[Editor’s Note: Paul is on vacation until May 30. Today we have a guest entry from Brad Eenhuis, who’s going to fill us in on a DIY project he recently completed. Enjoy.]
By Brand Eenhuis
I love jerseys from all sports and love basketball shorts as well. In the past, I would take my ideas for custom shorts to a local seamstress and have her sew them for me. I hated waiting for my stuff, worrying that they might not get all of my little details correct, and it was also getting expensive. So I recently took a couple of sewing lessons from a local shop and stole my Mom’s sewing machine, which hadn’t been used since the 1980s, from her basement.
I’ve put my new skills to work with a few DIY projects. This is my latest one, and while it’s not perfect, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Here’s the deal: I’ve always loved the Phoenix Suns’ old shorts from the 1970s and ’80s. Loved the half-sunburst on the side — just thought it was cool. I could never find them available for purchase, so I decided to make them myself.
Surprisingly enough, it took several months of trips to Goodwill to finally find a pair of plain white shorts:
For the graphics, I was going to buy tackle twill, since it’s the easiest to cut and sew, but I didn’t want to weigh the shorts down (plus I wasn’t sure if I could actually do this project successfully, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on tackle twill, which usually runs $15 a yard). So I decided to use material from other clothes at Goodwill, using lightweight dry-fit material. Luckily, Goodwill sorts stuff by color, and they have half-price items each week . So I got an orange dry-fit golf shirt and a purple dry-fit workout short for my fabric. The whole project came in at under $10.
That was the good news. But I found that cutting and sewing dry-fit was a challenge. Nothing wants to cut nice and neat. Still, I managed to cut out the sun, the outline, and the “Suns” lettering, which was the most tedious part:
Not perfect by any means, but I’m very pleased. Can’t beat $10, either. Now I’m looking for my next project.
By Alex Hider
Baseball News: Indians P Trevor Bauer wrote “BD 911” on the mound during last night’s game against the Cubs. There’s been a lot of speculation that the code means “Bush Did 9/11,” but Bauer says he wrote “BD 91.1,” which is “a personal thing of importance to me”(from Mike Chamernik). … Speaking of Bauer, his helmet decal was trying to come loose last night (from Derek Brownlee). … More from the Mariners’ upcoming Turn Ahead the Clock Night: A look back at the original TATC game and Ken Griffey Jr.’s influence on the uniforms (from Jeremy Brahm). … Astros players worked out in black T-shirts honoring the victims of the Santa Fe High School shooting yesterday (from Ignacio). … ESPN flipped the Red Sox and Orioles logos in one of their recent stories (from Andrew Cosentino). … The Sussex County Miners will wear Star Wars jerseys on June 9 (from John Cerone). … Also from John Cerone, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats will host Poutine Fest and wear Franco-American jerseys on June 23. … Mark Miller snagged this Aaron Judge bobblehead given away by the Stockton Ports. Judge grew up in the Stockton area, so he’s dressed in his Linden High School uniform — a school of which Mark is an alumnus! … Not sure if this was ticked yet or not, but the Hickory Crawdad wore pink for Mother’s Day two weekends ago (from Phil). … Vanderbilt’s Ethan Paul had a 3D batting helmet logo snafu during yesterday’s game (from Jonathan Schexnayder and Joe Moroney). … Former SEC Commissioner Mike Slive died last week. The conference is memorializing him with a sign at the SEC Baseball Tournament this week (from Phil). … Darien High School in Connecticut has some pretty clean uniforms and nice striped stirrups (from John Dankosky).
Football News: Looks like Vicis, who up until now has exclusively made football helmets, will now be working with the military (from Patrick O’Neill). … We have our first look at Johnny Manziel in a Hamilton Tiger-Cats uniform (from Griffin Smith). … This is a good feature on William & Mary’s equipment manager (from Tom Turner).
