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The NHL’s been saving a sneaky little uniform change for the start of the regular season: Beginning next Thursday, all players except for goalies will be required to have their uni numbers on the front crown/forehead area of their helmets (as well as on the back, which was already required). The move, which is supposedly to make the players easier to identify for officials and the media, was first reported via Twitter on Tuesday night by Wild equipment manager Tony DaCosta, who shared the two photos you see above. I got confirmation from the league yesterday.

That tidbit makes a good lead-in to my annual NHL season-preview column, which is up now on ESPN. Yes, this is a bit earlier than we usually publish it. One consequence of the earlier pub date is that I won’t have a separate column on goalie masks and pads running in tandem with the team-by-team rundown, because not enough of the goalies have played or been photographed yet during the preseason. So we’ll run the goalie column a bit later, probably on Oct. 13-ish. OK? OK!

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Stickers reminder: Remember, if you’re a Uni Watch Membership Program enrollee, you can now order a sheet of stickers based on your membership card design. If you’ve missed the news on that, you can get the full scoop here.

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Uni Watch News Ticker: Reebok has agreed to pay $25 million in a settlement over false advertising claims regarding sneakers. ”¦ Speaking of Reebok, Zack Tanner notes that some NHL teams are still using old jerseys with the Reebok vector instead of the wordmark. I asked Bob Halfacre about this (along with all the MLB stuff he does, he’s also part of the Kings’ equipment staff) and he said, “Any old stock is supposed to have a new patch placed over the vector. Reebok provides us with the patches, and they actually do a really solid job on that — the vector logo is larger, so they make a square made from the jersey air knit that has a new wordmark patch sewn to it. It matches into the jersey really well. It’s a little bit of a pain at this time of the year, but it’s just part of the job. Our biggest fear is forgetting to do it.” ”¦ Here’s a good video clip on the making of Aussie footballs (from William Blevins). … SportsCenter, again with the inconsistent conference logos (from Tony Burke). … Amusing to see the AP’s World Series style guide. … A soccer team was penalized for wearing contrasting underwear (from Gary Streeting). … New court design for Illinois (from Erik Spoonmore). … New hockey uniforms for Ohio State (from Andrew McCarthy). … Does wearing a black hockey jersey make you more aggressive? Shmaybe (from Matt Harris). … Saturday is the start of Breast Cancer Awareness month, and LSU isn’t wasting any time. The Tigers will wear pink ribbon decals on their helmets this Saturday. … This is pretty awesome: Todd Helton in an old Denver Bears strike zone uniform. It was on the cover of the April 2003 issue of Rockies magazine, which Tyler Maun found while rooting through some old stuff. … Here’s a good Marlins uni retrospective (from Daniel Buckalew). ”¦ Ron Mazzola notes that Jose Reyes pulled a chickenshit move was wearing his skullcap inside-out yesterday. ”¦ After seeing innumerable athletes with innumerable-times-20 bad tattoos, it’s great to see that Brandon Guyer of the Rays has something that’s pretty damn cool (screen shot by Chris Fernandez). ”¦ A Samoan rugby player has been fined for wearing an unauthorized mouthguard. “I’m one of about five people in the world who care about rugby and uniforms, and I was about 10 yards from this player several times,” says Caleb Borchers. “I certainly didn’t notice. Ridiculous.” … Happy New Year to all who are observing (and shame on me for not putting that in yesterday’s post).

 
  
 
Comments (151)

    So the numbers are going to be front only, and not front and back?

    It’s a little better, but still stupid.

    Put the name on the front and the number on back. But who the hell cares? Just keep changing ’em to football helmets; we all root for uniforms anyway.

    You know what’s funny about the FL Marlins logo breakdown? This key point:

    “The Montreal Expos in their last home game, lost 9-1 vs players in this logo in 2004”

    Well, the Marlins lost their last FL Marlins game at home 3-1, and to who? To the team formerly known as the Expos. Sweet revenge?

    I think that link sums the FLORIDA Marlins-era up best.

    Sweet revenge indeed: the franchise Jeffrey Loria is destroying spoiled by the franchise he already destroyed.

