Why Card-Carrying Uni Watch Members Love No. 13

Graphic by Brinke Guthrie; click to enlarge

As you are probably aware, today is Friday the 13th. Thirteen is, of course, a very loaded number — most people avoid it but some embrace it — so I thought it would be fun to contact card-carrying Uni Watch members who chose No. 13 to appear on the back of their membership cards and ask them why they went with that number.

As I looked through my records, I found that 72 membership enrollees have chosen No. 13. Some of them ordered their cards more than a decade ago (the membership program launched in the spring of 2007), so I figured some of them might not even be Uni Watch readers anymore, but I went ahead and emailed all of them, asking if they’d be willing to share the stories behind their numerical choice. Unsurprisingly, some of the emails bounced, but about 60 of them went through, and about half of those people responded. Here are their stories, along with their card designs:

Matthew Algeo (member since 2007)

When I was a kid, I was very superstitious. Maybe it’s because I was raised a Catholic. Anyway, when my Little League coach was handing out uniforms before the season in 1978, when I was 12, he asked me if there was any number I didn’t want. I said 13, so of course that was the number he gave me. I guess he was trying to break my superstition. It worked: I hit almost .500 and I adopted 13 as my favorite number. My career tailed off after that, but my fondness for the number 13 remains.

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Tom Currie (member since 2019)

I was given 13 as my number when I played basketball for my fifth grade team. This was about the time I really started getting into uniforms, and 13 has stuck with me as a favorite since. No. 6 has been another favorite of mine, which doesn’t have a much better number history. I guess I just like to be different or difficult.

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Keith Thibault (member since 2007)

It has to do with the size of Little League uniforms in my community at the time. The practice in the mid-’70s, when I played youth baseball, was that the uniforms were in numerical order beginning with No 1 and going up to about 15. Those uni numbers also corresponded to jersey sizes (1-4 small, 5-8 medium, 9-12 large, 12-15 x-large). Being a “husky” boy, I was often assigned a higher number — 13. My last year in Little League I made the All-Star team, so 13 was not so bad a number for me.

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Eric Schmid (member since 2019)

I’m nine years old, growing up in the horizontally orientated Great Plains of Oklahoma. My family decides to stay in a hotel for the Fourth of July to watch the fireworks from a rooftop patio. I am shocked when I learn this hotel has improperly numbered their floors: 11, 12, 14, Roof.

My father tells me buildings don’t use 13 because many people consider it unlucky. The following week I am assigned jersey No. 13 for my competitive soccer team. I become unusually proud of my unlucky number, which I then wear on the pitch for over a decade.

I never became a professional soccer player, but to this day I still think about that 13th floor. For the last 10 years I’ve been honing my skills as an architect. One day, hopefully soon, I will enter one of my own buildings, step onto the elevator, and illuminate a little round “13” button.

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Jesse Weidlaw (member since 2017)

When I was growing up back in the mid-1980s, all of the kids were fairly obsessed with sports, and everyone had “their own number,” such as it was. I had always considered myself to be the quarterback of the local backyard football program, so I wanted a quarterback’s number. I went with 13 because I thought it had a bit of a rebellious vibe to it due to the bad luck stigma. There was also a contrarian aspect because it was the number Dan Marino wore — Marino went to Pitt and I grew up in State College about three miles from Penn State’s campus.

Lucky or unlucky, though, that number has always popped back up for me. For beer league softball, I pulled the No. 13 jersey out of the box without even looking. A few years ago, my son was assigned No. 13 for his basketball team, and he still wears it.

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Corey Davis (member since 2009)

I have always had a connection to the number 13 because I was born on the 13th — a Friday the 13th, in fact! (My mom has always joked that she asked the doctors, “Can’t we wait one more day?” so I would be born on Valentine’s Day instead.) So while it’s a scary or stigmatized number and date for some people, it has always been lucky, or at least had positive associations, for me.

I find it partially funny and partially frustrating to see the steps people and organizations will take to avoid the 13, like hotels that avoid numbering a 13th floor and Formula One skipping over No. 13 when they used to assign driver numbers. Funnily enough, when they ended that practice in 2014 and let drivers choose their own numbers, one of them, Pastor Maldonado, picked the 13!

