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Leaving Your Heart in Their Kind of Town

By Phil Hecken, with keen observations by Tim E. O’Brien

Yesterday the San Francisco New York Giants and Chicago Cubs played a good old-fashioned 100 Years Ago Throwback game in AT&T Park in beautiful San Fran. It’s not often you see one team dressed in monochrome navy anymore. But it was like that 100 years ago. In fact, in 1912, both Chicago teams wore dark monochrome road unis. It was a matchup, that, according to uniform historian emeritus Marcus Okkonen, featured teams who looked like this.

Now, I was not scheduled to get this game on my television yesterday, but I lucked out — the Yanks/Tigers game experienced a rain delay — so I was able to watch about two full innings of glorious uni throwbackage — I’ll have more on this after the jump. But I knew that my buddy Tim E. O’Brien would be getting the game, so I asked him if he’d watch, make observations, and report back to me on his findings. He has done so, dutifully. I now turn this portion of the post over to Tim:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One hundred years ago the New York Giants and the Chicago Cubs were still playing National League baseball. The Giants were decades away from moving to San Fran and the Cubs were four years into their 104 year (and counting) streak of unparallelled sucktitude.

The Giants were in year two of a three year streak of National League dominance. They would end up losing the 1912 World Series to the Boston Red Sox but their three season pennant streak – with 99 or more wins each season – made them one of the most dominant teams in National League history.

The Cubs finished 1912 with 91 wins and 59 loses, good enough for third place in the National League, 11 1/2 back from the Giants and one and a half back from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

As far as uniforms go, both the Giants and the Cubs were wearing some of the best unis in any league in 1912 (though, there weren’t many uniforms that didn’t look great in 1912…).

Today, when the teams took the field, both teams looked fantastic. Let me start off my critique by saying that Majestic, MLB and the whole San Francisco organization knocked this promotion outta the ballpark. World class, first class.

That being said, we here at the Uni Watch like to, uh… nitpick, shall we say. Some thoughts:

• Majestic’s logos appeared on pants and sleeve but the MLB logo was only on the caps.

• Everybody in rups or high cuffed?! HELLS YEAH!

• The lack of throwback helmets make me mad. Just make some helmets that look like the caps. As the Fox broadcast noted, they may not’ve had helmets back in 1912, but they still wore their caps to bat. Come on!

• They got the Cubs socks wrong, there should be white at the bottom.

• The extended collars are so tiny! Why even bother? You can only see them on ultra close ups. This is a collar. This isn’t.

• Shouldn’t the Giants caps be black? I’m confused as to why they think the caps should be royal/navy blue but maybe they’re right.

• The Cubs pitching coach was the only person I saw in either uniform not high cuffed. Clearly he’s an asshole.

But it turned out that more than just the players were going throwback. As you can see here, the Giants went above and beyond yesterday. They had their staff in throwbacks, a barbershop quartet entertained the crowd, the scoreboard was in black and white and played no video, announcements were yelled through a megaphone and even some of the fans got into it.

It sure seems like San Fran is running a class act organization, nothing (beside the helmets) seemed half-assed. It felt like they saw what Boston did against the Cubs last season and said to themselves, “Let’s outdo that.” And they did.

Good for them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thanks Tim. You pretty much covered all the bases with that critique, and I agree with most everything you said.

As far as the authenticity of the uniforms the Giants wore — they nailed it pretty well. Starting pitcher Matt Cain (a man who knows how to wear his stirrups) really looked great — but others, like Skip Bruce Bochy, didn’t quite get it right. Maybe he was trying to channel John McGraw.

Some of the players, including coach Will “The Thrill” Clark tended not to blouse, and pulled their socks too high. Still, a minor quibble. Although this photo of Christy Mathewson doesn’t look to be from 1912, how sweet would it have been if they had those sweaters instead of dugout jackets? But just getting the uniform down, they got the interlocking NY pretty spot on, although the pinstripes appeared closer together on the throwback. I’m not sure if this is a Majestic quirk, but we’ve seen the shrinking distance between stripes before. My only other complaint, and it is surely minor is the #OB — something not worn in 1912 — a detail which was evident when the Red Sox and Yankees played a Turn Back the Clock 100 Years game in April.

McGraw & Chance


John McGraw & Johnny Evers

. . .