    I enjoyed the article. The Marlins should have had the balls to keep their original color, instead of becoming the Florida White (Black) Sox (though perhaps fitting, since now they have Ozzie). Hopefully the wholesale changes the club is going through will inject some color back into their uniforms. I’m just glad I’ll no longer have to see Joe Robbie Dolphin Pro Life Marlins New Orange Bowl Field Stadium for nine games a season, anymore.

    So does putting the player’s number on the front of his helmet mean teams like Sabres, Sharks, and Stars will drop the numbers from the front of their sweaters?

    Nope. Expect the players to eventually just skate in number costumes. It will feel like Sesame Street, and the kids ages 4 and younger will love it!

    if there are “officials” and “media” that CAN’T identify a player during an NHL game without front helmet numbers… then they should be neither “official” nor “media”

    Geez, NHL, why not just go back to putting numbers on skates while you’re at it? And how about every team wear sweaters modelled after the Boston Bruins of the ’30s and ’40s, with big numerals on the front and back.

    Of course, you’d still have to have TV numbers on the sleeves, and Buffalo, Dallas & San Jose shouldn’t be discouraged from continuing to have the smaller numerals as per the current designs — you can NEVER, EVER be too sure when it comes to identifying the players!

    To that end, why not also put numbers on the pants? I mean, both legs, front AND back!

    And how about the socks? That way, if all we can see in a photo of a goalmouth scramble is a player’s leg, we’d still know who he is. And don’t cheap out here — I’m not talking about sewing patches or twill numbers onto the socks. They’ll only come undone. Think about knitting the numbers right into the pattern of the sock.

    Finally, a lot of players wear eye protection. Has it never occurred to you, NHL, that those visors and shields offer another surface on which to plaster the player’s number? Ever seen a city bus or trolley carwrapped in giant advdertising decals?

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    The passengers can see out, as if there’s nothing covering the windows. Think about it, NHL!

    Was watching a pre-season game on NHL Network a few nights ago. I think it was Sabres vs. somebody. Anywho, what I did notice was that that the dasher boards were BLANK. Not one advertisement pasted on them.

    Paul: can you get more information on this?

    “Nope. Expect the players to eventually just skate in number costumes. It will feel like Sesame Street, and the kids ages 4 and younger will love it!”

    Well, the NHL commissioner does kind of resemble The Count.

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    Maybe as part of his satellite radio show, he could add a segment called “The (Helmet) Number of the Day.”

    How about this, in a few years, they replace the front helmet numbers with a small advertisement? That way they can claim they already had a redundant element and simply replaced it with a revenue generating element. Genius!

    Yeah, I’m more than happy to see actual team-related info like numbers on uniforms instead of ugly advertising. The stupid manufacturer’s logo on the sweaters needs to go, too. Poor Mr. Halfacre says that their “biggest fear is forgetting to do it” — it shouldn’t be a concern at all! Far more important is the *team* logo and the *players’* numbers.

    Stayed up last night watching baseball last night…very exciting games. It occurred to me this morning that in the three games I was watching (Phillies/Braves, Red Sox/Orioles and Yankees/Rays) the teams were wearing traditional home whites and road grays…not a dark, alternate jersey among them. The Braves and Orioles home whites looked particularly good. The uniform schemes seemed to fit well with the importance of the games.

    I only wish that in 2012 the trend in MLB towards the frequent wearing of alternates and throwbacks would begin to reverse. I have no problem with teams’ selling alternate jerseys as fan apparel, but it would be nice if teams started recognizing the importance of having a consistently recognizable visual identity.

    Just my two cents…

    “Stayed up last night watching baseball last night…”

    Jeeez…you see how tired I am this morning. Gotta learn to proofread, too…

    I don’t have a problem with MLB wearing alternates if you have them on a set schedule. Example being if it’s Friday and the Giants are at home, you know they’re going to wear their orange jerseys. If it’s Sunday, you know they’re wearing the caps with the orange bill.

    I’d rather teams do away with softball tops. If you need an alt jersey, do what the Phillies have done and you’ll still look like a baseball team.

    If you insist on wearing dark-colored tops, there really should be a rule that only one team wear them in a game.

    The White Sox seem to wear their black jerseys a lot…which bugs the hell out of me. They have nice home whites but I’d like to see them go to an off-white so the contrast with the black isn’t so stark.

    I’m tired of hearing non-gray jerseys referred to as “softball tops”. Teams wore colored jerseys back in the 1800s before softball was even a sport.