For my Uni Watch membership card, I chose No. 13 with the Carolina Hurricanes’ old home jersey style because of my own connection to the number and also as a nod to one of my favorite players, Ray Whitney, who wore No. 13. Apparently it was lucky for him as well since he helped the team win the Stanley Cup in 2006!

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Ted Machnik (member since 2012)

I was born on the 13th (not a Friday). I liked the number while I was growing up because it was always available. I figured when I had the Hall of Fame baseball career, that number would be retired by the team I played for.

Hey, that’s an interesting question, has that number ever been retired by a Professional team? [Answer: Yes! According to various historical databases, No. 13 has been retired by one MLB team (the Reds, for shortstop Dave Concepción), plus two NFL teams, eight NBA teams (including the Heat retiring it for Dan Marino, which seems really bogus), and one NHL team. — PL]

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Jonathan Flaugher (member since 2015)

My reason for selecting No. 13 is rather simple. Back when I was in fifth grade, I was playing basketball for my school and we didn’t get to choose our numbers — you just got whatever fit. For me, that happened to be No. 13, and over the years I just started to identify with the number.

Since I was so young at the time, I never really associated it with any “bad luck” stigma. Instead, it became a lucky number.

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Kent Smith (member since 2015)

I was given No. 13 as a sophomore in 1978 on my high school football team. As a Roman Gabriel fan, I wanted No. 18, but it wasn’t available

I embraced the number, have never felt any bad luck associated with it, and don’t believe in superstition.

On the other hand, I still pick the number 13 today if I play the lottery.

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Chris Volinsky (member since 2009)

I can describe my reasoning in one word: Marino.

I grew up on Long Island with a Giants fan for a dad, so I’ve been asked many times how I became a Dolphins fan. I can’t say I know for sure — I became a fan during the David Woodley era, so I can’t blame Marino for that. I think I just liked dolphins and orange was my favorite color and I thought the helmet was cool. But Marino’s rise to stardom defined my childhood fandom, with all of the posters on my bedroom wall to prove it.

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Jason Collins (member since 2014)

When I started playing sports in elementary school, I was given 13 as a blood jersey during a game in my first season of pee-wee basketball. It was the only number left, so I had no choice. I hadn’t been playing all that well up until then, but I had a great game after the jersey swap, scoring my first couple baskets. I wore No. 13 the rest of the season and even won our Christmas tournament wearing that number.

When baseball came around in the spring, I decided to stick with it and had my first all-star selection that year. I stuck with it for every Little League and pee-wee sport season I could after that.

Once I hit high school, none of our teams would carry No. 13 jerseys due to the superstitions. So for football I wore 63 (I was a defensive lineman, so I had to have a 60s number), and for baseball I was 18 (like a double 3 to make an 8). It’s always been a fun, kind of lucky number for me since I was a kid, and I use it any chance I can get.

My son was even born in 2013, although that was pure coincidence. He’s now playing tee ball and I’m hoping to get him attached to 13 too. He requested it this year, but I think it’s mostly because he sees me wear my Atlanta Acuña shirsey around the house. Whatever gets him into it!

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Justin Peterson (member since 2019)

I’ve always been drawn to the number 13 because my birthday is on Sept. 13. That’s why I chose to use the number 13 on my membership card. I’ve never been one for superstitions or believing that 13 was something to fear. Being born on the 13th, I’ve had six birthdays fall on Friday the 13th so far (1985, ’91, ’96, ’02, ’13, and ’19, with the next one coming in 2024), and not one of them stands out as having been “bad” or “unlucky.” Also, I’ve never been stalked by Jason Voorhees (knock on wood!).

That said, I did think about using No. 22 for my membership card, because it’s the number of my favorite ballplayer and former Florida Marlin, Walt Weiss! But ultimately, I went with good ol’ not unlucky 13.

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Paul Condie (member since 2013)

Many, many years ago I was driving up Yonge Street in Toronto with a buddy and we saw this incredibly tall guy walking up the sidewalk pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Without really thinking about the likelihood of it being true or why it would even make any sense, I said to my friend, “That’s Wilt Chamberlain!” And for the same reasons, he said, “No way!”