I was really psyched to see the Cubs, since dark monochrome is not a look we see very often today. If you’re interested, I covered monochrome in baseball fairly extensively a few years ago. If you take a glance at this chart, you’ll see that at the turn of the last century, and for the first decade and a half, monochrome dark uniforms were somewhat common. It’s a look I’d like to see return to the bigs someday.

The Cubs (despite the modern helmets), pulled off the look with aplomb. Unfortunately, because the socks were the same color as the uniforms, it gave the player more of a tights-ish look. While they were appropriate for 1912/2012, I don’t think this is a look that could work today. They would need to wear (and I do mean actually wear — no pajamas) contrasting, or at least striped, socks or stirrups.

Great looking game, and one I enjoyed (even if only for two innings) watching.

Matt Cain & Matt Garza


Matt Cain (L) and Matt Garza (R) hurling at AT&T Park

. . .

I know last year I was pretty harsh on Majestic and their treatment of throwbacks, but I have to say — this year, they’ve really improved. I don’t know whether anyone from Majestic reads these boards, but I want to once again compliment their organization for doing a terrific job this year — some of the stuff (no batting helmets in 1912) makes it difficult to perfectly recreate a uniform — but I would have hoped they could simply replicate the caps in helmet form. Other things (like players continuing to wear their pants pajama-style) are beyond Majestic’s control, although I think they could “force” players to go high cuffed simply by making the inseams shorter. But those are minor quibbles as well — great job (again) Majestic. Well done all around.

Readers? What did you think? And do you think, given better (or better contrasting) lower leg stylings, a dark monochrome team could work today? I do — and I’d really love to see someone try. Because given better hosiery, this is a great looking game. Wanna see more? Creamer did a nice job with photos.

~~~~~~~~~~

Brewers Cerveceros

Los Cerveceros de Milwaukee

The Cubs and Giants weren’t the only ones dressing up in different uniforms yesterday, as the Cerveceros “honored the history, heritage and accomplishments of Hispanics in baseball during the 2012 Annual Cerveceros Day.”

This is the second year the Crew have worn the gold tops (the color of beer?) — the first time was last year (when they sported “Brewers” and “Cerveceros” on their jerseys)..

It’s not really much of an alternate, as they’re merely taking their normal home white and making the jersey gold, adding the word Cerveceros in place of the normal “Brewers”.

Still, it’s a better looking alt than their blue softball top (but at least that has the city name on it); they also have a home version of the blue top.

The gold top is not a bad look, but I’m not sure what it has to do with latin heritage. It’s also completely unnecessary. I had thought they introduced the gold jersey last year as a “trial run” for an alternate home jersey for this year, but they stuck with the blue tops. Maybe next year…gold at home, blue on the road, along with their gray and white tops.

At least they’ll be auctioning the jerseys, with proceeds to “benefit the Brewers Community Foundation,” although they don’t specify how much.

Lots more photos here and here.

~~~~~~~~~~

all sport uni tweaks

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new one set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

~~~

seahawks - Zach Nichols

We start off today with Zach Nichols, with a new Seabirds design:


Zach nichols here. I’m a designer in Wisconsin with literally no connection to the Seahawks, but seeing as Nike chose to Oregonify them, i figured i’d take a shot at a more “classic contemporary design.” I used the vintage colors with the modern logo. The glossy white helmet stripe is meant to offset the matte white helmet and slightly represents a feather. The rest is pretty self explanatory. Template props to Mackin John Bannon. Enjoy!
–Zach

~~~

new_wash_u_jersey2 - Ross Clites

Up next is W. Ross Clites, with a concept for Wash U:


