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Mood Indigo

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Yesterday was Father’s Day, so MLB teams wore blue-themed uniforms and accessories, along with dark-grey caps — basically the same as Mother’s Day, but with the pink swapped out for blue. It marked the first time MLB has worn special unis for this holiday (in the past, players just wore blue ribbons and wristbands).

A few notes:

•  Teams that normally wear blue jersey graphics, like the Mets, Dodgers, Royals, Blue Jays, Rays, and Rangers, didn’t look radically different than they usually do:

• One team deviated from the all-blue theme: the Giants, who wore orange chest lettering and back numbering. Why? Because they didn’t want to look like their rivals, the Dodgers. Yes, that seems ridiculous, but whatever:

• For some reason the Angels insisted on wearing their red softball tops, which looked particularly brutal with the blue lettering and the grey caps:

•  It was a Sunday home game for the Padres, so they wore their blue G.I. Joe jerseys — but with light-blue lettering:

•  As has been the case for the other holidays, the circle-R trademark symbol that normally appears on the Cubs’ home jersey was not there yesterday (click to enlarge):

•  Lots of players went high-cuffed with light-blue socks or — in at least one case — light-blue stirrups. But some high-cuffed players just wore their standard-issue team hosiery:

•  At least one catcher — Martin Maldonado of the Brewers — wore light-blue catching gear:

•  A few Adidas-outfitted players in the Reds/Astros game (and maybe in other games as well, not sure) wore paisley-patterned accessories. I guess the idea was that a paisley necktie is the typical clichéd Father’s Day gift (these two shots courtesy of @PatDStat; click to enlarge):

•  As was the case on Mother’s Day and Memorial Day, sleeve patches were rendered in the prevailing color of the day, with one glaring and predictable exception: Wahoo. Now, I can think of some good reasons why Wahoo should not be rendered in blue (or pink, or camouflage) — but those reasons are really arguments for why Wahoo should not be used on the uniform at all.

Finally, no wrap-up of this sort would be complete without a look at the Diamondbacks. I think this could arguably be considered an improvement over their usual look:

Can’t wait for the next MLB-wide holiday uniform program? Don’t fret — Independence Day is only two weeks away.

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With their hearts on their sleeves: Last Monday the Cavs became the first team ever to wear sleeved jerseys in an NBA Finals game. Last night they topped that by becoming the first team to win an NBA championship while wearing sleeved jerseys.

Given the other historic aspects of this title (no NBA team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals, and no Cleveland team had won a championship since 1964) and the special role that the BFBS sleeved jerseys played (the Cavs wore the sleeves in Game 5 specifically at LeBron James’s insistence), it’s hard to imagine that the Cavs will retire this jersey design in the foreseeable future, especially now that they’ve had the jerseys tailored to the players’ liking. It’s worth asking if this might even save the sleeved format when Nike takes over the league’s uniform program in 2017.

Another Cavs-related note: They reportedly had a 16-piece jigsaw puzzle of the O’Brien Trophy — one piece for each of the 16 postseason wins needed to win the title — that they used for motivation throughout their title run. Interesting! No photos, alas.

Congrats to all of our long-suffering Cleveland readers. Savor your moment — you’ve earned it.

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Tickle me this: There’s a new documentary, called Tickled, about an underground sport called competitive endurance tickling (yes, really). The trailer is shown above, there’s an informative review here, and there’s a good interview with the filmmakers here.

Haven’t seen it yet, but I plan to, in part because there’s a uni-related subtext: The competitors all wear Adidas! Look:

Just for the record: They don’t switch to Nike this fall — that’s next fall. Ditto for the jersey ads.

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T-Shirt Club ”” time running out: In case you missed it last week, the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club’s third limited-edition design of 2016 is now available for your consideration — but only for two more days.

As you’ll recall, we’re going one sport at a time this year, and we already covered baseball and hockey. Our latest shirt takes us to the hardcourt, as we’re launching two different basketball designs — one showing a home uniform and one showing a road uniform (click to enlarge):

Pretty cool, right? I really love seeing that racing stripe uniform concept done up in Uni Watch colors, and ditto for the ABA-style ball.

Important: Although green and grey mock-ups are shown above, we’re offering both of these designs in four different shirt colors (green, grey, black, and white), and also in two different styles (short-sleeved and long-sleeved).

