In today’s Ticker: The NCAA unveils the 2023 “Final Floors,” the Twins’ ballpark is getting a makeover, and safety-related changes could be coming to the NHL.
Uni Watch News Ticker for March 14, 2023
Posted in:
Baseball
MLB
- With the Twins wearing a new uni set this season, team employees are hard at work updating the branding and logos at the team’s ballpark ahead of Opening Day.
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- New home pinstripes for Iowa State. (From Kary Klismet)
- Great Britain’s World Baseball Classic uniforms have been widely and deservedly mocked, but the High-A Lake County Captains have taken it a step further.
- The South Dakota-based Oahe Zap, a new team in the collegiate Independence League, have unveiled what they’ll be wearing this season. (From @viceforever88)
- Reprinted from last night’s comments: Boston College has unveiled new Patriots Day uniforms that look a lot like the Red Sox’s CC design. “The ’21 Mile’ sleeve patch references BC’s location on the Boston Marathon’s route,” says reader/commenter AMDG.
Hockey
NHL
- ESPN will offer an alternate broadcast of tonight’s Caps/Rangers game that will replace players with animated characters from the Disney+ show Big City Greens. (From @fullgrownnut)
- Reports indicate that the NHL and the NHLPA are working toward an agreement that would require teams to provide “cut resistant” technology on uniforms following a series of scary laceration injuries in recent weeks. (From Brandon Weir)
- Last month, reader Ted Arnold commissioned a painting of one of his favorite hockey cards — a 1964-65 Topps Tall Boy Tim Horton. The painting is finally complete, and this video shows how the piece came together from beginning to end.
Minors/Juniors
- The Ontario Reign of the AHL wore green-trimmed uniforms to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day on Sunday. (From Wade Heidt)
Basketball
College
- The NCAA has unveiled the floor designs for the men’s Final Four, which will take place in Houston, and the women’s Final Four, which will take place in Dallas. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
- ESPN has published a guide to the mascots and team colors of the NCAA men’s tourney field. (From Kary Klismet)
Soccer
USA
- New away kit for Lexington SC of USL League 1. (From Andrew McPherson)
International
- Spain: La Liga side Villareal wore 100th-anniversary commemorative kits over the weekend. (From Kary Klismet)
- Sweden: New away jerseys for Malmö FF. (From Kary Klismet)
- Turkey: New “blackout” jerseys for Galatasaray, which they’ll wear in support of the victims of the recent earthquakes. (From Kary Klismet)
- Speaking of blackout jerseys: Here’s a good look at how the trend of black-on-black jerseys started in the soccer world. (From Brett Baker)
- Ireland: Castore will take over the manufacturing of the Irish National Teams’ kits. (From Germán Cabrejo)
Grab Bag
- This may have been Ticked before, but Prentice James shared a photo of a trucking company that’s poaching the SEC’s logo. “Best carriers in America,” Prentice joked.
- A local tourism group in Cincinnati is pushing for a renovation of the city’s downtown arena or the construction of a new arena, and has released renderings of what the building could look like. (From Kary Klismet)
- New uniforms for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Texas. (From Kary Klismet)
- Port Huron High School in Michigan has selected “Redhawks” as its new team name and mascot. (From Scott Crocker)
- Dick Fosbury, the Olympic gold medalist high jumper who revolutionized the event with the now-ubiquitous “Fosbury Flop,” died Monday at the age of 76. “Has anyone else singlehandedly changed the look of an entire sport so profoundly?” asks Ron Ruelle.
Comments (22)
Interesting that ESPN includes Jimmy Wales as a “famous alum” of Alabama. While yes, he technically is, I imagine he is more likely to be an Auburn fan, as he did his undergrad there. I generally feel like most people feel a closer connection to where they went to undergrad than grad school, but maybe that’s just me!
I agree with you 100%. Undergrad is when you’re out going to football/basketball games, getting drunk, partying, etc…
The Team GB uniforms are, in fact, classy and minimalist. Would you rather they have an angry cartoon lion on the front?
Incredibly enough, there are other options besides the current design and an “angry cartoon lion.”
If you like the current design, that’s certainly your prerogative. We’ll have to agree to disagree.
