Included in today’s Ticker: The military considers allowing service members to grow beards, the potential return of an iconic ’90s NBA jersey and a dark development in the world of minor league theme nights.
Uni Watch News Ticker for August 23, 2022
Posted in:
Baseball
MLB
- The Mets are giving away a Mets/New York Knicks mash-up T-shirt as part of an Aug. 30 ticket package. Paul notes that it “looks like a kid threw it together in ~15 seconds.”
- This 1993 book, Baseball I Gave You All the Best Years of My Life, has a fun cover that includes collaged marked-over baseball cards that riff on player name puns. (From Daniel Shank Cruz)
Minors
- The Oklahoma City Dodgers, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and the Frisco RoughRiders will all hold theme nights centered around the Fox TV show Monarch on Aug. 23. According to the ad copy tweeted out by all three teams, they’ll “wear custom jerseys” and fans will get show-themed “giveaways.” Is this the first time we’ve seen a corporation use minor league baseball theme nights as targeted, market-driven advertising rather than just IP fan service?
Football
NFL
- This blog explores a fan’s trip to a 49ers preseason game to hunt for obscure jerseys. (From Colton Denning)
College
- Utah State will wear new all-white uniforms in their home opener against UConn on Saturday. (From @akaggie)
- New BFBS jerseys and white helmets for Minnesota. (From Ben Hagen and Mike Quigley)
- This week’s episode of the ESPN Plus series Eli’s Places finds Eli Manning exploring the best uni numbers in college football, such as No. 55 at USC (Seau, McGinnest, etc.), No. 3 at Notre Dame (Montana, Mirer, Powlus), No. 44 at Syracuse (Brown, Davis, Little), and so on. The episode will debut tomorrow, and you can see preview clips here and here.
- NCA&T just introduced new football jerseys with player NOB for the first time ever. (From Jay)
More
- View lots of football-themed artwork over at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portait Gallery. (From Max Weintraub)
Basketball
NBA
- The Suns are teasing the return of the ’90s-era purple sun-streak jerseys. (From Phil)
- Speaking of, here is every Suns’ 2022-23 jersey that has reportedly leaked ahead of the official unveilings. (Also from Phil)
- Repost from Baseball: The New York Mets are giving away a Knicks/Mets mash-up T-shirt as part of an Aug. 30 ticket package. Paul notes that it “looks like a kid threw it together in ~15 seconds.”
College
- A pair of Michael Jordan’s autographed sneakers that he wore as a freshman as part of North Carolina’s 1981-82 championship team are currently up for auction. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to school’s basketball program. (From James Gilbert)
Hockey
NHL
- A construction company in New York state is poaching the old Panthers’ logo. (From Brad Loliger)
Minors/Juniors
- New home uniforms for the Reading Royals of the ECHL. (From Wade Heidt)
- New 50th anniversary logo for the Yorkton Terriers of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. (Also from Wade Heidt)
Soccer
International
- Scotland: Nairn County FC’s new third shirts support a local charity. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
- France: Fans of Ligue 1 club Lyon are protesting the club’s decision to dress players in a green colorway of an Adidas soccer boot. Green is the color of Lyon’s arch-rival, St-Etienne. (From Ed Zelaski)
- Portugal: You know you’re a Uni Watcher if the first thing you noticed in this video of a bonkers goal celebration by Portimonense F Yago Cariello is that the Y in his NOB is peeling off. (From our own Anthony Emerson)
- Ukraine: New kit set for FC Lviv. (From Ed Zelaski)
- Turkey: This story reveals why Adana Demirspor striker Mario Balotelli wears No. 45.
- Saudi Arabia: New logo and kits for Al Hilal SFC. (From Ed Zelaski)
Volleyball
- New number assignments for Vero Volley Monza, an Italian women’s volleyball club. (From Jeremy Brahm)
Grab Bag
- A recently-constructed concert venue across the river from Cincinnati in Northern Kentucky announced yesterday that it has sold its naming rights to a company called MegaCorp Logistics. The venue’s new name sounds like something out of a bad comic book.
- The Air Force and Space Force are discussing instituting a pilot program that would allow their service members to grow beards. (From Timmy Donahue)
- Update from week 11 of the Premier Lacrosse League: Redwoods wore mono-green, while their opponent, Chrome, wore gradient uniforms. Archers and Waterdogs went color-on-color, Whips and Cannons kept it traditional, and Atlas went blue/white/blue against Chaos in all black. (From Jared Buccola)
Comments (18)
Good morning! the Terriers are from Yorkton, not Yorktown. I do like the 50th anniversary logo for our home team, though! Have a great day!
Thanks. Now fixed.
Yorkton Terriers have had many interesting looks over the 50 years. Some here:
Borrowing the Pittsburgh Penguins’ template for jersey. Subbing orange in for yellow:
link
Borrowing Edmonton Oilers’ template. Subbing in black for the blue:
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Borrowing NHL All-Star template minus the stars:
link
Gimme the Suns unis from the Alvin Adams/Walter Davis era, in a modern tailored cut. Everything else is unnecessary. -C.
My favorite Phoenix uniform!
Agree 98%, since the current Nikefied template includes the truncated stripes at the shoulders and the off-center notch in the sides of the shorts. But I would take that era’s unis with a sensible modern template for sure.