NFL News: The Niners are reportedly unveiling new throwback uniforms tonight. Phil will have the full recap in tomorrow’s edition. … Speaking of the Niners, rookie WR Dante Pettis was photographed in an old jersey with truncated sleeve stripes in Rookie Premier this weekend. Not only that, the Niners can’t even keep the jerseys consistent on their website (from Scott Seeger). … The Giants signed WR Russell Shepard yesterday, meaning there are now 10 sets of at least two players on the team that share a last name (from Bryan Prouse). … Former Rams DE Robert Quinn was traded to the Dolphins this offseason, so this camp flier got creative to photoshop him in Miami colors (from Brian Spiess). … Speaking of the Dolphins, looks like they got practice jerseys to match their new jerseys (from Zachary Cintron and @Frankie__Doodle). … Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s logo seems to be inspired by both the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears (from Mark R. Hirschfeld). …
Hockey News: The Memorial Cup, awarded annually to Canada’s top junior hockey team, is celebrating its 100th season this year, so “100” was painted on the ice behind the net (from Wade Heidt). … The ECHL’s newest team is the Newfoundland Growlers. … A Minnesota company, Elevate Hockey, is making hockey sticks with multiple bends in them, which is supposed to allow for more leverage, a quicker release and a faster shot (from Mike Chamernik). … Lots of patches for the Acadie-Bathurst Titan (from @burkeman78).
Soccer News: Brandi Chastain was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame on Monday, and just like Ronaldo’s statue, her plaque doesn’t bear much resemblance (from Kary Klismet). … Spanish club Sevilla has signed an apparel deal with Nike (from Josh Hinton). … Adidas will continue to sponsor the UEFA Champions League until 2021. That mostly means they’ll continue to make the league’s official game ball. … More from Josh Hinton: Wil Ohler, a St. Louis high school goalkeeper with leukemia, is accepting donations of soccer balls to donate to other sick children with a passion for soccer. “What I thought was interesting, aside the awesome charitable act, was the variety of brands and balls that he received,” Josh said. More on Wil here.
Grab Bag: Robert Indiana, a famed pop artist and the man who designed the famous basketball floor at Milwaukee’s MECCA Arena, died Saturday at 89 (from Adam Herbst). … If you miss NFL helmet carts, maybe racing helmet carts can help scratch that itch. Here it is in action (from Arwien Reza and Jake Young). … This is what USA Lacrosse will be wearing in the world championships later this year (from Dan Siegel and María Canales).
“Adidas will continue to sponsor the UEFA Champions League until 2021”
Probably better phrased as “continue to be a UCL advertiser” because advertiser, not sponsor, and there’s more than one advertiser (besides providing the ball, they also outfit the officials).
“Not sure if this was ticked yet or not…”
I like the term “ticked” in this usage. Not sure if that was intentional, but I like it.
To provide some proofread re: my ticker submission. At one time during its 100 year history, Memorial Cup was always going to be awarded to a Canadian team. May not always be the case now.
Of the 60 major junior hockey teams that compete for the championship in the 3 major junior leagues, 8 of those teams are in the United States.
The Brandi Chastain plaque is such a fail on so many levels. However, the hilarious Twitter feed where someone claimed it was modeled by Gary Busey, even got a response from Gary Busey!
Must’ve been the same artist that did the Ronaldo bust.
link
Ooops. Sorry. Proof that I never read the Soccer section!
I have no doubt that Bauer knew what he was doing as he seems to love to stir controversy on twitter, but a leading theory is that he was referencing the “Beautiful Dreadnought” heavy metal radio show on Case Western University’s 91.1 FM
Given how eager MLB teams are to wear camo, it seems odd that there was no league-wide soldier dress-up on Saturday. Armed Forces Day (annually the third Saturday in May) is the one day officially designated where wearing soldier costumes to honor the troops would actually be sort of appropriate. Far as I can tell, MLB didn’t even tweet about Armed Forces Day on Saturday. I know some teams did in-stadium ceremonies to honor those serving in uniform, but the crickets from the league and the absence of league-wide displays definitively prove the cynical emptiness of MLB’s other displays of camo and support-the-troops pandering. We’ll see all kinds of misplaced honor-the-troops virtue-signaling on Memorial Day, which is supposed to be the day to honor our war dead, but the league just ignored the troops on the day officially set aside to honor them.
Fairly evident that it is just an excuse to sell merchandise. There are far better ways that these organizations can honor/support the men and women who serve than wearing a gimmicky uniform a few days a year.