I see neither class nor minimalism in the GB uniform. Rather, I see a lack of design and intent. The cap and jersey seem unrelated, and do not reflect a coherent design, which is the absolute bare minimum that must be present for a uniform to express elegance. And given that “Great Britain” is a falsehood, spelling that out on the chest doesn’t qualify as minimalism for me. The GB logo on the chest would suffice, tie the jersey to the cap, and express actual minimalism. And since it’s an abbreviation, it’s OK that it elides the real, actual, full name of the team’s political and geographic scope.
The UK’s baseball governing federation, the BBF, takes an interesting approach to the issue of using “Britain” as a synonym for “United Kingdom,” since Northern Ireland is not part of Britain, and Northern Ireland athletes are generally eligible to play for UK or Irish teams: The BBF logo uses dotted lines instead of solid lines for the portion of the Union flag that represents Northern Ireland with the red St. Patrick’s cross.
link
“And given that “Great Britain” is a falsehood…” Not sure what you mean by this. Great Britain is the correct term for the island that contains England, Wales and Scotland and this is indeed the BBF’s entire jurisdiction as a sporting body. Baseball in Northern Ireland comes solely under the jurisdiction of Baseball Ireland and BBF has no say in Northern Irish baseball affairs so the situation is in fact clear cut in this regard. True, owing to Northern Ireland’s flexible passport situation I’m guessing (dependent on the specifics of WBC’s player qualification rules) it’s possible for Northern Irish individuals to declare for the Great British team, but that’s really a separate issue.
Yes but the BBF logo looks like a pair of underpants!
Iowa State does not have a baseball team.
And hasn’t had one for 22 years…
It’s Iowa State’s club team.
Half the laces on the baseball at the Townball Tavern at Target Field are pointed in the wrong direction.
Port Huron High School gets a big fat goose egg by opting for the xeroxed “Redhawks” alternative to whichever misappropriated mascot they used to use. Honestly, has nobody looked at a red hawk and said, “Aha! Firebirds!!” and in the process gained a unique identity? Copycats are killing me.
I don’t understand the criticism of Port Huron. The district took the proper steps of recognizing the inappropriateness of the names, brought students in to the discussion and came up with some nice logos. Sounds like a learning experience plus a massive upgrade on the logos.
Here are the rest of the logos.
link
My first thought was that the Firebird had a similar backstory — and Native American cultural significance — as the Thunderbird. As we’ve seen, the latter moniker has been discouraged in its use by at least one tribal group (Kary would likely remember the specifics) due to cultural appropriation.
Turns out the Firebird has its origins in Slavic folklore. I certainly didn’t know that. My heritage is Slavic (Rusyn) on my mother’s side of the family. But if that high school had gone with Walter’s suggestion, I would’ve been all for it as a replacement team name. Very creative.
Like he said, it beats the unoriginal name they chose. (At least they didn’t camelback it.)
-C.
I couldn’t have explained it any better than Chris did. Conformity is a pervasive force in varsity sports. There are three high schools within ten miles of my house whose teams are called the Tigers. They should try harder.
I was at the Twins spring training ballpark last week and noticed that they had updated the seat logos there at the end of the rows with vinyl stickers.
Hi Todd
It truly is fantastic. Melysa said it’s the best one she has done. She is going to be at the upcoming show in Toronto in April.
Cheers
Ted
Ted Arnold’s Tim Horton card is fantastic. I met Melysa at the Toronto Sports Card Expo and was amazed at her renderings of old cards.
“Has anyone else (not named Dick Fosbury) changed the look of an entire sport so profoundly?”
I sure can’t think of one…though he owes a tiny bit to the person who came up with the idea to swap out the sandpits for padding ; )
Of course, there have been sidearm pitchers (still high on the weirdness factor IMO) in baseball, but those never have been and still are not the norm. Pete Gogolak left his mark on placekicking, and though he introduced the ‘soccer-style’ technique to the professional ranks, the practice doesn’t bear his name..maybe he deserved more credit than being the answer to a trivia question.
I would like to see more (any?) hoopsters utilize the under-hand free throw method, not for the accuracy but for the novelty.
Possibly George Mikan. The key was made wider, goaltending became a rule and the shot clock was put in place because teams would slow down play considerably against Mikan.
Regarding the trucking company and the Southeastern Conference’s logo, I wondered if the carrier had started up during the 1988-2008 timeframe, when the SEC was using the diamond logo. Well, according to the carrier’s About page, they’ve been around since 1986, and the photos of their early trucks imply that they’ve been using the circle logo pretty much since they started.
South Eastern Carriers – It Just Means More!