He was walking in the same direction we were driving, so we were actually behind him when I had this revelation, and eventually we got past him and it actually was Wilt! He was with a couple of pretty good-looking women — two of his 10,000 bedmates (or whatever that number was), as I like to say when telling this story. So we jumped out of the car, and quite politely I asked him for his autograph, and he said, “Not today, my man.”

So that definitely was not the reason I chose 13.

When I was a kid growing up playing hockey, you often didn’t get to choose your number and the available ones were usually 1 to 12 and 14 to 17. Generally, the goalie got No. 1, the biggest kids on the team got 2 through 5, and the rest was kind of a free-for-all. I had 8, 10, 6, none of which I really liked. So when the day came that I actually played on a team where there were more numbers available, I grabbed 23. But I must have been a restless soul, because I never stuck with any number for long. I tried going with the crazy high numbers like 95, 65, 89, mostly because they were big and looked good on the jersey.

Eventually I decided that a man of my rather modest abilities should not be wearing a “boutique number,” as guys like Brian Burke and Lou Lamoriello like to call them. And 13 had become more mainstream by then, at least in hockey. So I grabbed it, liked it, and never changed it again.

If I thought there was even a remote chance that my wife would read Uni Watch I’d probably say I chose it because we got married on Friday the 13th … but that would be complete folly.

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Rick Mallard (member since 2019)

I was a huge Dan Marino fan as a kid and swore I’d wear that number if I ever had the chance! I ended up attending Pitt for college, though I did drop my beloved Dolphins for the Steelers as a Pittsburgh resident. Good change.

Funny thing is, I never actually had the chance to wear No. 13, because I played on teams where uniform designations were always assigned. But my attraction to the number stuck. I enjoyed being a contrarian when friends and family would tell me that it was an unlucky number! Believe me, I’d make a big deal out of it whenever something great happened on the 13th, especially when it fell on a Friday.

And so I ended up including the number in various user names and email addresses over the years. I used it on some unfortunate personalized jerseys, too. But I’ll be excited this Friday for another chance to prove the naysayers wrong!

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Omar Jalife (member since 2016)

When I started playing basketball in sixth grade, around 1996, everybody wanted to be Michael Jordan. In order to avoid having 13 kids fighting for No. 23, the coach decided that we could only use numbers up to 15.

Obviously, most NBA stars at that time didn’t use numbers that low. Looking at my basketball cards, I decided I wanted to wear No. 12, just like Stockton. However, the day we were set to choose numbers, another guy also wanted 12 for some reason. We flipped a coin and I lost.

Looking at numbers that were still available, I gravitated toward 13 because I was also about to choose a number for playing soccer and wanted a number outside 1-11, which tend to be set to a specific position. At that time, I played in several positions.

When I chose 13, some players and the uniform maker told me it was bad luck and that I should change it. I don’t really believe in bad luck, so I stuck with 13 and have used it ever since on every team I’ve played for. Strangely, it always seems to be available.

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Mike Hersh (member since 2018)

I chose No. 13 because it’s my favorite number. My birthday is July 13, but that’s not the only reason for my choice, as I’ve thumbed my nose at bad-luck superstitions all my life. I will go out of my way to walk under a ladder, I get excited when a black cat walks in my path (I even got my college roommate to adopt a black cat), no way am I responding to your chain letter, if I had a horseshoe I’d hang it with the ends down, and just watch me break that mirror. I believe in karma but I don’t believe in bad luck.

I even joke that my name is “my curse.” Mike Hersh … my curse … get it? Okay, just roll your eyes like everyone else.

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Mike Menner (member since 2007)

My choice of 13 was quite simple: My favorite player as an adult has been Omar Vizquel of the Cleveland Indians. His amazing play at shortstop, infectious energy, and love of the game all make his No. 13 Hall of Fame-worthy in my book!

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Patrick Weekend (member since 2020)

13 is my favorite number because it’s bad luck.

The stigma about it being unlucky or whatever is what I found attractive about it — that’s what I thought made it cool when I was a teenage punk rocker. And it has stuck all the way now that I’m 53 years old.

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Matt Wilson (member since 2018)

I have always been a fan of the number 13 and actually think of it as a lucky number. (My birthday is March 13, so I also get a rare Friday the 13th birthday this year.) As for my card choice, Kurt Warner is a fellow Northern Iowa grad. When he was announced out of nowhere as the starting quarterback for the Rams, I proudly boasted to my friends that the Rams would win the Super Bowl that season. (I should have put a bet down on those long odds.)