What they really should do is wear link. That would be historical and educational, unlike the silly camouflage.
I’m not a fan of alternate uniforms, but much like when teams break out the Negro League uniforms, I’d be in favor of teams doing this.
I’m a veteran. Constantly get “thank you for your service” on Memorial day. The smart aleck response is “I did’t die while I was in the service”.
Memorial Day: Pray, give thanks for those who died while in service.
Veterans Day: Give thanks for those who served during time of war.
Armed Forces Day: Celebrates our Armed Services in general.
Noel, thank you for your … I mean, agreed. With the exception that Veterans Day is for all veterans, not just those who served in wartime. Folks of my generation who served in uniform mainly did so during the Cold War or the peacekeeping missions after Desert Storm. Their service is worthy of honor as well.
The linked article on the 49ers throwbacks mentions they will replace the black uniforms! Also, some of the early shots of their 2017 draft class also had them in the old jerseys with the awful stripes. Curious.
The Astros’ shirts are actually a dark green.
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Dark Green and yellow are the school’s colors.
So the Dolphins already updated their practice jerseys to match the game jerseys (some teams’ practice jerseys are based on old templates), yet they couldn’t get an updated game jersey to the rookie premiere?
Wondering why so many rookie premiere jerseys are outdated? Are the teams that behind? Or is it the NFLPA?
Not bad with the shorts, Brad. I like the texture of the different materials, even if the dry-fit was hard to cut. That’s awesome you took a few classes and learned a new skill to be able to execute your idea. (To often we let our creative inklings sit idle.) Keep at it and looking forward to seeing how your work evolves.
Thank you! I constantly have ideas for items that I can’t find and it’s more fun to do yourself. Having someone else do them was getting expensive. This is also more rewarding.
I saw a teaser on twitter last night “NFL to revise helmet rule.” I immediately thought that they revised the rule to allow for more helmet shells to accommodate throwbacks. In reality it was rule changes addressing tacking with the crown of the helmet.
I think I might think about things a little differently, or some people just don’t get it.
Have a good day.
Nice shorts! The Suns 92-93 uniform change gets the love, but my favorite is this Suns uniform set (shown on Tom Chambers in the photo).
Maybe that isn’t TC in the photo actually… someone before TC with the number 24 perhaps.
It’s Dennis Johnson. He played for the Suns after the Sonics and before the Celtics. He also looked nothing like Tom Chambers.
Always loved those original Suns’ uniforms, both home (white) and road (purple). Those were classics. Too bad they changed.
Thank you.
Cool shorts Brad! Sometimes Walmart will have plain white mesh shorts fairly cheaply. Or you could start from scratch with some white cotton fabric and a pattern and make your own shorts.
Thank you! I had a hard time finding reasonably priced shorts with nothing on them. Got lucky at goodwill.
Good job on the shorts man, you should figure out a way tomplete that purple stripe though. They’d be even more impressively.
Massive fail by Alex today. Massive.
Talk about fake news. When a wacko conspiracy theorist makes a ridiculous claim via tweet, that does not mean “there’s been a lot of speculation” about Trevor Bauer’s intent. It means that a wacko conspiracy theorist made a ridiculous claim via tweet, and his clan of wingnuts may have jumped all over it.
You want to know Trevor Bauer’s intent? Go to the source. Trevor Bauer said it had nothing to do with Bush and 9/11. End of story. That’s the news.
But when you start publicizing the moronic tweets of delusional wackjobs, the you’e guilty spreading fake news. And that’s what’s wrong with today’s media.
Regardless of your political affiliation, you should be ashamed. UniWatch is better than this.
How is this a “fail”? Trevor Bauer wrote something on the mound that generated a lot of chatter online, enough that Bauer himself responded with a tweet. And Alex reported it. How is that political?
If some idiot tweeted that Michelle Obama wears a Chicago Cubs jockstrap worn in the World Series under her dress, surely tons of other idiots would jump on it and start commenting on that tweet and forward it to their idiot friends.
It’s uniform related. Should we help publicize it on UniWatch?