I coach baseball here at Washington University in St. Louis, which is slowly becoming a D-III powerhouse in all sports. We are having a fine season again this year, knock on wood. Our coaching staff is two years old (in how we act, as well as our length of time with the program) and we inherited some of the worst baseball uniforms I have seen in a long while. As the resident design guy I threw something together, based on our head coach’s desire to emulate the look of the “new” Blue Jays. It is tough to work with a color palette that screams Christmas, but I think I made it work. Tell me what you think and I would love to get some constructive criticism from my brethren at Uni Watch. As in anything, this concept is not set in stone and I want to make it the best possible combination. I’ll pass along the road grey concept when I finish it up. Thanks,
–Ross Clites

~~~

redwingswinter - Mike Engle

We close with Jim Vilk’s favorite crayon-artiste, Mike Engle, with proposals for next year’s Winter Classic:

mapleleafswinter - Mike Engle

Tried to do something “old-timey” without resorting to a straight-up throwback that’s been seen before. Wanted to keep it red vs blue (so no green St. Pats), and for the love of God, please no vintage white. Also, I didn’t really try to design a Winter Classic patch, but you know one will be on the jersey somewhere. All I’m doing is suggesting placement. “Insert patch right here in this spot,” if you will.
Red Wings: This is a throwback mash-up. The Wings have all-red jerseys, white bodies with red sleeves, and used to have all-white jerseys. Naturally, I opted for red bodies with white sleeves. For everything else, I just looked on nhluniforms.com for the Wings’ history, and made something I liked.
Maple Leafs: You can’t really do a mash-up with the Leafs because everything that looks good in their history, looks alike. So I ripped the triple-leaf off of the Canadian Red Ensign (that’s the national flag that used to fly before the modern one) and called it a day. Looks like a throwback, but it obviously isn’t. I think it looks OK. If you think the leaves should be blue with white veins, you’re probably right, but my magic markers were too fat to do that.
Cheers,
–MIKE ENGLE

~~~

Thanks lads. Back with more concepts next time.

~~~~~~~~~~

Benchies Header

Benchies

by Rick Pearson

~~~

Sometimes you decide to go for it…

6-3-12 s-Lila ALT

Click to enlarge

~~~~~~~~~~

And Finally…

… looks like Uni Watch may have a new favorite player, and

… if you missed it yesterday, don’t forget to cast a vote for your favorite redesign the Washington football club design finalists.

That’s it for this weekend everyone. Have a super Sunday, and I’ll catch you back here next Saturday.

~~~

“I picked Taylor’s Frogs.” — Jim Vilk

– – –

HI57ORY_mock

Want a piece of HI57ORY? Check this out:


Get it here.

 
  
 
Comments (164)

    Didn’t they also dress up as Die Piraten last year when the Brewers were Die Bierbrauer?

    I guess it’s not surprising that they’d make a return appearance in one of these games considering that the teams play each other about 79 times a season.

    Yes, the Pirates also wore “Piraten” jerseys against the Brewers last year for German Heritage Night.

    link

    “This is the second year the Crew have worn the gold tops (the color of beer?) – the first time was last year (when they sported “Brewers” and “Cervaceros” on their jerseys)..”

    “Cervaceros” should be “Cerveceros”.

    You nailed it on the head, Phil. The Brewers wore gold, because it is the color of beer.

    The “Melkmen” have been doing their thing for a bit now this season. It wasn’t just a special turn-back-the-clock costume.

    Is “Marcus” Okkonen the same as the individual whose name is Mark Okkonen on his stationery, and signs his name thus in correspondence?

    I have no idea if his full name is Marcus or not, but the Okkonen Phil refers to is link, not Mark.

    Just checked. There’s a better scan if we search “okkonen” on amazon (if anyone wants one for some reason).

    “The extended collars are so tiny! Why even bother? You can only see them on ultra close ups. This is a collar. This isn’t.”

    The 1909 through 1912 Cubs wore small “cadet style” collars. The picture you show is of a 1913 uniform. They went back to the smaller collar in 1914.

    Ok, fair point (I guess, I thought that picture was from 1912, but I’ll trust you).

    I did use the biggest collar I could find in an old photo but even in the ones with less collar, it was still much more noticeable than the quarter of an inch they added to the modern unis.

    It’s nice to be trusted, but Okkonen has been proven wrong before…

    We call the Brewer’s gold alternate color “Lager” here in Wisconsin.

    Tom Haudricourt (beat writer for the Brewers) said yesterday the players said they really enjoyed the gold colored uniforms. So maybe we will see them used more.

    Last year when the “normal” gold jerseys made their first appearance, it was for a special “Gold Out” promotion.

    I call them “Urine.”

    They say the players like them and I see a fair share of them at the ballpark, so I guess they were popular, but I just really, really hate the look.

    I seem to recall that the reason the Mets can’t go to their blue alts in 2012 is because MLB has a 2 years rule or something along those lines?

    Could be the same thing with the lager tops. I assume both the Mets and Milwaukee will try to squeeze them in wherever they can, ie “promotional” days.

    Just looking at the schedule now, I don’t see any “heritage nights” so maybe they nixed them this year. Mets will be giving away Edgardo Alphonso bobbles (featuring the black jersey) July 2st. It’s possible that could be the final showing for them.