Here’s where you can order the home and road designs. You only need to purchase one of them — the home or the road — in order to maintain your 2016 “Collect ’Em All” eligibility (although you’re welcome to purchase both, obviously).

As always, big ups to my Teespring partner, Bryan Molloy, for his great work on these. I’m very happy with the way they turned out.

One more time: The home shirt is available here and the road shirt is avaialble here. Thanks.

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Culinary Corner: Three months ago, almost to the day, the Tugboat Captain and I were walking to my birthday party and spotted a perfectly decent paella pan that someone had left on the curb. I’d never had the pleasure of owning a paella pan, and it seemed like a nice birthday present from the world at large, so we grabbed it and stashed it in the trunk of my car, which was parked around the corner. Then we continued on to the party.

A week or so later I remembered that there was a paella pan in my trunk. I retrieved it, cleaned it, put it in a cupboard, and then mostly forgot about it until two weeks ago, when the Captain received the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated, which features a recipe for making paella outdoors on the grill — something I’d never even thought of doing before. But hey, I now own a paella pan! So we decided to try it on Saturday, and it was a tremendous success.

A few of the ingredients — chicken thighs and chorizo — were lightly seared on the grill rack before being added to the paella, but most of the cooking took place in the pan itself. In other words, we used the grill more like a stove, something I haven’t done much of over the years.

We followed the Cook’s Illustrated recipe pretty closely, using arborio rice, shrimps, clams, onions, roasted peppers, peas, garlic, saffron, clam juice, sherry, and more. It all turned out surprisingly well, and we even ended up with a decent socarrat — the browned, crunchy bottom crust that’s the mark of a truly excellent paella.

Here are some photos (if you can’t see the slideshow below, click here):

I’ll definitely be making this again. If you want to learn more about the recipe, check out this video.

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News: On Saturday, the Rays and Giants threw back to the late ’70s ”” or, at least Giants did. The Rays wore their fauxbacks ”” including batting helmets! Lots of Giants went the extra mile by wearing Frank Robinson-style extra high stirrups. However, Brett points out that the Giants didn’t wear the correct logo on their cap. … Justin Turner’s 3D batting helmet logo suffered some damage Saturday night (from James E. Siddall). … The Blue Jays and Orioles went color-on-color on Saturday (from Funhouse). … For some reason, Cleveland’s Trevor Bauer was wearing Danny Salazar’s BP jersey in the dugout during the game Saturday night (from Andrew J). … Pick a side, McEnroe (from Peter Sobieski). … The A’s supported their fellow Oaklanders by wearing Golden State Warriors shirts during BP yesterday (from Richard Paloma).. … XYZ: Yankees OF Carlos Beltran forgot to zip up before his an at-bat yesterday (from Jeffrey Bovitz). … A group of fans dressed up as the 1908 Cubs at Wrigley yesterday. Pretty good effort, all the way down to the socks (from Griffin Smith). … Jean Ross, the mother of MLBers Tyson and Joe, has a Frankenjersey for both of her sons (from Andrew Hoenig). … Andre Dawson was an honorary base coach for the independent Frontier League’s Joliet Slammers this weekend. J. Colbert points out that Dawson was wearing pants with the MLB logo rendered in orange on the belt tunnel ”” did he get them from the Marlins? … The Gateway Grizzlies wore Batman jerseys Saturday night. … The Irish Hills Leprechauns of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League have some pretty crazy camo jerseys (from Paxton Rembis). … Here’s a very exhaustive breakdown of Coastal Carolina’s record by uni combo (from Rob Anderson). … Speaking of the Chanticleers, they have football-style pride stickers on their batting helmets (from Dustin Semore). … Here’s the logo for the 2017 Midwest League All-Star Game (from Cody). … The Reds recently called up pitcher Cody Reed, who wears goggles — the same pair he’s had since high school! Additional info here (from Patrick O’Neill).