Your analogy doesn’t fit the facts of the current situation. What’s being reported on here is not pure rumor, as in your rather curious example. Rather, what’s being reported on is: (1) Trevor Bauer’s actions, which ARE uni-newsworthy because they happened on the field of play, and (2) certain peoples’ online speculation about the meaning of his actions, which was significant enough that (3) Bauer subsequently responded to refute the speculation.
Regardless of whether you think the 9/11 speculation was far-fetched and in poor taste (it probably was) or you believe Trevor Bauer’s explanation (I do), why is a problem to report it?
Michelle Obama wears a Chicago Cubs jockstrap worn in the World Series under her dress??????
link PLEASE!!!
I will post this on reddit and see if they know
Yes, we’ve all been fooled by the old “game-worn jockstrap under the dress” routine…
BvK (and Alex),
Sure, it’s noteworthy that Trevor Bauer wrote “BD 91.1” on the field. It can also be reported that Bauer refused to specify the meaning of his message beyond saying that it had “a personal thing of importance to me”.
Nothing beyond a first-person account directly related to the incident needs to be reported. Period. If he had a history of being a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, then it may be relevant. If he said something to a teammate in the locker room, then it may be relevant. But some idiot with a twitter account and an agenda and the firestorm he creates is irrelevant.
That’s the problem with the internet. Professional news organizations do not spread unsubstantiated rumors. When Alex states that “there’s been a lot of speculation…” he’s spreading an unsubstantiated rumor, and that phrase alone propagates certain “where there’s smoke there’s fire” insinuations.
This is Uni-Watch, not a clique of twelve-year old middle schoolers. We should be beyond spreading rumors.
Joe, you seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings about what news is and what constitutes the spreading of rumors. By reporting on the fact that certain people speculated on the meaning of Trevor Bauers’ mound message, Alex is not validating the veracity of the speculation. He is simply presenting facts that are necessary to understand Bauer’s later response to the speculation about his message.
Reporting on something is not the same thing as agreeing with it. And, more to the point, reporting that someone made a statement is not the same thing as making that statement yourself. So Alex has by no means “spread rumors.”
You also seem to have a visceral need to be outraged. By all means, be outraged at the people on Reddit who started the speculation, if you must. But directing your outrage at Alex and Uni Watch is a classic example of aiming at the wrong target and demonstrates a disturbing “kill the messenger” mentality.
I don’t see where it is fake news.
1. Bauer wrote “BD911”
b. the internet responded with “does it mean Bush Did 9/11?!”
3. Bauer responded by tweet that it was something personal and the 9/11 thing is ridiculous.
Bauer’s tweet covers all that as well but Alex gave us the background.
Exactly right. Alex performed solid journalism here, and Joe’s condemnation is misplaced and wrong.
Maybe Michelle Obama does wear jockstraps under her dresses. She did say she loves the Cubs uniforms, and I did see a wrinkle in her dress. Maybe I should make a post to my Twitter account, and when the far right wingnuts jump all over it, I’ll see the rumor I started appear on UniWatch.
The problem with fake news is those of you who cannot differentiate between legitimate news and unsubstantiated rumor.
The Suns retro shorts are fantastic, but pairing them with the period-appropriate Thin Lizzy t-shirt elevates the look to a whole new level. Brilliant!
the only thing missing is a picture of his rig
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If This Van’s A’ Rockin Don’t Come A’ Knocking!!
HAHA! Thanks guys!
<i?"Not sure if this was ticked yet or not, but the Hickory Crawdad wore pink for Mother’s Day two weekends ago (from Phil)."
Equally as noteworthy is the fact that the jersey wordmark said “Crawmoms” instead of “Crawdads.” Cute!
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Awesome DIY today! Love the idea of using all thrifted materials.
Agreed.
Great job, Brad. I’d wear those.
Agreed! Great job, Brand, and thanks for sharing your story with us!
Thanks!
Did anyone else see the new hockey team name “Growlers” and think/hope that their logo would be a glass jug?
I think Pitt Central Catholic was inspired by the Vikings and the Chicago BULLS not Bears.
I think you’re looking at the hat logo. The jersey logo has the Viking “V” and the Chicago Bears “C”