    Can’t seem to track down the mention re: 2 years before new jersey’s introduced, but Paul aludes to the black alt only showing up on the road, so we’ll see.

    Phil, GREAT After-Action-Report! Terrific analysis of the game and the unis. I’ve gotten quite used to the quality summaries of throwback games this site provides!

    Congrats to the Giant organization for having a great throw back day. I love the idea of inviting fans to dress the part also.

    So totally pumped to finally see the 1910-1913 Cubs’ road uniforms, which I’ve extolled the virtues of many, many times on this site, finally see some more action!

    (I even wrote to Cubs equipment manager Tom Hellman with congratulations!)

    They looked great link, and they looked great yesterday. The only two things I would have done differently would be to add some stripes or a different-colored layer to the socks, as they did link, and also use link, which would have fit better with the round C in the logo. I think the regular Cubs number font, which they’ve been using since the early 1940s, would fit on this jersey just fine. (Contrast this with the 1918 throwbacks, where the link fits better with the block numerals.)

    Somewhere on my hard drive I have a half-finished Cubs uniform tweak which is based mainly on this uniform. I’d love to see the Cubs dump the dull gray on the road and go back to this full-time. What a great, simple, timeless look.

    About the only disappointment was that the Cubs lost the game. This was the first throwback game that they had ever lost, going all the way back to around 1992 or so. Until now they’d won them all, with plenty of comebacks and late-inning dramatics to spice up the games even further!

    Back then the stirrup portion of the sock typically was knit separately and attached to the colored tube. Many times the stirrup was left white (see Cardinals as late as the early 1940s, for example), instead of matching the colored tube.

    So most likely that’s a white stirrup over a white sani.

    Not saying for sure, saying most likely.

    kyle — the best pixture i can ever show of the “old school” stirrup is the one worn by scotty turner (middle dude, i hope, obviously)…

    did a pretty exhaustive piece on our love of the stirrup with ricko & robert marshall a few years back — that may help to answer your questions

    Yep.

    I don’t mind softball tops, but I will concede monochrome is indeed much better.

    Would Phil be o.k. with the blue Brewers tops if they wore them monochrome (proper hosiery, of course)?

    Agreed. Unless we’re talking the Braves and navy. Hey, Atlanta, stop ruining maybe the best uniform in baseball history!

    (Not dark monochrome) until some dick(s) ruins it:

    link

    Those look like track pants. Dark monochrome would look atrocious in today’s player style.

    Maybe its just because the Cubs were in monochrome navy, but the bright blue shoes and other modern accoutrements just make the uniform seem out of place. It seems just slapped on the players. Yes, majestic did a great job making it look similar to the 1912 version, but there is so little thought to the overall look, that it ends up looking odd.

    I don’t even know who would be responsible for that overall look, the Cubs, Majestic, the players. Maybe teams just shouldn’t wear throwbacks to a uniform that so blatantly contrasts with the other current pieces of the uniform.

    To me, asking a player to change his cleats for one game is like asking a player to change his glove for a game. It’s a piece of equipment, not a piece of uniform (in my book, obviously this can be argued).

    And it’s not just a piece of equipment like a bat or a helmet, it’s something that – like a glove – needs to be broken in.

    Ryan Theriot apparently painted his cleats black for the game to better match the Giants’ throwbacks. Looked damn good without being able to look too close.

    Cubs-Giants was sweet indeed but the big thing I believe they got wrong was the cut of the pants. In 1912, they were very loose knickers. In some of those old photos, they looked huge, no doubt to give the players lots of freedom of movement. Today’s tight cut of pants (see Will Clarke pic)simply ruins a vintage uniform. We like to call them pajama pants today, but the looseness is in all the wrong places. I think it’s been verified on this blog before that the double-knit Pirates of 1970 or 71 killed the classic knicker (and proper stirrup) look.

    Nope. Nobody flipped a switch in 1971 and everything suddenly changed.

    That same fable just keeps getting repeated.
    Pants were getting tighter and stirrups higher well before double knit. Willie Mays, for example, started pulling up his stirrups and having his pantlegs tapered in the early ’60s (I could make a long list of others).

    Here, for example, is Hawk Harrelson in 1969…
    link

    If you want (and if I can find my scan quickly), I’ll post a Sporting News cover cartoon from 1962 about the new KC Athletic unis that mentions the current trend of players tapering their pantlegs.