Soccer News: When the 2016 Euro kits were revealed, France was slated to wear a white kit with both blue and red sleeves. However, the white kit they wore yesterday was all-white. Apparently, according to UEFA rules, sleeves must be in the same color (thanks to everyone who shared). …Switzerland’s jerseys looked like Swiss cheese yesterday. … Orlando City SC’s fans coordinated for a rainbow-out during last night’s game in honor of the Pulse nightclub victims (from Ben). Orlando City’s Brek Shea also wore rainbow cleats for the game (from Michael Driscoll). … The Washington Spirit of the United Women’s Soccer League had a gay pride ribbon on the field in honor of the Pulse shooting victims (from @yellawkt). … Check out this Star Wars-themed soccer kit (from Hugo Boutin). … New kits for Millwall (from Josh Hinton). … Neil MacLeod received this Father’s Day card yesterday. “As you can see, it shows a soccer jersey on the front and came with various stickers to customize the design. Please forgive my son’s efforts — he’s only three!” … DIYer Wafflebored made a 1972 Manchester City replica jersey for his brother.

Grab Bag: Cool graphic of the history of NBA Game 7s, with period-appropriate logos (from John Sabol). … Did anyone else remember that O.J. Simpson wore No. 36, not his familiar 32, during the preseason of his rookie year? Here’s why (from Josh Harris). … Happy Father’s Day! Jordan Speith celebrated by wearing Steph Curry’s “Dad Shoes.” … Strange but true: Jelly Belly once sponsored a cycling team (from Kristopher Sharpe).

• • • • •

What Paul did last night a few nights ago: On Friday night I saw a bunch of music, including the singer-songwriter Megan Reilly. Nothing especially remarkable about that — I’ve seen her several times over the years, and I’m sure I’ll see her several more. She’s not one of my tip-top-favorite artists (more of a middle-of-the-packer), but I really like her band, and she has a few songs that I particularly love, two of which have been echoing in my head since Friday’s show — first one, then the other, then back to the first one, and so on.

Here are those two songs (one of which is a fairly radical reworking of a Roy Orbison tune). Enjoy:

 
  
 
Comments (74)

    My son’s baseball team did an on-field promotion with the aforementioned Joliet Slammers on Friday night, and there were a few interesting/odd items that stood out. First, the independent Frontier League team has not one, but two “official” mascots: a dog (Spikes?) and what appears to be a crow (a “jailbird”, as the Slammers is a reference to the nearby Joliet Correctional Facility, of TV and movie fame). Several players (from both teams) seemed to be wearing in matching batting helmets.

    Also, of note to the Ticker entry, Andre Dawson was to be a first base and third base coach during the game. Has anyone else ever heard of this? An unrelated former player acting as an official coach during the game for one (or both?) teams?? (Being a low minors team, benched players are used as the first base coaches during games, and only 2 umpires are utilized.) Is this a standard thing in the minors?

    (That should be “non-matching”. The joys of typing on a phone.)

    The Slammers did a similar thing last year with Pete Rose. The bird mascot is named J.L. Bird.

    The sky blue looked awful on most of the uniforms and made many teams so monotone (like the Mets) it was really awful. The teams that don’t normally have blue (Cardinals, Reds) were even worse. I don’t/won’t buy these “special” things with my free $20 Tmo certificate this week.

    Agreed, the blue accents looked horrible.

    I might be able to understand how MLB might want to cater to mother’s on Mother’s Day with pink accents since most sports seem male-dominated and it is a way of recognizing their mothers and female fans. I don’t think this is any way necessary for male fans. Maybe I am just speaking for myself, but I think us guys enjoy the sport for what it is. We don’t need gimmicky themes or recognition. If anything I tend to think it takes away from the traditional experience.

    I think us guys enjoy the sport for what it is. We don’t need gimmicky themes or recognition.

    So true! That’s why you never see male fans wearing camouflage jerseys, or stars/stripes jerseys, or BP caps, or…

    When it comes to being suckers for stupid-ass merch-driven uniform gimmicks, I think we can safely say there isn’t much of a gender gap.

    The baby blue lettering definitely made the Padres look less crappy than usual with their outdated Navy blueberry camo. But that’s still an ugly baseball jersey.

    The Father’s Day D-Backs did look better than usual. Goes to show that there’s nothing wrong with their dark gray road unis as such. What’s wrong with those unis is how badly designed the rest of the uniform elements are. Dark lettering on a dark jersey just looks bad. Render the jersey script and back lettering in a light color that offers contrast with the dark base fabric, and the graphite road unis would look just fine.

