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It was six years ago today that the first entry on this site was published. I think it’s fair to say that nobody, least of all me, could have foreseen the many ways in which Uni Watch has grown since then. Thanks, people — it’s been a fun ride so far, with plenty more to come.
As per our recent annual custom, the site’s birthday is also Purple Amnesty Day. Today — and only today, at least until next year — you can request a purple-inclusive card design when signing up for the Uni Watch Membership Program. No rain checks, no do-overs, no exceptions, no foolin’, so get those wretched purple design orders in today. You snooze, you lose!
Meanwhile: New ESPN column today. Link coming soon.
About a month ago I mentioned that I had to go see a podiatrist, and that he turned out to be uni-aware, which was nice. I had to see him again yesterday, and the first thing he said to me was, “My daughter says the Marlins are wearing the ugliest uniforms she’s ever seen. I haven’t seen them play yet this year — are they really that bad?” So we spent a few minutes talking about the Marlins, and at one point I said, “They actually have this orange cap that they haven’t even worn yet. Maybe your daughter will like that — or maybe she’ll think it makes them look even worse.”
Fast forward about 10 hours. I’m at last night’s Mets/Brewers game with my friend Emily, who’s driven down from Connecticut to watch the game with me. The game is a blowout, so we’re talking about pretty much anything other than baseball, and I begin to mention my trip to the podiatrist. Just then, the scoreboard shows a highlight from the Marlins game — Giancarlo Stanton crashing into the fence while making a sensational catch in right field — and I notice that the Marlins are finally wearing the orange cap. I will now forever associate this cap with my podiatrist.
Nowadays every stadium has a high-def color jumbotron. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, though, most ballparks had conventional one-color scoreboards that displayed dot-matrix images. An artist named Peter Chen has created a series of portraits based on that old scoreboard style (you can see some of them above; there are more here). I really like them, so I asked him to give a little summary of the project, which he happily provided:
As someone who thinks a lot about baseball as seen through an artistic lens, I recently began pondering about the jumbotron images and animations I had grown up seeing (as well as mimicked in ’90s baseball video games). This gave me an urge to create player portraits similar to those flashed on the scoreboard during Hank Aaron’s 715th home run and Pete Rose’s 4192nd hit. Specifically, I wanted to create players from the ’70s and ’80s, who were the equivalent of superheroes to me when I was growing up.
The process starts with creating a black-and-white pixel-sized image in Photoshop. This is the most painstaking part of the process, as each pixel can significantly change a portrait. Once that’s completed, the image is imported into Illustrator and overlaid with a series of dots in grid format. The excess dots are removed from the grid, resulting in the final image.
The image is then printed in black onto black paper via a laser printer, which results in a black-on-black effect. Gold foil is then overlaid on top of the printed piece, and both are sent through a heat laminator. The heating process fuses the gold foil to the toner to create the final image. This is an affordable yet powerful method of printing metalics in a one-off fashion. Otherwise, it would surely be cost-prohibitive.
Interesting! Peter’s prints evoke very specific reactions in my mind. The Shea Stadium scoreboard never displayed this type of image, so I associate these portraits with the Phillies, the Pirates, maybe the Reds. As I list those teams, I realize I’m also listing donut-style stadiums that had artificial turf. When I see these images, that’s what I think of: cheesy, synthetic, ’70s-style plastic culture. Except I mean all of that in a good way, if that’s possible.
Peter sells these prints for $100 at his Etsy shop. He also has a series of really nice MLB paintings, which he sells on his web site. Great stuff all around.
Yesterday was MLB’s annual pink-out. You know the drill: pink ribbons, pink bats, pink cleats, pink wristbands, pink batting gloves, etc. Ugly as shit, worthy cause, blah-blah-blah — nothing new here.
