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Monday Morning Uni Watch: Super Bowl Edition

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Well, that sucked. Can’t expect to win the game if you go punt, punt, downs on three consecutive fourth quarter possessions. Still, it was a good game, the Chiefs are a likable team, and it was almost worth it just to see Chiefs owner Clark Hunt wearing a retro-style Chiefs blazer during the postgame festivities, just like the one Hank Stram wore in Super Bowl IV — a nice way of tying the past to the present.

Chiefs president Mark Donovan also wore the KC blazer:

A few other notes from the game:

• 49ers wideout Emmanuel Sanders saluted Kobe Bryant on his cleats:

To my knowledge, that was the only on-field Kobe tribute. Were there any others I missed? (Update: It turns out that both teams lined up on the 24-yard lines prior to the game, which I missed because I didn’t watch any of the pregame activities.)

• Another 49ers wideout, Deebo Samuel, was wearing a set of those embossed Tredcal thigh pads. The one on his right leg was his uni number, 19 — nothing unusual about that — but the one on his left leg was the Super Bowl LIV logo:

Have we ever seen a player wear the Supe logo as part of his thigh pad before? I can’t recall any previous examples off the top of my head.

• The Chiefs’ police escort to the stadium wore the team’s helmet logo on his motorcycle helmet:

• Fox debuted a new score bug design:

• At one point in the fourth quarter, the yellow first down stripe was significantly mispositioned:

• During the postgame segment, one of the audio technicians was wearing a Hartford Whalers cap! Love it:

• As usual, reader Steve Speicher DIY’d himself some Super Bowl shirseys, and this year’s edition turned out really well. Here he is with his girlfriend, Anne (click to enlarge — it’s worth it to see the level of detail):

And I think that’s a wrap — not just for the Supe, but also for the NFL season. Congrats to the Chiefs and their fans, and thanks also to my Niners for providing a really fun ride. Looking forward to next season!

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Fun in the frozen food aisle: The Tugboat Captain and I had an impromptu photo shoot at our local supermarket the other day. One of the interesting things about the word “pierogi” is that the plural can be either “pierogi” (i.e., same as the singular) or “pierogies.” I’ve seen both versions on menus; retail versions tend to use “pierogies” on their packages, I guess to eliminate confusion and make the product seem more bountiful.

For this T-shirt design, I opted to go with “Pierogi,” because it has the same number of letters as “Pirates” and adding two more letters made the design seem too busy.

If you’d like to debate the merits of this shirt design, shoot me a note.

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rafflet ticket by ben thoma.jpg

ITEM! Another Vintage Brand raffle: It’s time for our monthly raffle from longtime advertiser Vintage Brand, which means a lucky Uni Watch reader will get to choose anything from the VB site (including the Super Bowl VIII poster shown above).

To enter, send an email to the raffle address by 8pm Eastern this Wednesday, Feb. 5. One entry per person. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday. Good luck!

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Membership update: In the foreground is what’s left of reader Ellis Cunningham’s Uni Watch membership card. In the background, looking adorably guilty, is Ellis’s dog Coby, who decided to use the membership card as a chew toy. “We rescued him five months ago,” says Ellis. “He’s a great pup, even though this is the second time in a month that he’s chewed up my wallet.”

I told Ellis that we’ll provide a complimentary duplicate card. Until then, here’s hoping Coby stays out of trouble!

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Hockey jersey reminder: We’re continuing to take orders over the next week for the first-ever Uni Watch hockey jerseys. You can place your order here and get more info here.

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The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen

Baseball News: Here’s something you might not know: The baselines at the 1965 MLB All-Star Game were a mix of red, white, and blue (from Scott Reinold). … This Little League sleeve patch comes with extra-specific placement instructions (from Frank McGuigan).

Football News: Second and 10, a project to remake the logos for the past 10 Super Bowls that have received generic logo designs, is now done (thanks, Anthony). … In honor of the Super Bowl, mini-helmet maven Blaise D’Sylva took each Supe-winning team’s helmet and put the Super Bowl logo on the left side. … The National Park Service wants you to design helmets with team names based on national parks (from @OlegKvasha). … Former NFL CB Shawn Springs now is in charge of a company that makes padding for football helmets, among other things (from Tim Dunn). … A fan of the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers got a tattoo of backup QB Chris Streveler, who wore a fur coat with no shirt and a cowboy hat during the team’s Grey Cup celebration (from Wade Heidt).

