In today’s Ticker: White breezers on the ice, a nugget from Saturday’s Jags/Chargers game, and Italy’s favorite baseball teams.
Uni Watch News Ticker for Jan. 17, 2023
Posted in:
Baseball
MLB
- A Reddit user tracked all the MLB caps he saw while visiting Italy and shared his findings in a graph.
More
- Seen online by David Firestone: A counterfeit jersey we can all get behind.
- New centennial logo for the Cape Cod League. (From Jim Brunetti)
Football
NFL
- All Chargers players wore black cleats in Saturday’s playoff loss to the Jaguars. Coach Brandon Staley said he was inspired by the 1990s Chicago Bulls. (From Mike Chamernik)
- When the Browns jumped from the AAFC to the NFL in 1950, their players kept their same jersey numbers, despite the AAFC’s odd number system. The NFL clarified numbering rules in 1952, which is why Browns greats like Otto Graham and Lou Groza wore two different numbers. (From James Gilbert)
College
- Readers likely remember the “150” patch teams wore in 2019 to commemorate college football’s 150th anniversary. It appears Holy Cross never removed those patches on one of their uniform sets. (From @OmarRashonBorja)
Hockey
College
- Penn State men’s has unveiled a new alternate uniform that they’ll wear on Saturday. Of note, the unis include solid blue helmets, instead of their traditional white lids with a blue stripe. (From William Yurasko)
Minors/Juniors
- The Vancouver Giants of the WHL broke out white breezers along with their alternate white sweaters on Sunday. (From Wade Heidt)
- Four female players — Ann-Sophie Bettez and Sydney Brodt from the PHF and Emily Brown and Sam Cogan from the PWHPA — competed in the ECHL All Star Game last night. All four players wore their league logo on their jerseys, while ECHL players didn’t wear such a patch. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
Basketball
College
- Yahoo used Merrimack College’s logo instead of Morehouse College’s logo in a graphic last night. (From @koTenSixtySix)
G League
- The Long Island Nets wore black-and-gold uniforms to commemorate MLK Day yesterday. But the out-of-color-scheme unis proved confusing, as their opponents yesterday were the Grand Rapids Gold. (From @_RF30c)
More
- This blog tells the story about a 1915 photo of a high school basketball game in Indiana — perhaps the oldest photograph in existence of a high school basketball game in the state. (From Don Hammack and @BallparkHunter)
- Metamora High School in Illinois has a weird half-and-half court design. (From J.P. Young)
Soccer
International
- Japan: J2 club Ventforet Koch has unveiled their new uniforms for the upcoming season. (From Jeremy Brahm)
- China: Shandong Taishan won the Chinese FA Cup yesterday, but the trophy broke shortly after post-match celebrations began. (Also from Jeremy Brahm)
- Italy: New kits for the men’s national team. (From Germán Cabrejo)
Tennis
- Russian and Belarusian flags have been barred from the Australian Open after an incident during Tuesday’s session.
- Danil Medvedev has unveiled a new personal logo as part of his endorsement deal with Lacoste.
Auto Racing
- Red Bull’s F1 team will wear Sparco racing suits in 2023, and some of the team’s junior drivers have been wearing the new Sparco suits at recent events. Is it the same design that Max Verstappen and Checo Perez will wear this season? Time will tell. (From our own Anthony Emerson)
- Also from Anthony: Here are the personal logos for a bunch of F1 drivers.
Grab Bag
- Cycling teams EF Education-EasyPost and EF Education-Tibco-SVB have new kits that include mismatched socks: dark pink on the right, and light pink on the left. The design choice has even prompted a Twitter account dedicated to tracking which cyclists are wearing the socks incorrectly. (From Bernie Langer)
- This video explores the typography flaws in the Hollywood sign. (From Justin Hicks)
Comments (12)
Staley should spend more time on a game plan and less time trying to be the 90’s Bulls.
At about the 24:50 mark of this podcast, you can listen to some background about the Bulls´ black playoff sneakers:
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Also of note, the Bears and Eagles switched to black cleats in 1990 (not sure if the Bulls were an inspiration or not)…both lost in the playoffs, but at least the Bears made it out of the first round.
All white hockey unis are just brutal to see.
We’ve been seeing more and more white unis in hockey of late. Examples:
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In almost all cases, I don’t think these uniforms make enough use of color elsewhere (socks, stripes, yokes, gloves, etc.). But in all cases, the uniforms don’t look particularly good because we’re seeing them against a primarily white background. While not exactly camouflaging, it doesn’t help.
The problem isn’t so much that the all white uniform isn’t good, it’s that it’s LOST. One need only look at how bad teams whose colors match their surface to see why this is a problem:
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I’m not sure what the solution is, or if there even is one. I’m pretty sure hockey floors are going to remain painted white for the foreseeable future. I’d love for a (mostly) all white uni to succeed on ice, but the problem — at least IMO — isn’t the white uni, but the background. Unless and until we can figure out a way to make a white uni stand out, rather than blend in, no white uni is going to look good.
Just my $.02. YMMV
I like that the name plate on the back of the Penn State sweater creates contrast so that the NOB is more visible from a distance
Now I need to know more about the AAFC numbering system.
The Reddit MLB cap thread used the Phillies NOB/number font.
I love Lando Norris’ logo. It’s on par with the old Hartford Whalers logo in its creative use of negative space. Well done!
I dunno that we can all get behind that counterfeit jersey – does it say Connitefeit? Conmterfeit? Such an unpleasing font style!
That’s Ventforet Kofu, not Koch.
FYI, the black and gold are an homage to MLK’s fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.
Those Indiana high school pics from the 1910s are very nice, as is the posed Purdue shot in the same story. I love these old pics with players wearing football pants and courts with these extremely narrow bucket lines and galleries where people can stand right next to the backboards.