it available again, but without the T-Shirt Club’s jock tag graphic.

The good news is that the lack of the jock tag means the shirt is now a bit less expensive, plus we’ve been able to add a hoodie option; the bad news is that this version of the shirt will not count toward the T-Shirt Club’s “Collect ’em all” status.

Again, the shirt is available here up through this Thursday.

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News: The Blue Jays broke out classic white-paneled caps for their 40th season celebration yesterday. … It was Mother’s Day in the Dominican Republic yesterday, so lots of Dominican players wore pink (thanks Phil). … Evil Neal points out that the Pirates’ Jung-ho Kang wears his sunglasses over his ears. … A Tampa Bay Rays bat boy was wearing a facemask on his helmet (from David Feigenbaum). … Awesome birthday present for Joe Gura, who got these Mariners striped socks at Sunday’s game. … Looks like former Met Kevin Mitchell (No. 7) had a different script during the 1986 reunion the other day. “His is more like what the 2016 Mets wear on their 1986 throwback,” says Steve Dodell. … The Saint Paul Saints donned special Prince tribute jerseys on Sunday. They even gave each player a “Prince symbol” of his own. … Chris Sakacs sends along some nifty photos from the National Ballpark Museum in Denver, including a seat from the Polo Grounds, an old Tiger Stadium ushers’ jacket, a Denver Bears uniform and a ticket stub from Ebbets Field. … Lots of awesome stuff at the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City, too (from Ryan Crawford). … Here are the team names and uniforms for the brand-new United Shore Professional Baseball League (from Jonathan Collura). … The South Bend Cubs ’Murica’d all over the place on Sunday (from Karl Greenfield). … All of the Bradenton Marauders went high-cuffed yesterday (from Derek Reese).. … Have you ever seen a softball player wear No. 00? Well, now you have (from James H. Jimenez).

Soccer News: Andrew Luck was sporting an old, numberless USMNT jersey at the Indy 500 yesterday. The blank number box looks a little goofy, no? (From Chris Viel.) … Lots and lots of diagonal stripes in Bradford City’s new kits (from Patrick Thomas). … Germany and Slovakia pushed color-on-color to the limit yesterday (from Kohlen Schaufler). … The championship game of the Mexican league, La Liga MX, featured a player wearing No. 286 (from Bob Hedrick).

Grab Bag: Someone in the NBA’s merch department got a little happy with the trigger finger (from Terry Harbaugh). … Spectators at the very first Indy 500 could have paid 10 cents for this sweet illustrated program (from BSmile). … These are awesome: umbrellas shaped like NFL helmets (from Jordan Mayblum).. … Boston College University? Whoops. (from James Gilbert). … Time to vote for NASCAR’s paint schemes of the week. … Here’s a story about how Brown University’s men’s lacrosse team, which just lost in the national semifinals, calls itself “Brown State” as a link to a blue-collar mindset (from Tris Wykes). … Somebody at a bank was wearing a full Orlando Magic uniform (from Chris Flinn).

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Today is Memorial Day. If you’re mourning the loss of a fallen service member, please accept my condolences. If you have to work today, thanks for keeping the world spinning while the rest of us get to enjoy a day off. Peace. ”” Paul

 
  
 
Comments (41)

    Memorial Day: Although my dad’s family has ancestors who fought in every American conflict from King Philip’s War in colonial times up to WWII, our family history included only one battle death. (Lots of colorful stories of wounds, including a well-documented bullet in the butt for a chaplain on Grant’s staff at Shiloh, but just the one death.) My dad’s cousins who’ve taken up genealogy discovered a few years ago that our ancestor did not in fact die in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, but actually deserted before the battle, changed his name, and eventually served one term in Congress. Memorial Day is kind of a let-down now: Instead of a fallen hero, we have a congressman.

    That haze is what we call the June Gloom around these parts. Also known as the marine layer. Regular yearly occurrence here. Moves in at the beach, then you get a quarter mile inland and it’s gone.

    “The following photos were taken by me, the Tugboat Captain, and Liz Clayton, respectively. All look much, much better if you lick to enlarge”

    Does this only work with touch screens?

    Not sure what you mean — all the photos are click-to-enlarge-able.

    Depending on your browser settings, you may have to click again on the enlarged photo in order to see it at full size, because your browser may be initially compressing it to fit into your browser window.

