Today in the Ticker: Tomatoes in the Baltimore bullpen, a Premier Lacrosse League playoff uni recap, an Olympics-banned swimming cap for Black hair gets a competitive green light, and you’ll never guess which NFL team UK Instagrammers think has the best unis.
Uni Watch News Ticker for Sept. 7, 2022
Posted in:
Baseball
MLB
- The Orioles groundskeepers have been growing beefsteak tomatoes in the bullpen area. The move is a tribute to what groundskeeper Pat Santarone did back in the Earl Weaver days. (From Andrew Cosentino)
Football
NFL
- Orange/black/white/orange for the Bengals this week. (From our own Phil Hecken)
- Sadly, no anime-themed reveal this time, but here’s the Chargers’ uni schedule. (Also from Phil)
- NFL UK Instagram followers have ranked the Rams’ uniforms as the best in the league. Yes, seriously. (From @BraydenTeeter)
- Ravens DE Brent Urban will cover the cost for fans who bought his jersey with his old number. Urban recently switched from No. 68 to No. 97. (From Andrew Cosentino)
- The NFL Network brought out every Super Bowl ring for last night’s opening kickoff show. (From Philip Brown)
- New sod for Soldier Field. (From David Raglin)
- Speaking of Solider Field: The Bears unveiled their latest plans to leave Chicago’s city limits, which include a proposed domed stadium in Arlington Heights.
College
- New helmets for New Mexico. (From multiple readers)
- New unis for D2 Nebraska-Kearney. (From Ford Clark)
- New unis for Columbia. (From Jace McKeighan)
- Space-themed uniforms for Rice this week. (From multiple readers)
- Mono-royal for BYU this week. (From our own Phil Hecken)
Hockey
NHL
- A new Sharks uni set has leaked. It’s not yet clear if it will be worn this season or next season. Additional info here. (From Richard Craig)
- New mask for Capitals G Darcy Kuemper. (From multiple readers)
- New Happy Gilmore-themed mask for Bruins G Keith Kinkaid. (From @uniformnerd)
- This sportswriter thinks the Kings should go back to their original purple/yellow color scheme. (From our own Phil Hecken)
More
- New mask for the PHF’s Metropolitan Riveters G Eveliina Mäkinen. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
Basketball
College
- New unis for Kentucky men’s. (From our own Phil Hecken)
- Bronny James, the eldest son of Lakers SF Lebron James, posted a picture of himself wearing an Ohio State uniform. The younger James hasn’t committed to any school yet.
Soccer
USA
- Over the weekend the USWNT played a friendly against Nigeria. D Sofia Huerta appeared to be the only player who tucked in her shirt. (From Julie Streeter)
- The NWSL’s Kansas City Current are building their own stadium, which will be the first one built specifically for an NWSL club. They’ve released some renderings. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
International
- England: Arsenal wore black against Manchester United over the weekend and arrived with black socks. Man U wore black socks as well, so a quick solution was found: store-bought regular Adidas socks in grey. (From Timmy Steffes)
- England: Teams in the English women’s top two tiers are planning to continue to kneel before games, even though it’s mostly stopped in the Premier League. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
- Brazil: New shirts for Vasco Da Gama. (From Trevor Williams)
- Here’s a video on how the Adidas Predator became “the boot that changed football.” (From John Flory)
Auto Racing
- The Ferrari crew will wear yellow at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend. (From our own Anthony Emerson)
Tennis
- Here’s another article on the controversial balls used for the women’s matches at the U.S. Open.
Volleyball
- The University of Wisconsin women’s volleyball team has unveiled their championship rings and banner for winning the 2021 NCAA Division I national title. (From Kary Klismet)
Grab Bag
- A recap from the weekend’s first round of the Premier Lacrosse League playoffs: A mono-black set for Chaos in the upset over Chrome in their chrome/light gradient uni. The Redwoods wore mono-white and were sent home by the Archers in blue/orange/blue. The last game featured the Waterdogs in purple/purple/white defeating Atlas, who wore mono-white for the first time this season. (From Jared Buccola)
- The Australian Football League Women’s Indigenous round is next weekend, so some designs are starting to come out. Here are the designs for Richmond, Port Adelaide, Sydney, and Carlton. (From our own Jamie Rathjen)
- Reader Kenn Tomasch found this speedskating photo from a March 1950 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. According to Kenn, the uniforms look, “part pajama, part Billy Batson, part superhero.” They were both on the Queensboro Skating Club, which explains the “SC” on their uniforms.
- A swim cap designed for Black natural hair has been approved for competition after being banned at the Tokyo Olympics.
- The famous late comedian George Carlin once did a uniform-related bit! You can hear it from 23:58 to 25:51 of this recording. (From our own Jerry Wolper)
- Simon Fraser University athletics teams will now be called the Red Leafs. They dropped their original name, Clan, in 2020. (From Wade Heidt)
- The mascot for this year’s Paralympic Bocce World Championships has been revealed. (From Kary Klismet)
- New blue gym floor for Caldwell County High School in Princeton, Ky. (From Josh Claywell)
- New logos for the new D.C. Departments of Buildings and Licensing and Consumer Protection. (From @bryanwdc)
Comments (23)
Nitpick: Simon Fraser, not Frasier.