Fast forward to a few years ago, I finished first in Warner’s charity March Madness bracket pool and won an autographed jersey and a phone call with him, where I shared my boastful prediction all those years ago and told him that after me, he was the second-most famous UNI alum and fan of 13. (That joke fell flat. Ha.) So, 13 as my favorite number, the Kurt element, and Purple Amnesty Day all combined to maee it an easy selection.

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Clint Wrede (member since 2008)

Nothing too exciting here. My 13 is plainly and simply for my favorite athlete, Ozzie Guillén, who wore the number throughout his career. I did a little time switch on my card, though, and had it done in the White Sox’s powder blue road uni style from the 1970s, even though Ozzie didn’t get to the majors until 1985.

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Steve Fidrych (member since 2007)

It happens every Friday the 13th. Someone will make a comment about the date and how it is unlucky. Someone will give me a strange look when I reply, “It’s my lucky day!” People think I’m kidding, or just saying it for shock value.

I explain that I was born on a Friday the 13th. So was my brother. My cousin was one of my best pals growing up. We discovered we were wearing the same shoes when we were 4 years old. That’s more than enough to be friends for life in the Kid World. Her birthday is also on the 13th, but not a Friday. We are still very close, and we give each other a call every Friday the 13th.

I am sure she will reach out to me this Friday — it will be my 50th birthday.

With all of that, the number 13 has always had a special meaning to me. I always tried to get that number on every Little League uniform. I usually set my alarm for 6:13am (to get the day off right). My Tampa Bay Lightning tickets are even for seat 13!

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Max Neuberger (member since 2019)

I’ve made 13 my lucky number to be the opposite from the norm, I guess. A pox on those who think it’s unlucky! My wife is like-minded, and in fact we purposely got married on a Friday the 13th for pretty much that same reason (which means every Friday the 13th is also an anniversary I have to remember). I have other numbers I like, but ultimately I consider 13 to be my number.

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Adam Knor (member since 2019)

I was first assigned No. 13 as an eight-year-old Little Leaguer. It was my fourth season of baseball, but it was also the first time I was ever any good, so I guess I associate the number with when I really fell in love with the game. I didn’t get to wear it again until we had personalized uniforms when I was 12. I tried to wear it (or No. 31 in a pinch) whenever possible from then on. Aesthetically, I really love it — crooked numbers take up too much space on the back of a jersey, so I like how the 1 gives the 3 some space to breathe. “Thirteen” also just looks good when written out, and it sounds cool when your number is called.

I’ve also always felt like it takes a special kind of player to wear No. 13 (quirky, undertalented, persistent?), because so many kids avoided it, though that’s surely confirmation bias. I embraced it in an Obi Wan Kenobi “There’s no such thing as luck” kind of way, even though I do tend to be superstitious. And in a dumb twist, of course it became my “lucky” number: In addition to sports jerseys, it’s been part of every online handle I’ve used since my AOL days; it’s the number I chase on the roulette wheel; and it’s a constant disappointment that someone else on my softball team gets to wear it because he has one more year of seniority than I do. It’s cool, though, he’s one of “us” — a kind of weird, scrappy ballplayer who wears 13 and hates that A-Rod wasn’t one of “us.”

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Gordon Blau (member since 2011)

Whenever I’ve been given the choice of a jersey number, I’ve always gone for 13. Not because of any player who wore it, but simply to be contrarian toward triskaidekaphobia. I would also open umbrellas indoors, walk under ladders, tip over salt shakers, and step on the crack.

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Pablo Souki (member since 2019)

Growing up in Venezuela, I played soccer from the time I was in third grade all the way through high school. I wore several numbers, the last of which was 13. Thinking back, at the time there was a bit of an element of “This is supposed to be an unlucky number, but I don’t believe in superstitions, so I’m going to embrace it.” Then at some point I just liked it as the number I wore, regardless of superstitious connotations.

There is also baseball-related significance to the number 13 in Venezuela, as it was David Concepción’s number. Many Venezuelan shortstops and infielders wore it in his honor (Ozzie Guillén, Omar Vizquel, Edgardo Alfonzo), then others wore it because of those players, and it is still somewhat of a thing today.