    I prefer white at home, but love seeing color on the road. I say ditch the dull-as-dishwater gray outfits and wear color in every road game with white in every home game.

    To me, what makes it a “softball top” is the fact that there’s no visual sock in most cases. That’s what separates these from the solid tops of the ’70s.

    That’s a good point, Chris…long pants (where socks are not visible) and a dark jersey do have more of a “softball” look. Some aren’t necessarily bad…like the Braves blue road jerseys and the Brewers blue tops. But I think MLB should cultivate and maintain a certain MLB look to distinguish MLB teams from college and minor league teams. And some MLB teams could improve their home whites by going cream.

    FOR THE DRUMHEADS OUT THERE (no pun intended):

    Truth Custom Drums is a well-respected company known for creating some of the most unique drumsets. I was peeking around their site just now, and noticed this link kit. They also have a link kit, complete with link link.

    The ‘Hawks kit comes with a disclaimer:

    “Playing ‘Chelsea Dagger’ on this kit is strictly prohbitied. Failure to comply will result in the offender paying Roberto Luongo’s therapy bill.”

    Have the Participation Trophy parades in Boston and Atlanta been scheduled yet?

    What? There won’t be any?

    Well, that sucks. Play all year and not get SOMETHING?

    Ugh(la)… as a Braves fan, the less said about this season, the better. Not that I would have had much hope for the playoffs, but still. What a miserable month.

    Hey! A Braves fan that felt compassion about the outcome of last night’s win-or-go-home game! Sorry for your loss, I just wish there were more like you.

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    What’s funny is, I think Braves fans outside Atlanta are more passionate about the team than actual residents of ATL. I know a lot of people who watch every game, and make the two hour trip down to Turner Field several times per year.

    I think Braves fans outside Atlanta are more passionate about the team than actual residents of ATL.

    Spot on. I lived in Atlanta in the mid-1980s and I never felt the Braves really caught on with the fans. (Of course their dive to the bottom after 1982 had to play a part.) I also never felt many fans were baseball-savvy as they’d cheer wildly for high Murphy and Horner pop-ups that weren’t anywhere close to the warning track. Poor depth perception, maybe?

    No participation trophy for the Red Sox. They haven’t played in the MLB since 2001. After that they became the Boston Yankees so I’m not sure why people are so sad this morning. It’s as if the Red Sox lost in a heartbreaking fashion or something.

    Perfect storm last night. Cards put it away in the first inning. Braves blew it late. Rays came back in incredible fashion. AND the ESPN Sox and Papelbon’s idiotic 4 minutes between every pitch choke job was completed. Also, Columbus scored an own goal to give KC a vault into first place! What a night.

    Clearly, the Toronto sports media are 100 percent correct: this just shows why the playoffs need to be expanded. If they had only added an extra team or two per league, why, the Blue Jays would … um, still not have made the cut. Never mind!

    But hey, look, it’s time for hockey season, where you can win 40 percent of your games and still claim a “.500” record because, you know, losing in overtime doesn’t really count as losing.

    Yeah, but the World Series reminder list failed to include the single most common question non-sports-desk writers have about style when writing baseball stories: firstbaseman Albert Pujols, first baseman Albert Pujols, or first-baseman Albert Pujols?

    I’m guessing that they would use “first baseman”. We know they would forego the hyphen, as in “Third base umpire, first base coach”. “Base man” just looks silly split up, and the whole thing is awkward if compressed into a single word.

    My first reaction is to take largest issue with the final thought: “Teams that win the championship are World Series champions, not world champions.” I know modesty is currently MLB’s preference, but in actuality teams that win the Series are both.

    Since I was trained in AP style, and even after nearly a decade of working primarily with Chicago style I still fall back on AP, my gut is to split the words with no hyphen: first baseman Albert Pujols. But I’m also more of a descriptivist than a prescriptivist, and in the long run (or is that longrun?) two-word (or is that twoword?) terms tend to become joined. Given time, maybe another decade or so, we’ll all be spelling it firstbaseman anyway, so maybe we should get ahead of the vernacular and just spell it that way now.

    It’s like, we always knew that it was going to wind up being spelled email, so why did all of us on copy desks in the 1990s fight so hard to preserve the hyphenated e-mail?