Hockey News: Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner tied the laces on his skate mid-play on Saturday (from Mike Chamernik). … The OHL’s Peterborough Petes wore pink accents this weekend (from Wade Heidt). … Canada Post released stamps for Black History Month featuring the Coloured Hockey League, which predated the NHL and operated in Canada’s maritime provinces (from Alan Kreit).

Basketball News: This article has insight on why Kobe Bryant switched to No. 24 from No. 8 (from Kary Klismet). … The left and right ends of Pelicans F Zion Williamson’s purple NOB lettering disappeared into his purple jersey stripe last night. … Women’s college teams that wore pink or pink accents this weekend included Delaware (from @artofscorebug), Michigan, Florida State, and Pitt. … Pitt’s student section tossed purple and yellow confetti in a Kobe Bryant tribute (from Eric Abneri). … Northern Kentucky (in grey) and Milwaukee played a color-vs.-color game yesterday (from @MkeSpotter). … Minnesota’s women’s team wore gold at home yesterday.

Soccer News: Several hundred teams in the UK and elsewhere — more than 350 as of yesterday, including all 92 teams in the English top four tiers — have donated shirts in memory of Matlock Town midfielder Jordan Sinnott, who passed away recently. The shirts, which all have Sinnott’s NOB and No. 25, are being collected by English Championship team Cardiff City to be displayed at his funeral and then donated to charity. You can see many of them on dedicated Twitter and Instagram accounts. … The new Inter Miami reserve team in USL League One is called Fort Lauderdale CF (from multiple readers). … Here’s the 49ers logo reimagined in the styles of crests in several major European countries (from Guillermo Estuarto). … In 1989, Scottish team Hibernian tried wearing their white second shirts with green shorts and socks against Celtic in a matchup of green-and-white teams, but ended up changing to their green first shirts at halftime. In doing so, they demonstrated the principle that a solid color can be worn against a team that wears stripes of the same color and another color.

Grab Bag: The five New Zealand teams in Super Rugby, the southern hemisphere rugby union competition, all received blue, grey, or white shirts made from recycled plastic, like we’ve seen in other sports, but they weren’t all worn this weekend. … One of the teams that wore those shirts, Wellington’s Hurricanes, created a possible color clash with Cape Town’s Stormers — it looked like a clash sometimes and clearly blue-vs.-grey other times (from multiple readers). … The Rugby Union of Russia has a new logo and a new kit for the national team (from Sy Hart). … Staying in rugby union, an unidentified France player suffered a shirt tear in yesterday’s Six Nations game gainst England (from Jack Wade). … Australian Football League teams Adelaide and Port Adelaide played a charity Twenty20 cricket match for the victims of the country’s bushfires. They both looked largely identical — with Port Adelaide on the left — and used the AFL number font, which is miles better than most real cricket teams’ fonts. … Formula One team Racing Point is to become Aston Martin next year. … We briefly had this in the Ticker a few days ago, but it didn’t have a link: A gym at the University of Texas has a display of shirts given to intramural champions (from Kary Klismet). … The police department in Kennebunkport, Maine, got new badges for the town’s bicentennial (from Timmy Donahue). … If you’ve ever wondered what sorts of uniforms are worn in the American Cornhole League, here you go (from John Muir).

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Comments will be disabled on the site from 2-4pm Eastern today, due to some technical maintenance issues. Sorry for the inconvenience. — Paul

 
  
 
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Comments (53)

    Paul — the photo you mention as being of Chiefs GM Brett Veach is of team president Mark Donovan

    Also in the 1965 All-Star Game footage: the foul line is painted over the edge of first and third base. Did that used to be a thing, but it was little-noticed because the chalk was the same color as the base? Or did someone on the grounds crew in Bloomington go wild with the red chalk this one time?

    The mini-helmets are cool, but I don’t think the Jets, Colts and Dolphins wore cream-colored helmets in Super Bowls III, V, VII and VIII, respectively.

    The display also highlights the dearth of white helmets in Super Bowls since the Nixon administration.

    I have been lectured many times by my friends of Polish heritage to learn that pierog is singular, pierogi is plural, and there is no reason to add an s at the end. Their advice was to think of pierogi and ravioli in the same manner.

    So a theoretical shirt that may or may not exist is accurate and magnificent.

    “Pierogi” is the correct plura form. Would you say “fettucinis” or “parenthesises”? The fact that it has the same number of letters as the Pirates’ wordmark is the universe showing you the way.

    Interesting to note what the LA Rams hard hat looked like in the film leading up to the game ball presentation. Royal blue with yellow horns. A subtle hint about the new uniform?

    I wondered the same thing. The NFL was really pushing the two LA NFL teams while they had a national audience.