So there you have it. In light of all of this, it made sense for me to put it on a card based on the Venezuelan national soccer jersey (or at least one of its most notable incarnations).

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Jason Mandle (member since 2014)

My anti-triskaidekaphobia began as a five-year-old tee-baller. It was the big day of uniform distribution (a highlight day for anybody who’s ever played organized sports). I was a smaller kid, so the size/number correlated unis required me to select a number between 1 and 15. My mother, who drove me to every practice and didn’t miss a single game from tee-ball through college, was partial to Thurman Munson’s No. 15. But that was already gone by the time the M’s came up alphabetically, and so were the Babe’s No. 3, the Mick’s No. 7 and even Phil Rizzuto’s No. 10.

But there lay the uniform whose number would shape my playing career for the 25-plus years. Nobody seemed to want this perfect specimen of a jersey. Perhaps too little time had elapsed since the release of the horror flick referencing this number. Perhaps parents imparted their irrational fear to their children. Either way, the number 13 was glued to my back from that day forward. From tee-ball to Little League to Boys’ Club to American Legion and then on to high school and college, I always stuck with this beautiful collaboration of 1 and 3. It always brought me luck and always looked great. Even now, with the jerseys long since retired in my mother’s basement, my baseball number lives on as the requisite numeric value in internet passwords — an homage to that little boy proudly playing shortstop with No. 13 on his back.

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Troy Graefe (member since 2012)

I wish I had a cool story about why I chose No. 13 for my Uni Watch membership card, but I don’t. I was simply assigned that number when I played basketball for the University of Northern Colorado. I played long enough ago that we had even numbers on our home uniforms and odd numbers on our away uniforms. I chose 13 because I preferred our road navy blue uniforms to our home whites. But I guess, because of the superstition thing, 13 is a little more interesting than 12.

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Trace Browning (member since 2019)

My story with the number 13 is pretty short and sweet: It was given to me during fourth grade football when the number I wanted (17) was too big to fit me and it just kind of stuck from there.

As for the stigma, I’ve never really believed it. I thought it was kinda goofy even though I was a baseball player growing up and bought into the superstitious nature.

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Jeff Wilk (member since 2012)

I started playing baseball as a kid, and back then the uni number you got was based on the size you wore. I started as No. 5, I think, but by the time I stopped playing around 1980, I was wearing 14 or 15. I stopped with baseball for two reasons: riding the pines and watching indoor soccer on television. So I changed sports and started playing soccer.

Now, back at that time in the professional leagues (England, Italy, etc.), the number you wore was based on your starting position. No. 1 was the goalie, Nos. 2-5 were usually defense, and so on, up to the striker wearing No. 11. I was a defender and I liked the number 4. Well, a couple years into playing soccer I read an article about the number 13 and how unpopular it is in the sport around the world because of its bad luck and other negative connotations. I was born in the U.S., and since many of the players on other teams were foreign, I decided to switch to 13 in the hope of playing some mind games. I figured if opposing players saw me wearing No. 13 and thought, “Something isn’t right with that guy,” then I’d have an advantage.

Did that happen? Hell if I know. But over time, 13 has stuck with me, and I’ve never felt anything evil about it.

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Andy Edwards (member since 2019)

My interest likely stems from my birth date — Sept. 13. My mom was having labor pains on Monday night, Sept. 12, 1988. The Cowboys were playing on Monday Night Football, and my dad didn’t quite want to stop watching the game … so he had my grandmother take my mom to the hospital! I was born in the wee hours of the next morning, a true-blue Cowboys fan.

As soon as I could choose my jersey number in sports, I always chose 13. While others would shy away from it for superstitious reasons, I was drawn to it. There was always something very alluring and assertive about wearing the hex, almost like a calculated defiance.

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David Frost (member since 2008)

Thirteen has been the only number I’ve worn since I was five years old.

How i got there: When I was five, my parents decided we could finally get a dog. My mom answered a newspaper ad offering free puppies to a good home at a nearby by farm. When we got there, the farmer told us it was a litter of 13 puppies. When he opened the door to the barn, there was the mother watching over 12 pups going crazy eating from a bowl and barely picking up their heads. But one wandered over to us to give us a sniff and check us out.