    Al found an excellent typo: “All look much, much better if you lick to enlarge:” Maybe that would work better with the food photos.

    “lick to enlarge”

    I got a mouthful of dust from my monitor but the pics didn’t enlarge ;)

    My brother studied in Xinjiang a few years ago and still talks about the food. The literal translation for napkin in Uyghur is “filled with oil.” Did you eat the langman hand pulled noodles or the lamb and rice thing?

    Had a chance a few years ago while on a business trip to visit the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City. A place to put on the list of places to visit there.

    The wife and I were on our honeymoon on the Isle of Palms in SC (20 years ago this week) and a fog rolled in so thick that we couldn’t see each other when 10 feet apart. It was creepy yet cool at the same time. Have never seen it again.

    Totally tangential, but: I never paid attention to ol’ Blue’s shoes before.

    New Balance fit my feet very nicely; if my job involved mostly standing, then running in spurts any direction, for 3 hours about every day for six months, I’d wear them.

    So, do umps choose their own footwear? Do they get it free? Is there a contract covering them en toto or is it individual?

    Well, one plus of today’s special unis – Paul’s favorite fratboy can’t force the Mets to wear blue.

    Personally, though, what I’d like to see is plain khaki or olive drab tops. The modern digicamo crap comes off as pondering to the current generation of troops, and glossing over those who came before that we should be memorializing on this day. Granted, I’d prefer to just have MLB wear their normal uniforms, but if they insist on doing this stuff, solid khaki and OD would be a nice change of pace.

    How about a team making olive and khaki their colors? I can totally see the Padres doing this, what with their lack of a cohesive uni scheme and San Diego’s rich military history. I think an OD cap with a khaki SD would be bitchin. It’d look better than brown and orange, anyway.

    How about a team making olive and khaki their colors?

    Because we need to have a team that glorifies the military *every day,* instead of just on certain holidays?

    It’s just a color scheme. It’s not glorifying anything. If someone wears khakis on casual Friday they’re just khakis.

    Looks like some Red Sox players are taking advantage of the Memorial Day specials to wear black TruSox. At least Betts and Bogaerts.

    Does it seem like the Braves and the Indians wearing camo today to honor American military that lost their lives is a bit odd? Native Americans killed American soldiers and American soldiers killed Native Americans. They’re “honoring” (or claim to be) both sides of some wars.

    Let’s just say that the phenomenon of sports teams wearing camouflage brings with it lots of ironies, incongruities, and cognitive dissonance, including the issue you’ve just raised.

    Well, there’s that. And also the American Indians who served and died as members of the armed forces of the United States.

    I’m always surprised that with your incredible taste and skill for good food you also routinely pair it with Budweiser. Have you always just been a light pilsner type guy?

    In the Germany/Slovakia soccer game, where the two teams look pretty identical on the right hand side of the screen, do they not look much more different on the left hand side of the screen? Looks like it’s pretty clearly black shirts/white shorts vs blue shirts/blue shorts over that side. I’m thinking more of a contrast issue on the screen than indistinguishable uniforms on the field.

    I know I’m in the minority, but I dig the camo caps and I buy one every year. However, I think they’d be more appropriate for Armed Forces Day (or Canadian Forces Day). For Memorial Day, I’d prefer a dignified patch on the cap, perhaps a patriotic shield design or a poppy.

    The Blue Jays are home for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Brilliant scheduling.

    So you think they’ve gotten it all wrong … but you support it anyway by purchasing the merch.

    Obviously, it’s your money, and you should spend it however you choose. But why support something financially — and thereby make it more likely that it will continue to be done next year, the year after, etc. — if you think they’re getting it wrong?

    If you want to support the charity in question, why not do so directly, without using MLB as the intermediary, esp. if you think MLB is getting it all wrong?

    Just curious.

    Like I said, I dig the caps themselves. It’s not meant to be a statement. I’m just buying something I like and wear.

    Apropos of nothing: Yesterday afternoon I went to Coney Island for the first time in my life and experienced the same weather phenomenon Paul described (and he and his friends photographed) above. It was jarring to me to go from sweltering to being chilled within moments, and I wondered if it was typical for the area. I’m glad to read Paul’s story and know that it wasn’t.

    I just realized something…

    Ever since the New York Rangers reintroduced the lace-up collar in 1997, there’s only been one team to win the Stanley Cup while wearing a lace-up collar: the 2011 Boston Bruins.

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