You simply won’t find a head coach with consistently worse aesthetic taste than PJ Fleck.
I hope he gets hired at Louisville then…they belong together.
I have nothing for or against Minnesota but I openly root for them to fail because of PJ Fleck. His personal “row the boat” nonsense doesn’t belong on the uniforms of a school which survived without him for decades will be around long after he isn’t. Now this.
I actually think Minnesota has some of the best uniforms in the country, so long as you’re able to ignore the ugly af grey and black uniforms we’ve rolled out. The uniforms the wore in 2019 vs PSU and Auburn were beautiful. Their gold chrome domes are fantastic!
I was excited to read about the guy searching for fan jerseys at the Santa Clara 49ers game…until I found out it was another lesson in “jersey etiquette.” I thought it was going to be a celebration of weird jerseys. And really, *that’s* where the weird jerseys should be…in the stands instead of on the field.
If someone invites me to a 49ers/Cowboys game, I’d go. But I have no vested interest in either team, so yes, I would wear my DIY Fred Cox Vikings shirsey. Don’t judge me, just show me to my seat and let me enjoy watching guys fight for a roster spot during a preseason game.
Question for the NYC people, but are the allegiances defined by “old vs new” teams in the region? I have always thought it was broken down:
Old Guard = Yankees + Giants + Knicks + Rangers
New Guard = Mets + Jets + Nets + Islanders
So the Mets/Knicks mashup seems a little odd to me for that reason, but I don’t have first hand knowledge of the cross sport allegiances.
In *general* that’s how it works, or should, but there are many variables. It also depends on where one lives. For example, I live on Long Island, and the Mets, at one time the Jets, the ABA (and now Brooklyn) Nets and Islanders are geographically all located on Long Island. Growing up, however, I was a Mets/Giants/Nets (until they moved to Jersey)/Islanders fan, and those are still my allegiances to this day. Despite the Jets sharing Shea with the Mets for a couple decades, I was always a Giants fan. Folks who live in the City and Jersey/Northern Counties/’burbs and Connecticut may have different allegiances, partially due to proximity to their teams’ location. Younger fans on Long Island, who never saw the Jets play in New York (they’d moved to Giants Stadium in 1984) may have less reason to root for the Jets (plus they’ve sucked for 50+ years). Similarly, fans of a certain age may have been Knick fans (somewhat by default) as the Nets played in Jersey (1977-2012) for several decades. So that *could* be where the Mets/Knicks thing comes in. I’ll readily admit to switching allegiances to the Knicks once the Nets left town, and begrudgingly became a fan again when they moved to Brooklyn.
But…I have friends who are Yankee/Jets/Knicks/Rangers fans, just as (like myself) I have friends who are Mets/Giants/Nets/Isles fans. There’s no real rhyme or reason to fandom. Certainly, how well the team did during one’s formative years might have something to do with it. If you weren’t say, seven or eight by 1986, there’s a greater chance you’d be a Yankee fan, because their (more recent) successful run came during the mid-1990s through probably 2009. Doesn’t mean one is automatically a Yankees fan if one is a millennial, but I’d say the chances are a lot greater.
YMMV, of course.
I agree with all that Phil said. I would add that parents’, grandparents’, and older siblings’ allegiances influence for whom some root. My father was a Brooklyn Dodgers for over a third of his life before they moved. He was a National League fan and became a Mets fan when they started playing. I have friends and family who grew up Dodger and New York (baseball) Giants fans and the majority, but not all, became Mets fans rather than fans of the Yankees or some other team. This may correspond to where the parents or grandparents used to live (Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, LI or Westchester suburbs, etc.) before moving, to the suburbs or around the city.
Enjoyed that Smithsonian gallery!
To dovetail off last week’s excellent “The Good Old Days of Sideline Gear” lede, there’s a photo in there with football players on the sideline using their personalized equipment/laundry(?) bags to keep their legs warm:
link
Anyone have an explanation as to why Pete Alonso has been wearing a light blue belt and sleeve lately?
The story for the obscure jerseys at the 49’ers game reminds of my own extended brush with obscure jerseys. For 10+ years i had a ticket package for the Yankees in the old stadium, about 16 games per season. My seats were in the first row of the upper deck overlooking the visitors dugout, and man, did i love those seats! Don’t even ask where they put me when they made the move to the new stadium, but the fact that I dropped the ticket package should tell you all you need to know (but that’s a whole nother conversation!)
Anyway, on to the subject at hand: obscure jerseys. For 10+ years, at every game I went to, there was a dude directly below me on the field level wearing a Dan Fouts Chargers jersey. Every game, and I’m talking hundreds of games! And it was always paired with a pair of brown corduroy pants. My friends and I just started calling HIM Dan Fouts, as in “DAN FOUTS IS HERE!” It could have been an August day game with blazing sunshine and a temp of 101F and this dude would still be rocking the Fouts jersey with the brown cords! Now THAT’S dedication!
The Obscure Jerseys blog reminds me of a similar thing which is band t-shirts at a gig. Who is wearing one of the band that is playing (or supporting)? Who is wearing t-shirts of other bands? For metal gigs I think there are definite protocols such as a Motorhead T-Shirt is pretty much acceptable at any metal gig. But don’t wear Metallica shirts at a Megadeth gig and vice-versa!