    Irish Hills Leprechauns’ jerseys have been getting a lot of facetime on here lately. That picture was taken in my hometown at my old high school’s field that now serves as the home field for the Lima Locos.

    Yeah, that was weird, briefly thinking that someone had actually named a child Bauer Outage.

    Also in proofreading, in the last soccer item, that should be a replica jersey, not a replace jersey.

    FC Cincinnati players wore a black armband on Saturday night to honor the Orlando shooting victims.

    I like that the Giants were somewhat non-compliant and their 70’s throwbacks were great.

    Hats off the LeBron James for having a significant impact on uniforms.

    *The good: shortening the length of shorts. A much needed change to basketball. It is, surprisingly, part of his strategic attempt to influence the culture of basketball. link

    *The bad: BFBS short sleeved jerseys, but at least they’re tailored.

    I’ve always liked light blue uniforms, which is unusual for a USC Trojan. I’ve thought the recent ucla football uniforms have gotten too dark and hopefully with the switch to Under Armour they will get the blue right. The Chargers light blue should be their main uniform. I’m kind of surprised a team doesn’t have light blue as their primary color. I think a light blue cap would be great. Seems like baseball is pretty boring with their hats and colors, with only Oakland not have a red, black, or blue (navy or royal) hat.

    1) The Blue Jays and Orioles did color on color on Friday night also (Orioles in black & Jays in Blue)
    2)Re: Cleveland championships ~ Lake Erie Monsters are the proud AHL affiliate of the Columbus Blue Jackets and play in Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena won the league championship this year (about the same time the finals strarted)

    The Lake Eerie Monsters may be proud, but they aren’t a major league team. I’ve never lived in Cleveland, but I would have to assume that the Cavaliers’ championship means a lot more to a lot more people than the Monsters’ AHL championship.

    The first pic of the Diamondbacks uniform kind of reminds me of the pre-1900 uniforms in color, just the imagery of the drawings and such that I have seen of the era.

    The link for the OJ number 36 explanation is blank for me, but I can see the page before and after.

    I saw something this weekend about cooking paella on a grill and was thinking I need to give it a try. I am currently reteaching myself how to cook on charcoal while expanding my skills. Now to find a paella pan on the side of the road I can use…

    you can’t. The story alone already makes it worth more than one you could pick up in the store.

    I actually liked the Angel’s red tops with baby blue. In my opinion it was the best look of the day. The rest of the teams all look the same in dull blue white or grey. Except the Giants, of course. That was awful looking.

    Will the Blue Jays be wearing special Canada Day jersey’s on the 1st?

    Jelly Belly continues to sponsor a domestic professional cycling team. Longest running pro team in N America, I believe.

    link

    I really liked seeing my Cubs’ special uniforms. If they ever wanted to eliminate red from their uniforms and use only shades of blue, this would be how to do it. I would ditch the NOBs and reverse the dark/powder blue on the numbers, though, with powder blue being the border.

    And the D-Backs looked perfect. The dark gray hats everyone was wearing fit perfectly with their look.

    I thought the Diamondbacks would look fine if the baby blue was the teal color that they are using. And lighten up the grey somewhat.

    IF mlb forces fathers day gear on us next season. Why not got the full baby blue road unis, like in the 70’s? It would be a good test run if teams want to go back to it. The home teams can keep this years design.

    This hoops Uni-Watch shirt is the first one that I have seriously mulled over he possibility of taking food off of my kids table so that I can buy one. Well-done to the art department.

    Glad you like!

    I don’t want your kids to go hungry. So instead *you* can go hungry! Worth it for a good T-shirt, right?

    ;)

    Agreed, KC (even though I don’t have any kids of my own) …
    That green version has me contemplating come my next paycheck …
    Great work, Paul.
    -C.

    Glad you like! But remember, you can’t wait until your next paycheck (unless it comes tomorrow), because these shirts are only available until 11pm Eastern tomorrow night!

    Note that the France Euro jerseys are not all white. The sleeves are still tonal, just a very light version. You can see the contrast in the original tweet linked:

    link
    link

    More images where the contrast can be seen:
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    link

    That’s a real good looking paella. Wondering about the inclusion of the peas. Do they add much to the dish? Or is more for the presentation.