    Given time, maybe another decade or so, we’ll all be spelling texting it firstbaseman 1B anyway, so maybe we should get ahead of the vernacular and just spell it that way now.

    (fixed?)

    I don’t think anyone knew that “we” were gonig to be spelling it “email”; that spelling is certainly out of step with other single-letter-plus-word combinations like G-men, x-rays, C-sections, and the A-Team. If you join them, the word becomes harder to parse and pronounce.”Email” looks like it should start with a short “e”, as in “men” or “end”.

    Aer football teams going to start talking about their “olines”? Will we watch TV reruns of “Ftroop” and the “ateam”?

    Some words get joined, but not all. “Firstbase” looks ridiculous. So do “reliefpitcher”, “assistantcoach”, and “homeplateumpire”. Just because “base ball” got joined doesn’t mean that all these other words should get joined too.

    I vote “first baseman,” but I also grind my teeth when I see “centerfield” (or “centrefield”).

    “Since I was trained in AP style, and even after nearly a decade of working primarily with Chicago style I still fall back on AP, my gut is to split the words with no hyphen: first baseman Albert Pujols. But I’m also more of a descriptivist than a prescriptivist, and in the long run (or is that longrun?) two-word (or is that twoword?) terms tend to become joined. Given time, maybe another decade or so, we’ll all be spelling it firstbaseman anyway, so maybe we should get ahead of the vernacular and just spell it that way now.

    “It’s like, we always knew that it was going to wind up being spelled email, so why did all of us on copy desks in the 1990s fight so hard to preserve the hyphenated e-mail?”

    ==
    I’ve noticed something remarkable happening in the book manuscripts coming my way lately: the return of hyphens to compounds. Things like un-available and counter-attack. I can’t explain it, because they’re the kind of words whose spellings I thought had been settled long ago. My hypothesis at the moment is that spell-checkers are to blame — people see the red wavy line (or whatever the Windows equivalent it) under a word that’s not in Word’s built-in dictionary, and maybe they assume it’s wrong.

    Especially like the instruction on the proper use of RBI/RBIs. It makes me cringe when I hear, “he has 10 RBI in his last 8 games”. If you don’t like the ‘s’ at the end, how about using RsBI? At least that sounds better.

    I like to see the Cardinals lose as much as anybody else, but I’ve got to say, the results of last night’s playoff implication games should make for the best possible post season scenarios.

    Who would you rather see from a pure competition standpoint? Two teams that limp – no CRAWL – into the playoffs after combining for a 16-38 September, or two hungry, eager teams that combined for a 35-18 September?

    I haven’t seem a team crash like the Red Sox and Braves this year since … oh, wait. I’m a Cub fan. I see this all the time.

    “oh, wait. I’m a Cub fan. I see this all the time”

    could be worse… the only thing on the minds of pirates fans are the steelers o-line, and when exactly will crosby be back…

    “’oh, wait. I’m a Cub fan. I see this all the time’

    could be worse… the only thing on the minds of pirates fans are the steelers o-line, and when exactly will crosby be back…”

    Could be worse… the only thing on the minds of Jays fans are the Leafs’ fourth line, and who exactly will be the seventh defenceman.

    “‘[oh, wait. I’m a Cub fan. I see this all the time]

    could be worse… the only thing on the minds of pirates fans are the steelers o-line, and when exactly will crosby be back…’

    Could be worse… the only thing on the minds of Jays fans are the Leafs’ fourth line, and who exactly will be the seventh defenceman.”

    Could be worse… I’m from Cleveland.

    Here’s a tangential issue. If you followed the AP guide, I suppose you would be Cubs fan, not a Cub fan. The AP guide actually used the example for Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, so I’m surmising they would apply the same plural standard to the Cub(s) fan.

    Like R.S. Rogers, I lean towards descriptivism rather than prescriptivism. I’d say either Cubs fan or Cub fan are equally idiomatic. And if Harry Caray was a Cub fan and a Bud man, that’s good enough for me.

    I have run into editors who will trot out Latin grammar rules to back up their stubborn claim that it should always be Cubs’ fan, though. And people tell me *I* need to get a life!

    “Nope. Expect the players to eventually just skate in number costumes. It will feel like Sesame Street, and the kids ages 4 and younger will love it!”

    Winter Classic will now be New York CookieMonsters vs. Philadelphia Plex. Yo Gabba Gabba! I’m cool with that as long as the Sedins have to be Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss.