    W. Ross Clites:

    link is a home run. Very well done. The red lettering/piping/numbers all look very sharp, and the logos you’ve come up with look extremely polished. My one concern: I’m afraid there’s not enough contrast in the cap for the logo to read from the stands. Not that you necessarily need another new logo, but if you’re going to go green crown/red brim, I think a simple white letter would really pop (think link). I don’t know what this would look like, but what about a white “W” in your jersey/number font?

    link is embarrassingly rough, but you get the idea. I’m sure someone else could do a much better photoshop job.

    Yes! The Washington University tweak is killer! Although some might say very close to the overall aesthetic of the Minnesota Wild. Which is awesome, because they have one of the best looks in hockey. I’ll allow it.

    I hope this is just a concept and not something actually planned for production next year…it would be outright theft if you used the bear from Drew University (upper left) and the Memphis Grizzlies (claw with baseball) anywhere on these uniforms.

    If you’re using the uniforms as you presented them, I think they’re clean enough and do a good job of picking up the Blue Jays vibe. But unless there’s a white outline around your school’s actual bear head logo, I’d stick to simple lettering (maybe a split-W in white) on the cap for legibility.

    I like the color scheme, but the Jays font on the jersey contrasts way too much with both the skinny serif and block serif fonts used in the logos and sleeve patch.

    I can’t speak for last night, but I was at the Cervaceros game last year against the Cardinals. They were honoring Milwaukee’s Mexican business owners. They brought in a mariachi band and had a dancing jalapeno too (not sure how I felt about the dancing jalapeno).

    I love the many throwbacks that the MLB clubs have worn, particularly the ones from the early 20th Century. My only quip is the CAPS. They are still wearing modern-version caps with 1912 logos (or lack there off). The caps back then were often 8-panel, and without such a substantial crown, shorter brim, and kind of floppy. I remember many years ago, in one of the first interleague games, the Cubs and White Sox wearing throwbacks to their 1906 World Series year and that included the caps. Just look at the above pic of McGraw & Evers. The caps are discernibly different. Bring in the caps to finalize the look!

    For the very first TBTC game, the White Sox had two different caps, the high crown and the unstructured version.
    Most players went with the high crown…
    link
    But some, including Ozzie Guillen, opted for the old style…
    link

    I really like the Seahawk uni that Zach created. Much classier than what Nike did to them recently. This is just a better, more balanced design. Good work.

    Reading the first paragraph, and I noticed something odd; turns out it was the picture at top, going back and forth between color and monochrome. I found the affect just a little bit annoying, actually, and I think it would’ve been better without the animation.

    Yeah, gotta disagree, when Phil told me he was trying to get it in the article I thought it was perfect. I’m glad he figured out a way to get it into the post.

    Kudos Skip (weekend Skip)!

    thanks jim & tim

    i don’t think i’d add an animated .gif very often, but i thought it would look kinda cool for something like this — was a bitch to figure out how to do one too — i even tried to add an “olde tyme” grainy movie reel feel to the b&w shot

    It’s not that it’s not a good effect – it is good – it’s just that I didn’t notice it at first because I didn’t stare at it long enough for the fadeout to take effect, and I’d scrolled down enough before starting to read the first ‘graph to obscure most of the picture. As a result, when my eyes picked up the change just above my point of focus, I thought for a moment that I was losing my mind!

    I thought I noticed a grainy/scratchy look to that animation. It’s already 6/3 and I’m really busy most weekends. I catch up with Uniwatch on Mondays. Sorry this is tardy, but I tip my cap to the creative work there Phil. Really nice.

    Hated the choice of number style used in the Cubs/Giants game. They could have put a little thought into a better look or just gone sans numbers like the Yankees/Red Sox, since a precedent has always been set. And yes, the last time the Cubs went with uniforms from this era, they looked much better.

    or just gone sans numbers like the Yankees/Red Sox, since a precedent has always been set.

    Um, no.

    Some things are better left in the past, like polio, segregation and numberless jerseys.

    Kids (hell, and most adults) have no idea uniforms had no numbers once. It won’t kill anyone to teach them. It’s one game.

    No helmets? That might kill someone.