He was playful, cute, and a different color than the other 12. The farmer informed us this little loner was the runt of the litter — the 13th one out. “We want this one!” I allegedly blurted out, and that day the 13th of the litter became Murphy Frost, a loyal family member for the next 16 years, and my lucky number became 13.

Worked out great because it seemed no other kids ever wanted No. 13 when coach would break out the uni box!

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Austin Martin (member since 2019)

I picked No. 13 because that was the number I wore in high school for sports. At the time, I actually picked it to address the unlucky stigma. I thought, “Screw it, I’ll be 13 since no one else will.” Got a low number out of it, which in a sport like basketball always mattered to me and my friends.

Well, it turned out the 13 wasn’t too great for me — I rode the bench quite a bit. I’d love to blame that on my lack of God-given talent and lack of work ethic, but blaming it on the number sounds better.

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Paul here. I love all these stories! Big, big thanks to everyone who shared them, happy birthday to Steve Fidrych, happy half-birthday to Justin Peterson and Andy Edwards, and a happy Friday the 13th to one and all.

(Special thanks to Brinke Guthrie for the graphic at the top of today’s entry. He originally made it to post on our Facebook page today, but it also gave me the idea for today’s post.)

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Click to enlarge

Potential new MLB All-Star designs: Reader Johnny Williamson sent me these video game screen shots that appear to show the jerseys and headwear for the 2020 MLB All-Star Game. Video game leaks have proven to be very accurate and reliable in recent years — plus the game is slated to be played at Dodger Stadium, which explains the Dodgers-esque designs — so I think we can take these designs seriously.

Some additional views are provided here:

Here is the 2020 MLB ASG uniforms featured in #MLBTheShow20 (cc: @UniWatch @sportslogosnet @PhilHecken) pic.twitter.com/gdMKDMWrt4

— Brandon Wright-Rowan (@BW_DCXIX) March 13, 2020

Obviously, these are game shots, not BP shots, plus the jerseys are white/grey instead of the usual solid-colored BP jerseys. So is MLB planning to have players wear league-based ASG uniforms this year, instead of their usual team-based jerseys? Williamson says these are indeed the BP jerseys, not game jerseys, but I’ll try to confirm that. (And if anyone out there knows more, feel free to fill me in. I’ll protect your anonymity, of course.)

Update: I’m now told that these would be worn for the Futures Game and All-Star BP — not for the ASG itself. Phew.

As you probably know by now, MLB has pushed back the start of its season by at least two weeks — and I suspect the delay will be longer than that — so who knows if we’ll even have an All-Star Game this season. Stay tuned.

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Virus Watch: The Tugboat Captain and I were supposed to be getting on an airplane this morning. Our destination was Texas, where we were going to spend a few days staying with a friend on the Gulf Coast. But yesterday we decided not to go because — well, you know.

That was the latest of several ways that the pandemic has affected my plans. On Wednesday I was supposed to go to the offices of a bobblehead company (part of a story I’m working on), but they asked me not to come. Later this month I was planning to go see my mom, but the retirement home where she lives has now barred all visitors. A week from tomorrow is my birthday, but several friends have told me they don’t feel comfortable attending the large party I’ve planned, and now I’m starting to accept the reality that the party probably won’t happen and probably shouldn’t happen.

And then there’s the fact that I’m asthmatic, which means I’m at a higher risk of dying if I get infected with this thing.

Obviously, nothing I’ve just said makes me unique. I’m just presenting myself as a case study in how the pandemic can affect a random person’s life. I realize all of you probably have similar stories to tell. Everyone does — nobody is immune, from either the virus or its ripple effects. We’re experiencing an epic moment in history here.

Which leads me to this: I started doing this blog in 2006. I’ve sometimes wondered how I would have handled things if the site had existed on Sept. 11, 2001. (I was already a freelance writer at that point, but I wasn’t yet a daily blogger.) Would I have kept posting every day? If so, what sort of content would I have published? How would I have responded to an epic moment in history?

We now seem to be at a similar juncture. Over the past 10 days or so, I’ve tried to acknowledge the pandemic’s existence and fold it into my coverage of athletics aesthetics without letting it completely overtake our usual coverage of ongoing uni news. After today, though, that may be impossible. For one thing, the NBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, NCAA, XFL, and several European soccer leagues have all shut down, and the NFL is out of season. It’s hard to cover athletics aesthetics when there are no athletics taking place. I’m assuming the Ticker will be pretty thin for the foreseeable future.