    Are you saying that I put an abnormal arm onto a six foot long, twenty-four inch wide RIGHT FIELDER?

    Actually that doesn’t sound so bad.

    Yours is much more lame- it just looks like a slightly different variant on the barbed wire thing. The red stitches, spaced properly (yours are way, way too far apart to resemble a baseball) are key.

    Sorry, but yours registers as just another lame tattoo to me.

    Speaking of the “move” pulled by Reyes last night, I was thinking the only uniform suited for him last night would looked more like link

    “… Jose Reyes pulled a chickenshit move…”

    On a very good night for baseball, both for drama and things sartorial (Pierre is right about the good uni looks of the playoff contenders), our local MVP made an ass of himself and his manager. Jose’s twerpishness comes easy to him, and he probably didn’t wrestle with any moral dilemmas. The last guy to hit .400 set the bar high for appropriate final-day behavior, but he did the Right Thing. Jose wouldn’t recognize the Right Thing if it came up and bit him on the ass. And the hell with Collins.

    Maybe if he’d swung away on his first at-bat it wouldn’t seem so bad.

    “I’ll drop one down then sit down.”

    And maybe because it came on what was a very “up” day/night for baseball. So much drama (and, yes, folding is drama), so much team-oriented stuff, that a “me first” looked bad by comparison. In another year, maybe we’d have just shrugged our shoulders.

    But for me, the fact that it was otherwise possibly the greatest night of regular-season baseball ever is exactly why I shrug my shoulders at Reyes. If you’re talking about the last night of play in the 2011 season, and you use the word “Mets,” I’m tuning you out, because a crap team playing out the string against another also-ran is beside the point. Reyes could have like personally link or something and my only response to anyone trying to tell me about it would be, “But did you see Longoria’s pick in the 12th?”

    It might be me, but since Oregon unveiled its basketball court last year, has there been a shift to quieter designs? Didn’t think it was possible, but I think the Ducks jumped the shark on this one.

    Interesting tidbit in the Marlins uni history. Is Anne Occi the greatest villain in the history of sports design or what? First, she is credited with preventing Huizenga from naming his team the Flamingos, a name with great local history, and using the color pink. Instead, Occi pushed the Marlins name. Not because it was a better name or anything, but because it allowed for making teal the primary color, and Occi wanted baseball to jump on the teal bandwagon because teal merch was selling well in the NBA. Then, according to the history, the Marlins were proceeding with a teal-and-orange scheme, and Occi stepped in again to cause black to be added to the design, because it was “hot.”

    If the account of Occi’s role in the Marlins founding is correct, and if I were emperor, Spandau Prison would be rebuilt as a one-person gulag just to hold her. That, or Paul would track her down for an interview to gently and respectfully ask her WTF she thought she was doing. Teal, because Hornets gear is selling well! Black, because it’s “hot”! Ugh.

    Little-known fact: Anne Occi — a name known to only a handful of us — has had a huge impact on the uni-verse over the past 15 years or so.

    Florida Flamingos? I certainly will go to her home and thank her for not bringing a baseball team into existence with such a nickname. I can see a team with a color scheme like that doing well in the single A league.

    Why? Do teams with yellow or orange or baby blue get old fast?

    The one problem with the Flamingos name is, how do you nickname it? The default practice is to use the first syllable, unless it’s a two-word name, in which case you use the second word. Thus Yanks, Phils, Cards, Jays, Sox, Rays. But because the first syllable of Flamingos is a schwa, you’re left with the Fluhms, which nobody would ever say. Last syllable forms “Goes,” which would never catch on. You’d have to reach for something like the Shorebirds or the Pinkbirds or something.

    It’s not so much the shorter version of the Flamingos for me. You can go online and find me sources of how flamingos are actually very proud birds and utilize innovative means to gather food or protect themselves from predators. Maybe they’re cool, they can attack other animals in an unique formation or whatever. But the fact remains, they’re weak looking and evoke “awws” when people see pictures of them.

    I don’t agree with the trend of making mascots look tough or mean, players posing in pictures with curled up fists and looking badass. But you can go too much the other way. This would be on even ground as calling a team the Sheeps, Giraffes, Alpacas, etc.