    The C overlaps the K on the blazer patch. Most every other rendering of the logo is K over C.

    Unless you’re looking at the locker room floor. I think Paul had an item on the discrepancies a year or two ago.

    Did anyone else notice 49ers returnman Richie James’ mouthpiece? On closeup shots it was “flashing” “GO” then blank (perhaps as he breathed??).

    has this been mentioned here before? sorry no clip to show here.

    Air Jordan lowtop cleats worn by Damien Williams of the Chiefs. Buck/Aikman made at least one comment about them during the broadcast.

    link

    A lot of players wear Jordan 1 cleats. Bosa, who was on the other side of the ball for the 49ers defense, being one of such players.

    Posted the comment because Buck/Aikman made the comment, as I recall, during the replay review of William’s touchdown, and the focus of the replay on his right foot and the cleats.

    With both teams having red as their main color I thought the Super Bowl was gonna be an onslaught of red but with the Niners away unis having more white and gold then red there was great contrast between the 2 teams. If there was a 5 and 1 for the NFL playoffs I think this game would come in first place. Very good looking match up. Classic unis with great contrast between the dueling teams.

    I agree. Block numerals which are easy to read, not the junk you see on the Ravens, Bucs, and others. The Gold/White/Gold is such a great look…

    One thing not-so-uniform-related. Usually, a Hall-of-Famer walks the Lombardi Trophy to the on-field stage. There was no such walk this year; the trophy just appeared with the Commish, ready to award to the team owner.

    Canada respectfully suggests that in the future the trophy be brought out by two Mounties.

    link

    You’re welcome

    Thoughts on the player graphics they used last night? It was a comic book style. I liked it from a design standpoint but figured it fed into the super hero stuff – which annoyed me.

    Aside from very distinctive player features ( Sherman’s dreds, Matheiu’s yellow highlights, Mahomes’ banana, etc.) I’m not convinced they looked much like the players at all.

    I thought the most jarring visual aspect of the Super Bowl broadcast was the weird illustrated faces Fox used for scoring plays.

    Regarding the new Fox score bug they debuted… they have a small white circle next to the team name indicating which team has the ball. Why wouldn’t they make it a small white football?

    Nice to see Steve’s DIY shirsey tradition continues. His 2013 Kap jersey was the first Uni Watch article I read (yes I was a little late to the party), and highly influential in getting me to do my own stuff and submit it to Paul.

    And speaking of DIY/concept jerseys, I did some googling last night to see if anyone had created a concept for a 49ers jersey using that fancy old west font they use in the end zones etc. for the jersey numbers. While it might present some legibility issues, it might be a very nice ornate looking jersey, especially as it could be done in three colours like the Niners drop shadow look. I couldn’t find any examples of anyone doing this.

    Really enjoyed what I saw of the Puppy Bowl last night. The only thing that would have made it better was if they had commercialized it a bit more. :/

    Paul, Did you write the Athletic column ranking the new baseball uniform designs? It seems to me that Cliff Corcoran mostly repeated what you have written in the past and rehashed it. He even used the phrase logo creep.

    Those Second and 10 SB logos are such an improvement over the official versions it’s not even funny.

    People: Comments will be disabled from 2-4pm Eastern due to some technical maintenance we have to do on the site. Sorry for the hassle!

    FYI: For those who are of Eastern Rite Catholic heritage like me, it’s spelled “Pirohi” and pronounced with a “hee.” But in speaking terms, I say it with the hard “g” so folks aren’t caught off guard and ask me to repeat myself. -C.

    Pierogi is the Polish spelling. Here in Pittsburgh there are Slavic Catholic Churches that sell “pirohi” and “pyrohi.” I myself grew up hearing “pirohi.”

    As for Paul’s design, the Pirates font makes the most sense since they have pierogi races sponsored by Mrs. T’s Pierogies: link

    Kudos to the little league patch directions and their efforts to keep uniforms, well, uniform.

    Weird — I changed it this morning. But we just did some site maintenance, so it may have reverted back to an earlier version. Re-fixed!

    Steve Speicher, amazing work as always! I look forward to your DIY every year. Idk what you do for a living but I’d love to buy one off you!

    Hey Paul, Just something cool. Giannis Antetokounmpo made shoes for the NBA All-Star weekend in collab with Nike called employ of the month. It is another example of the sports world fetishizing the working class.

    Do we know why some niners appeared to wear red socks and others white? Or were they something else? You can see it above in the picture of the new score bug.

    Ps apologies for spam – asked on twitter but realised here is more suitable

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