    THANK YOU!

    better they learn there were no #s back then, because i’m pretty sure they aren’t worrying about scoring the game anyway

    /another lost art

    The highly trained and skilled announcers can take care of that. “Y’know, kids, back in the day these jerseys would have had no numbers. *No numbers*…can you imagine such a thing? Curve at the knees for strike two. Sure glad we live in better times now. Slider inside, ball one.”
    Done.

    On a more positive note, I definitely like what Mike’s come up with for his Winter Classic concepts. And I really like that he votes no on “vintage white”!

    Really like that Washington University Bears look. Never think much about green and red, but those shades really work.

    Also, “Benchies” made me laugh:D

    I believe all the teams wear red and green, even though Wash U’s official colors are (or were) myrtle (i.e., dark green) and maroon.

    Please, please, stop saying “San Fran”. Use SF if you must shorten the city’s name.

    At least he didn’t say “‘Frisco.” I was told that’s a no-no by a Bay Area resident.

    aaaaagh. “Frisco.”

    Our anncrs just talking about how good the all black shoe looked yesterday, 2B Ryan Therriot was the guy.

    Arbitrary rule is arbitrary. (to paraphrase everybody’s favorite articled commenter, The Jeff)

    Besides, it rhymes. Rolls right off the tongue.
    “Shake and Bake; they’re both verbs. they rhyme. It’s awesome.”

    New plan: we call it “Saint Frank” until oversensitive Californians stop complaining.

    Kinda reminds me of a long lost friend who worked for United Parcel Service. He told me that his boss on his first day on the job said, “Never Ever Ever refer to us as ‘Ups’, we are ‘U-P-S’.”

    Ever since then I’ve always called them “Ups.” I highly encourage all my brethren to do the same.

    though, there weren’t many uniforms that didn’t look great in 1912…

    Most of those were good. Better if they had numbers on the back.

    Wow, some of us complain about too much red and blue in the majors now. Check out 1912. Only the Browns were not red and/or blue. They might have been my second-favorite team after the Pirates back then, just for the variety they provided.

    “Another god damned navy blue team in baseball?”

    I’d actually prefer that in black. And block numbers won’t do it justice. You need a more old timey font. Speaking of Okkonen…

    link

    I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the WUSTL logo show up in the design concepts section, GO BEARS! The jersey and hat logos don’t quite feel right, but that may just be because I’ve seen it too many times (perhaps the interlocking WU logo for the hat instead- although I know this is the look we currently have anyway). And finally, just as a thought, on the two sleeve stripes- maybe look into making one green and the other red to add a bit more green to the design. I have no idea if it’ll look good or bad, just a thought.

    Otherwise it looks great, I love the Blue Jays new unis and this would look amazing. The ‘rups would look great too. As a current student, I’d be proud to see our Bears wearing these.

    The 1912 Chicago/NY throwback game represented everything that is great about retro-uni games. Ok, it wasn’t perfect…but close enough!!!

    It’ll never be perfect (especially with some of our crowd here), so close enough is good enough for me. As long as they’re making an effort, I can live with one or two inconsistencies.

    The uniforms looked great.

    But, again…the shoes.

    Can’t these manufacturers come up with plain black cleats for their, uh…clients? Just for one game?

    agreed — and they should have outfitted the astros in white cleats for friday’s tequila sunrise throwbacks

    but lets just be happy with the unis and work on everything else

    I’ll post this again, because I think it’s worth noting and it explains why I didn’t call out the lack of “throwback” shoes:

    To me, asking a player to change his cleats for one game is like asking a player to change his glove for a game. It’s a piece of equipment, not a piece of uniform (in my book, obviously this can be argued).

    And it’s not just a piece of equipment, like a bat or a helmet, that can be swapped out for something than may look different but feels the same, weighs the same, etc. It’s something that — like a glove — needs to be broken in.

    The other side of the argument is, you know “white shoes day” is on the schedule, so wear them a few times while taking pre-game grounders or shagging BP flies.
    Personally, I think baseball cleats should be black, period, so I didn’t even think for a second that the black shoes looked wrong with the Houston Tequila Sunrises.

    I just wish shoes were solid color (or solid white for the A’s, of course). They make shoes so damn ugly these days…

    Another way to improve throwback games:

    authentic retro gloves & bats. Of course, the bats would all shatter by the 3rd inning.

    At least they’ll be auctioning the jerseys, with proceeds to “benefit the Brewers Community Foundation,” although they don’t specify how much.