(Or Fraiser, even. :))
Fixed.
Chicago Bears…
Domed stadium…
Good grief.
JUST RIDIC! More than half the league is gonna be domes !!!
Sadly, there’s probably little chance Soldier Field will be restored to its’ former glory/landmark status once the Bears leave.
Speaking of domed stadia and sod – does anyone know what has happened to the Raiders’ field? I saw it during their last pre-season game and it looked in terrible shape especially at the end zones.
Loving what Russell Morgan is writing about the LA Kings. Really good points. Couldn’t agree more and have been preaching a lot of the same. Was a shame their Reverse Retro was only for that one season. Now is the time for the Kings to make the shift back to the Forum Blue and Gold. The present Kings uniform is in massive need of a redesign and same with current logo. The purple and yellow are cool with their arena mates the Lakers. No reason it cannot be for the Kings as well.
Couldn’t agree more. I trace the BFBS trend to the Kings’ color change in 1988. It was a total merch grab, and it laid the foundation for so much of what’s wrong with merch-driven uniform programs in professional sports now. A change back to the purple and gold (or yellow, whatever you want to call it) will not put any proverbial toothpaste back in the tube around the rest of the uni-verse, but it will at least help the Kings look like they should look – and in a color scheme that actually makes thematic sense for their namesake.
As a lifelong Kings fan from even before the initial semi-glory days of Vachon and Dionne, I could not agree more. The current unis are super dull and generic. The Forum Blue and Gold set pops and is distinctive.
I have to assume that this would not put the Kings in the Uni Waych Purple Amnesty penalty box for a major.
Go Kings Go!
I absolutely refuse to believe that I’m the only person who thinks that the Junior Seau-era uniforms are a million times better than what the Chargers are wearing now. But since everyone (at least publicly) keeps insisting that they have a better look now, I would like to make a few recommendations that I know they won’t care about: 1) Hold a big bonfire and throw all their yellow pants in it; those don’t look good with any of their jerseys, 2)Take the numbers off the sides of the helmets; it’s 2022 and this isn’t college, 3) Mix in a colored helmet since you can have multiple shells; white was not an upgrade, 4) Wear the darker colors more often; I know you love powder blue for some reason but the navy and royal are so much better, and 5 (not uni related but necessary): GO BACK TO SAN DIEGO AND BEG FOR THEIR FORGIVENESS!!! MOVING TO LOS ANGELES HAS FAILED!!!
To combat number 4, and I think why people prefer the powder blue over the navy or even royal jerseys, 9 of the 32 teams haver primary home uniforms that are either navy or royal (5 navy, 4 royal). That’s over 1/4 of the league in those colors. Powder blue is a refreshing change from those two colors.
The yellow pants look great with the white jerseys…and outstanding with the powder blues. They are also a must should they ever revive the Coryell era uniforms.
As for the helmet numbers…since they aren’t in the throwback font and aren’t black, I say ditch them.
IF they ever go back to the Air Coryell era, I would be inclined to agree, but I find the yellow pants really ugly with what they have now. White pants or even blue pants would be better. Unfortunately I don’t think the Air Coryell era unis or Junior Seau era unis will ever be back because everyone in the media keeps towing their company line.
Side note: I don’t actually HATE the powder part of their look; it’s really more the white helmet with yellow lightning and college football numbers that was the massive downgrade. Maybe a powder helmet ala North Carolina…? Or let’s get really radical: a yellow helmet with a blue lightning bolt! Maybe that’s going too far; just anything other than what they have now would be better.
I don’t know of anyone who says the Chargers’ current unis are their best ever, just that they’re better than the preceding set from 2007-2019.
I think the Chargers themselves claim that the current set is the best ever! (They’re wrong, of course.)
Point by point:
1) Wrong.
2) Wrong.
3) Wrong.
4) Wrong.
5) Correct.
Lee
Good to see my old professor, Richard Craig, on here again! Predictably with a Sharks item
Very few soccer players tucking in their shirts is not exactly news. Hardly any players in the men’s leagues do it – Rodri of Manchester City and Kieran Tierney of Arsenal are the only two that come to mind.
Actually…. link
Cheers Paul, I thought the point was that *only* a few players were tucked, but if it’s a trend that’s coming back then it totally makes sense!
That Chargers uniform schedule is for the jersey only since they didn’t go into details on which pants would be worn. They have many (too many?) mix & match options. And I agree with getting rid of the helmet numbers. I find it distracting and useless.
The Rice number font is brutal. They should just launch that whole uni into space. I do like the silver helmet though.
One uni note from the first set of Champions League matches yesterday: Manchester City wore claret colored shorts for the first time in recent memory. (link)
Claret and blue is a great color combination and one you see a lot in English football, but this look didn’t really work, in my opinion. Something about it seems a little out of balance. It almost looks like they forgot to pack shorts and had to borrow some from the other team.