Or is there? There’s a company in Ohio called Phoenix Bats. I’d never heard of them before yesterday, but their bats are used by a few MLBers, including Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers and Billy Butler of the Royals, along with several top minor league prospects. Here’s what they posted yesterday on their Facebook page (with thanks to reader Jason Whitt, who brought this to my attention): (Continue reading)
We’ve now concluded our first “rebranding” contest, this one for the Cleveland baseball club, and I’m pleased to announce that our winner is (drumroll)…
Nate Schimelpfenig, who submitted the design you see above — his full submission is here, and after two elimination rounds, Nate outlasted all the competition to become our winner. In fact, in the final showdown, Nate collected 1,764 out of 3,107 votes cast, or 56.78% of the votes cast. Some bar/pie graphs show the results below:
Great job Nate, and by all who entered the contest
As many of you know, one of the semi-recurring features on the weekend Uni Watch entries is a fabulous section called “Colorize This!,” which features readers (artists, really) who painstakingly and often in excruciating detail, colorize black and white photographs. Sometimes the photographs are of more recent vintage, and the colors are well known. Other times, however, a reader will find a photograph he wishes to colorize for which very little is known — not just the colors, but the story behind the photo.
Reader Gary Chanko, one of two colorizers who has been a major contributing force (and one half of what I call the “G&G Boys”), is one of those who really takes the art of colorization to another level, not only by taking a photo and (as best as humanly possible) getting the color details right, but he also finds the story behind the photograph. Today, we have an example of that. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe Gary’s efforts, so I’ll just say that what follows is really a fantastic mix of talent, historical research, dedication and devotion. I can’t imagine how many hours went into this, but we’re all the richer for it. Here’s Gary. Enjoy — PH
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Fat Men, Baseball, and Early Twentieth Century Postcards By Gary Chanko
Many baseball related postcards from the early twentieth century preserve the history of the amateur and semipro teams prevalent across the country during this time period. Baseball during this era was unquestionably the national pastime with seemingly every community, irrespective of size, represented by a team. There was obviously strong interest in these teams and their more notable players; significant enough for photographers and publishers across the country to market images of these relatively obscure teams and players as postcards. Some of these vintage postcards survived the past hundred years as valued collectibles. Despite their small size and sometimes poor condition they are great candidates for colorization.
I recently discovered this amusing postcard copy of the World’s Largest Baseball Player (below) dating from 1908. The monstrous 450 pound player in the photo played for the Citizens Ball Club of Emporium, Pa., a community in north central Pennsylvania with a population at the turn of last century of only a few thousand. Interestingly, today it still remains a community of only a few thousand.
Front of Post Card — (click each image to enlarge) — Back of Post Card
What you see above is the helmet for the Redskins’ new alternate uniform, which was unveiled last night. I don’t know who’s responsible for it — the team? Nike? Riddell? — but it’s brilliant. It’s what the Packers should have used for their bulls-eye throwbacks the past few years. It’s what the Steelers should have used for their 2012 throwbacks. It’s what any team wearing a throwback or retro concept from the leatherhead era should use. Kudos to all involved.
As for the rest of the uniform, it’s fine, if unremarkable. TV spotters won’t like the lack of TV numbers, and those of us who are opposed to Indian imagery on uniforms won’t like the sleeve patches, and I wish the socks had some stripes. Could be worse, though, especially since I’d heard through the grapevine that the design would be BFBS. Glad that report turned out to be incorrect. (Continue reading)
With college football and basketball programs changing their uniforms so frequently nowadays — and often changing to designs that many people don’t like — I’m often asked, “What kind of deal does that school have with Nike [or Adidas, or whomever]? Like, did they have to pay for those ugly uniforms? How does it work?” I got some similar questions after my recent post about Nike owning Mississippi State’s logo.
My standard response is that every contract between a school and an outfitter is different and that there’s no way for me to know the terms of any individual deal. The larger truth is that I’ve always been rather ignorant regarding the way these contracts work, so I’ve never felt comfortable talking about them.
That has now changed, thanks to reader Jimmy Griggs. He was poking around on the web and found a link that provides a PDF of Nike’s 2008 contract with the University of Memphis. There’s nothing sneaky about it — as you can see from the URL, it’s hosted right there on the school’s web site. (The contract includes a confidentiality clause, but that clause also mentions the Tennessee Public Records Act, which I assume is why the contract is on the school’s web site, since Memphis is a state university.)
For the record: This contract doesn’t say anything about Nike owning any designs or colors it creates for Memphis (or if it does say that, I missed it). Indeed, most of the contract seems fairly straightforward and sensible. But it provides an invaluable look at how a big-time outfitter does business with a big-time college athletics program.
The contract isn’t all that long, doesn’t have much legal-ese, and is consistently interesting, so I encourage you to read all of it. But here are some highlights: (Continue reading)