    When it comes to beer-colored jerseys, shouldn’t you rent them instead of buy them?

    Everyone who made fun of the recent Padres road unis as looking like urine should get a look at those Cerveceros jerseys; I bet they’d reconsider.

    I prefer to think they both look like mustard. French’s and Stadium, respectively.

    The Giants blew it with the “throwback” scoreboard. All they did was turn off the color. I mean, how hard would it have been to digitally reproduce a hand-op for the game?? link

    And I thought I was picking nits…

    They didn’t JUST turn the color off. There were also no sounds or video. Just still images.

    At least there’s room for improvement in your mind for next season.

    “even the fans got into it”

    Well if we want to pick nits (or nit pick as the case maybe). The fans in question are “The Melkmen” for Melky Cabrera. They didn’t just do it for this game but have been doing it for most of the season now. They have been turning into local heroes around the Bay Area.

    So yes the milk man look does go with yesterdays throwback unis, but the MelkMen will be wearing that pretty much all season.

    Shouldn’t that Mets t-shirt have a white line on it with some chalk missing?

    Because every baseball game is perfectly umpired like a fucking video game….

    Funny how people never complain about umpire mistakes when it’s in their team’s favor.

    Concealed, decaf.
    Tim, take a deep breath.

    Could be James and Ryan were just making a joke?

    movi

    james & ryan’s jokes were fine

    but the game was a no-no…

    no asterisk, no “lets go to the video tape,” no “i’ll give the mets their due but they didn’t really do it” crap

    umpires miss calls and make mistakes … just ask don denkinger or jim joyce

    shit happens and this one goes into the books as a no hitter

    done. case closed. nothing to complain about here.

    you want instant replay? go watch another sport

    I wasn’t disagreeing with any of that.

    It’s done. Just suggesting that we all lighten up.

    I just drop f-bombs too easily. I come off more agressive then I mean to because of my frequent use of profanity. I was just shrugging off Ryan’s comment.

    Nah, Phil…I’m not a replay supporter. Just bustin’ your chops the other day.

    Now granted, if I were a Mets fan, I’d be less apt to buy that HI57ORY shirt than if there were no close calls, but that’s just me. His achievement counts as much as any other one, so I’m not suggesting we vacate it or anything like that.

    And any time I get a chance to tell Timmo to take a deep breath, I pounce on it. ;)

    “Concealed, decaf.”

    I’m actually not a caffeine/nicotine fiend. I’ll go weeks, even months without coffee. It’s bad genetic wiring that’s doing it ;) Oh ya, I’m also a big-time asshole.

    “Could be James and Ryan were just making a joke?”

    Sounded like smartass Phillies fans to me. Also, this link & people making a stink for Instant Replay really gets me the heck ticked off.

    As long as they’re not Flyers or Iggles fans…

    Instead of replay, I’d rather they adopt link though.

    It seems like umpires; as well as politicians; are the ones causing all the problems. Maybe we should get rid of them!

    There was a line from that Simpsons line from the rich Texan character that always made me laugh: “What about this dang environment? Back in Texas, we got rid of it, and made everyone a lot happier!”

    “I’m actually not a caffeine/nicotine fiend.”

    ~~~

    pfft…you say that like it’s a good thing

    Well they just raised the cigarette tax in IL link a pack. Someday we’ll see $20 packs in Chicago. Funny how they exchanged a smoking problem with an obesity problem. Smoking is what kept this country skinny.

    Yes, just a joke on my part. I’m not advocating taking the no-hitter away nor am I for expanding instant replay (I’ve been irritated at the poor execution of instant replay for home runs).

    And, concealed, for the record, I am a Phils fan. But if I was going to play that angle, I would have said something more like, “Big deal! My team got a perfect game in Flushing Meadows.” And, a Flyers fan to boot, Vilk.

    “And any time I get a chance to tell Timmo to take a deep breath, I pounce on it. ;)”

    And that’s why you’re the mother vilker. ;)

    heh…connelly can’t even spell his own last name correctly

    Not only that, he’s also got his own link on the outskirts of Chicagoland.

    Real fucking renaissance man, that one…

    Another great thing about the Cubs-Giants game, they made the scoreboard screen black & white. One thing we were disappointed in watching the game was that the umps were wearing modern clothes. Everyone else from the announcer to the grounds crew were in classic wear.