    When flamingo hunting, shoot for the kneees.
    Difficult shot, but they go down like a rock.

    —Jonathan Winters, as a big-game hunter who hunted, “Well, flamingos, mostly.”

    Yeah, I think the headline writers would’ve settled on Birds. Or maybe Flock — even though online references suggest “a stand of flamingo” is the correct form.

    Tongue planted firmly in cheek here, in case it wasn’t apparent from the overstatement. Connie’s right: Time for that Occi profile.

    I don’t know… I think Flamingos is a pretty lame name. I think Marlins is much better, despite the preference of the fans. That being said, I’m interested in how those Flamingo unis would have turned out. Pink? Eh. I’m a man that isn’t afraid to wear a nice pink dress shirt, but I think a rich “coral” color would have been the way to go. A deep, orangish pink. Maybe navy as an accent color? Or even a touch of teal? It certainly would have been unique, and I loves me some unique color schemes.

    Yesterday in the comments I mentioned how I love Tulane’s hunter green/sky blue. The Fish should just use that next year. There’s not enough green in baseball, as it is.

    Teal in Florida makes sense. Charlotte…not so much. +1 for Ms. Occi.

    Black in Florida does not make sense. Gets hot down there, don’tcha know. -1 to Ms. Occi.

    As much as I abhor the abundance of alliteration, “Miami Marlins” is going to sound soooo much better than “Florida Flamingos” would have sounded. +1 to Ms. Occi.

    Based on the numbers, I’d grant her a pardon.

    “Interesting tidbit in the Marlins uni history. Is Anne Occi the greatest villain in the history of sports design or what?”

    Based on that Marlins story, I’d say she is.

    “Finally, a lot of players wear eye protection. Has it never occurred to you, NHL, that those visors and shields offer another surface on which to plaster the player’s number?”

    In the words of NASCAR great Ricky Bobby…”This sticker is dangerous and inconvenient, but I do love Fig Newtons.”

    Sorry to say it, but I think you are wrong about the Flyers, Paul. The “A” and “C” patches will most likely revert to the standard orange for the road white jerseys. Who is your source on this issue?

    Here’s a great project that’s not uni-related, but feels kind of right the UW wheelhouse anyway: A designer is creating logos for every lake in Minnesota, one per day:

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    There’s a BEERS Lake that’s a short distance from where my mom grew up. 236 acres of beers. What could be better?

    IIRC and I don’t know if this was brought up before, Borje Salming wore his #21 on the fron of his Jofa lid back in the late 70’s-early 80’s. I remember seeing it on the cover of the 1980-81 Maple Leafs media guide.

    Honestly, I have no problem with this being a league enforced mandate. I hope teams can get a little creative with this.

    I wouldn’t count on much creativity. Every team will just have the numbers in the same font as their jerseys. I’m not sure how creative you could even get with that sort of rule. There’s not exactly a lot of space to work with, even if you wanted to do something like putting the number inside a logo.

    They really do not. If the officials can’t catch a jersey number when a player commits a foul, someone’s going off regardless. This has happened a number of times where the refs have identified the wrong player on a team. But it’s not like they got the WRONG team.

    As for the media, if you can’ identify the players in the sport from jersey number or face, you should be looking for a new job.

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    I remember that as well – of course that was at a time when there were only a few players per team wearing helmets so it didn’t look particularly odd.

    The Reebok logo being used instead of the script is not unprecedented. I remember watching a few Browns games a few years back when they switched from their Kosar-era script (link) with their current block-lettering script (link), and there were a few players as late as 2005 that had the old script on their jerseys and helmets. May I add that the Browns switched to the block lettering script in 2003? As a Steelers fan I like the block script better on Cleveland. Now only if the Steelers switch back the jersey numbers to block style…

    Apparently the Brewers didn’t win the NL Central, according to the plastics that were put up in the Cardinals locker room.

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    (One clubhouse attendant to another)
    “Grab the box and put up the signs! NOW”
    “Which box?”
    “The box in the corner!”
    “Which one?”
    “The one with the Budweiser signs, dummy!”
    “Uh, OK …”

    They probably said Wild Card on one side and NL Central Champions on the other, and just they weren’t paying attention to which side was showing.

    I confess, I don’t watch much baseball (did last night) I’ve kept up with this site for a few years, but don’t ever remember seeing such blatent corporate douchbaggery on a baseball glove before as I did last night. Is this more common than I thought?