More importantly, there’s the whole “shit just got real” factor. The pandemic isn’t just a side story anymore — it’s the story, and that raises the question of what sort of media content is appropriate. Is the very notion of uniform news — or of Uni Watch itself — frivolous at a time like this? Or is something like Uni Watch exactly what’s needed at a time like this? (I realize that the answer to both questions may be “Yes.”)

Although Uni Watch’s coverage of “current events” may be largely moot during a period when most sporting events have ground to a halt, there’s still all sorts of content I could run. I have another one of Bill Henderson’s jersey-restoration projects in the hopper, for example, and the other day I did a really good phone interview with some uniform designers, which I think you’ll like once I get around to transcribing it. And there are various historical pieces, ranking-ish pieces, think pieces, and more that I could run. Plus there will no doubt continue to be leaks, like that MLB ASG item I just ran in the section above this one.

But is that what you want? Would you even care about that kind of thing at a time like this? What’s the proper role for Uni Watch at a moment of crisis? Do you want me to be a commentator? An entertainer? An analyst? A friend? A storyteller? A confidante? A reporter? A voice of reason? A voice of distraction? All of the above? Something else?

I can’t guarantee I’ll give you exactly what you want (especially since, as usual, different people will likely have opposing viewpoints), but I am really and truly interested in hearing what you want Uni Watch to be at this particular moment. Please feel free to address this in today’s comments. Meanwhile, be careful and stay safe.

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Lots of science-y folks are posting this graph. But if there is one thing I have learned from being on the internet, it is this:

Data/graphs: Not compelling to many.

Kitties: Compelling to many.

So I present: #Catteningthecurve.#scicomm #epitwitter pic.twitter.com/Cr1xQXMppr

— Anne Marie Darling (@amdar1ing) March 11, 2020

Or I could just run stuff like this: Even if you’re not a cat person, you have to admit that’s pretty brilliant. Entertaining and practical, too! Bravo.

(My thanks to the Tugboat Captain for this one.)

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The Ticker
By Anthony Emerson

Baseball News: The Nats have added ad patches to the uniforms its presidential mascots wear and the team is selling T-shirts with vertically arched NOBs (from Eric Aberni). … PNC Park has a 20th season logo (from Jared Grubbs). … Fox Sports posted all 30 MLB logos in the colors of their rivals (from Will Shoken). … Dodgers 3B Justin Turner has a new endorsement deal with Easton. … The Fort Wayne TinCaps, Single-A affiliates of the Padres, have unveiled their Copa de la Diversión identity (from Chris Schanz). … LSU wore throwbacks on Wednesday. They look pretty nice, except for the maker’s mark (from Mark Jones).

Football News: The CFL’s Ottawa Redblacks will have a red alternate jersey that’s currently scheduled to debut on July 24, although all scheduled sports events are open to question at this point (from Wade Heidt). … Also from Wade: The University of British Columbia is planning to rename David Sidoo Field after Sidoo was caught up in the college admissions scandal in the U.S. … The Oakland Panthers, a new team in the Indoor Football League, unveiled their home uniforms last night (from Matt McDonnell).

Hockey News: With the league on hiatus, what better time to try to figure out the ugliest jersey in NHL history? I’d vote for the mooterus (thanks, Phil). … The WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders are still auctioning off the sweaters they were supposed to wear tonight, though the league play has been suspended (from Wade Heidt).

College Hoops News: During yesterday’s abortive Big East Tournament game between Creighton and St. John’s, a St. John’s player wore a jersey with a blacked-out NOB after his original jersey was torn (from @KelliX84). … Crappy new logo for Rupp Arena (from Michael Kinney).

Soccer News: Uruguayan club Nacional have revealed their new home kits (from Germán Cabrejo). … Can Forward Madison FC’s sleeve ad get any bigger? (From Josh Hinton.) … Celtic has inked a new kit deal with Adidas (from Ed Zelaski).

Grab Bag: Bank of Oklahoma is suing marijuana dispensary Dank of Oklahoma for copyright infringement (from Shawn Hairston). … Eau Claire County, Wis., has a new logo.