    I thought the black & white scoreboard was silly. As if removing color from a huge electronic scoreboard makes it look like 1912.

    The biggest problem with the umpires is that they were nearly the same color as the Cubs.

    I think the Cubs could pull off a modern monochrome in their current shade of blue. In 30 years of watching baseball they’ve never had a grey uniform that I like–I think they’re the only team where I prefer their softball look to the greys.

    I’d love to see the S.F. Giants rock some all black unis, with white trim, and maybe a hint of orange. Use SF though, and not NY lettering. Modern retro.
    As for hats and helmets, all the hats should be of the low crown type. Caution: Bruce Bochy would look ridiculous with a low crown cap because of his melon noggin.
    I think one of the reasons teams don’t do color matching helmets is that they essentially become one-time use for a fairly expensive piece of equipment. However, the solution for that would be to authenticate them and auction them off for charity.

    Canada’s national soccer team is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Soccer Association’s founding, so they’re wearing what I assume is a throwback. It’s blue, with a red maple leaf badge. Not bad.

    Just saw Jonathan Niese warming up on Baseball Tonight as they went to commercial, guess you guys saw it, it looks like Mets are wearing black alts tonight on ESPN. They have the ‘Kid 8’ Gary Carter patch on the right chest because there is the 50th anniversary patch on one sleeve and Mets logo on other sleeve.

    Way to mess with the karma of back-to-back shutouts including a no-hitter. Bet they lose 6-1 tonight.

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

    F***ING BLACK JERSEYS???!?!!!?! On NATIONAL TV??!?!?!

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    paul & i were at the game against the cards, no less, in 2010, when niese got hurt and went down for the season

    what jerseys were they wearing?

    you guessed it

    ~~~~~

    VERY BAD VIBES about this one

    Allright, you know what? In all seriousness I find the black jersey/cap combo a helluva lot less offensive now that the other uniforms have all been fixed. I think it was always the intrusion of black into the other uniforms that bothered me more than the BFBS set itself.

    I can’t quite tell if the script is still glacier twill or has been changed to tackle twill, and it looks like the jersey still has the “Wilpon script” with the off-kilter “M”.

    I’ve noticed the black version of the skyline logo is still on a lot of walls at Citi Field. Hopefully this will go away next year as well.

    Graf,

    Those are definitely uniforms from last year, still with Wilpon script. I can tell because the e in Mets is actually correct. This year’s jerseys corrected Wilpon script, but have an e that is way too thick.

    link

    I’ve noticed that the 2012 Mets script appears slightly thicker/larger than the 1995-97 Mets script, which had a very thin white outline that may account for the difference in size (i.e., the current script without the white outline has the same footprint as the ’95-97 script with the white outline).

    That said, I think the current script looks fine; the word “Mets” certainly pops off the jersey without the annoying black drop-shadow cluttering up the “e” and the “s”.

    Hmmm…. Looking at that comparison, it seems that the new “e” is of varying thickness (the horizontal strokes across the “e” and into the “t” are thinner; the downward curve at the back of the letter is thicker), whereas the old “e” is of more uniform thickness. Apart from that, and accounting for the angle of the camera and the curvature of the fabric across the player’s chest, the two scripts look practically identical.

    I wish I could agree…but that thick e bugs the hell out of me…here it is on the BPs. The whole script looks too clunky.

    link

    I completely agree with you; the black jerseys are easier to take now that there’s no black in the other Mets jerseys. Still, it’s a little weird looking at pictures of tonight after being so used to seeing the black-free uniforms all year.

    No mention of last weeks Seattle vs. Los Angeles of Orange county of California match up at Safeco Field. Both teams wore PCL throwbacks. Seattle played as the Rainers and Anaheim as the Los Angeles of Los Angeles Angels of the 1950’s PCL version. Confusing game in that the teams were wearing colors usually associated with their on field opponent.

    Ooh! The Twins wore their M hats! I know they wore them last year at home for one game, but when was the last time they wore them on the road? I don’t think they’ve ever worn them with their current road uniforms until now.

    This is in regards to the uniform mockup from W. Ross Clites. I’m not trying to hate, but he ripped off at least 2 of the logos shown. The bear claw holding a baseball is clearly stolen from the Memphis Grizzlies (link) and the beat holding a bat is a ripoff of the Newark Bears logo (link). Like I said, I’m not trying to hate, just trying to give credit where credit is due.

    ~Tyler

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