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    Due to the simple design of the swoosh and its programmed location on the glove it certainly stands out more than labels of years past, but obviously there have been fairly large labels on gloves for years. I remember getting my first catcher’s mitt in 1980 or so, choosing it because it had the cool pro looking red Rawlings lable like this one.
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    Mine had Gary Carter’s stamped autograph though he’d only been in the big leagues for a couple of years. Those stamps were the best (do they still do that?), checking out who everyone else had on your little league team. My fielders glove was a Tommy John. My first glove didn’t have anyone so I faked a JOSE CRUZ autograph with a magic marker, copying it off a baseball card. Why him I really don’t know.

    Unfortunately, the equipment manufacturers have learned that while logos on uniforms have to be somewhat sedated and less than in-your-face on the uniforms (being jerseys/pants/helmets/caps), the freedom to place their logos anywhere and everywhere on equipment seems nearly unlimited.

    What shocks me is that entities like Budweiser and Pepsi have not (yet) begun producing professional-grade athletic equipment.

    The thing is, you see that picture and you know that someone, or probably several someones working together, actually spent a lot of time experimenting and looking at film and photos and posing with gloves to figure out the optimal way to stitch the giant swoosh on the thing so that it would be maximally visible as a correctly oriented Nike logo during TV closeups. The size and position of the swoosh makes no sense whatsoever unless you intend it to be visible as a Nike logo when the pitcher uses the glove to cover his mouth during mound visits. Then, and only then, it’s perfect.

    This is what passes for design at places like Nike.

    I would assume the reason the Isles’ anniversary patch is on the shoulder (as noted in the Page 2 NHL column) is that the patch contains the same logo that’s on the chest, so it would look weird on the front of the jersey. You could argue that they probably shouldn’t have included the primary logo in the anniversary logo, and you’d probably be right.

    The only omission I can think of from the NHL rundown, is that the Blackhawks will absolutely not be wearing an alternate of any kind this year.

    Here’s a possible NHL change: When the Blue Jackets debuted their third sweater last year, it featured a patch with former owner John H. McConnell’s initials.

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    According to the CBJ press releases, the intials could stay for just one season. Apparently the NHL does not allow long-standing tributes like the Bears GSH. I’ve yet to see this year’s third sweaters to see if the patch is gone.

    I’ve never understood permanently commemorating an owner on a uniform. I mean, I’m pretty sure nobody on the Bears roster today ever actually met George Halas, seeing as how well over half the team wasn’t even born yet when he died, and nearly all the rest were still infants.

    Salming’s helmet had a nice flat spot to put numbers right on his forehead. Today’s helmets have venting and the maker’s mark in that location. The numbers will have to go higher (almost on top).

    Also most helmets have ridges in that location so placing numbers might be difficult. Look for teams to use numbers that are slightly smaller than the ones on the back of the helmet.

    For example the Bauer 9900/5100 and Reebok 11k does not have a good place to affix numbers on the front. The Easton and CCM helmets should be OK, as would the Bauer 4500 and older Reebok models.

    Kansas is “releasing” a 1961 throwback jersey for retail sale tomorrow, just in time to honor the 1961 Bluebonnet Bowl champions at homecoming. Message board denizens aren’t sure if the team will be wearing said throwback against Texas Tech on Saturday.

    Kansas’ 1961 look was a light blue helmet and jersey (both w/white numerals) with white pants. The only (photoshopped) advertising piece I’ve seen for the throwback shows the light blue jersey with a white helmet that appears to have royal numerals. (If KU ever wore helmets like that, it would have to be pre-1960.) I do know KU owns a set of white helmets, so I would not be surprised to see that look if they do wear the throwbacks.

    Of course, the chances of a throwback helping KU play anything resembling FBS-level defense are very nearly zero.

    Good for Kansas or any team that honors a past team by wearing throwbacks. Not some silly modernized creation “to” honor a past team.

    indeed…

    he said that 98% of all missourians were morons

    all this time i thought it was closer to 96%

    This just in. The dumbest 10% of Missourians just moved to New York. It raised the average IQ of both states.

    No picture but the wrestler Mr. Anderson is wearing wrestling trunks based on the Green Bay Packers throwback unis (he is from green bay by the way).

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