    Lots of paella recipes include peas. Would not have been my first choice, frankly, but they were fine, and they definitely added a welcome dash of color.

    Peas are common not just in paella, but in many rice dishes like the Venetian risi e bisi which is fun to say, fun to cook and fun to eat.

    Don’t forget the southern staple “hopping-John”. Peas and rice, sometimes served with gravy and/or butter.

    Didn’t realize MLB teams forgo anniversary patches for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and other specially-themed jerseys.

    Sweet paella pan, what a solid find. I had to buy mine, and it’s still not as nice as yours. From what I know, I think paella was a traditional Sunday dish where you would take your leftover from the week and add them to saffron rice. If I have good grilled leftovers or just good leftovers, I love making a good paella out of them (leftover brats or Italian sausages make a great addition).

    The hardest part for me is getting the rice to cook all the way through. I tried to access the cooks illustrated recipe but it’s behind a paywall. Did you pre-cook the rice or add it raw?

    Raw.

    Although the CI recipe is behind a paywall, the video that I linked to (beneath the photo slideshow) is not. It has all the info you need. Here:
    link

    Late proofreading: “On Saturday, the Rays and Giants threw back to the late ’70s – or, at least Giants did.”

    And more Bay Area pride – Sharks in A’s jerseys: link

    I thought you were going to show the diversity of sports with the T-shirt club’s cartoon players. And yet, they are all left-handed. We right-handers are tired of being discriminated against. This is a clear case of PC culture run amok and reverse handedism and denial of hundreds of years of culture in which everyone was right handed and everything was great.

    Paul,

    We need you to come down to the police station to answer some questions about your whereabouts on 4-18-2013.

    link

    Congratulations to the Cavs! One thing disappointed me last night, but I had a feeling they would do it as they won the last game wearing them.

    Sleeved jerseys (that do not even look like basketball uniforms) should be used just in regular season games. I am open to teams wearing their 3rd jerseys during the finals (if they look like basketball uniforms). These sleeved jerseys with the big logo on the front should be off limits in the finals. As you can tell, not a fan of them.

    The greatest moment in Cavs history, photos to live in immortality, and they are wearing the BFBS t-shirts. Would have been much sweeter in the wine and gold, wearing the proper road unis that say “Cleveland” on the front.

    Thanks for the kind words about us long suffering Cleveland sports fans. Let me tell you this feels so strange!

    A few quick hitters:

    A) Thanks for the Megan Reilly heads-up. Her music is awesome and what a hottie.
    B) We’ve been over and over this. Some of you hate Chief Wahoo and many of us in Northeast Ohio don’t. If they choose to change his color for a special jersey, so what. They shouldn’t be changing any of our colors anyways.
    C) Can’t believe I’m the first to comment on this – “shrimps”. No way – shrimp is both singular and plural.

    1) Glad you like Megan Reilly’s music, but it should be possible to express that thought without calling her “a hottie.” If you’re compelled to make gratuitously leering remarks about female musicians (or male ones, for that matter), there are plenty places on the internet that should be able to meet your needs, but don’t do that again on Uni Watch. Thanks.

    2) Regarding Wahoo, yes, you’re right – we’ve been “over and over this.” And we’ll keep going over it as long as Wahoo exists. The fact that “many of [you] in Northeast Ohio” are OK with him does not negate the issue or make it go away.

    3) It might surprise you to learn that “shrimps” is an acceptable plural noun (look it up). I happen to prefer it with the “s,” because it sounds more festive, more plentiful, more celebratory – just more! It’s like there’s an implied exclamation point.

    It’s been 2 days, and as a native Clevelander, I still can’t believe the Cavs won. Not a fan of the BFBS sleeves, but it got us over the 52 year hump. Feels pretty good!

    Imagine.
    Cavs won it all with BFBS sleeved shirts.

    What if the Browns win it with the “Browns” pant stripes and the Indians win one with Chief Wahoo? Would the Uni-verse in Believeland be forever tainted?

    I’m not a fan of the special holiday uniforms, but I have to admit: Some of these teams actually look pretty good with the light blue. It worked really well with the Red Sox classic uniforms. The Angels and Giants, however, just looked downright awful. All in all, this uniform nerd is entertained.

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