By Phil Hecken
Greetings, and for all who are celebrating, welcome to the Holiest of Holy Days!
That’s right, Major League Baseball begins the 2013 season tonight. Ugh.
OK, I will admit I’m torn between watching tonight’s Astros (making their American League debut, dontcha know — thanks Bud!) versus Texases game on ESPN and the epic conclusion of The Bible on the History Channel. I will also admit that I’ve been hooked on The Bible since it debuted a bit over a month ago, and I really want to see how it turns out. If I end up DVRing it, please don’t tell me the ending.
As far as the other thing, I’m also torn — baseball really doesn’t need to open at night, particularly a Sunday night. Tomorrow should be a legal holiday and all games should start in the mid-afternoon. Following, of course, Cincinnati opening the season, at noon, at home. But we all know that little bit of tradition (and yes, I know that way back when Ricko was still a gleam in his father’s eye, the Reds didn’t *always* have the first game of the season, but for decades, until MLB found a way to $queeze fans, they *always* did) is gone now. And while for some of us, Monday is a National Holiday, the season begins tonight.
As those of you who read Uni Watch, or follow baseball during the off-season know, the Houston Astros have new uniforms for 2013. And, unless I have been remiss in my scouring of 2013 photos, I’m pretty sure they haven’t broken them out in Spring Training (my cursory glance at ST photos has revealed only the BP smocks) — so tonight we should see the true debut of their new home uniform.
Unless…
Since it’s a Sunday game, I am fearful the Astros will follow this “uniform rotation” (I’m not 100% sure that’s accurate, but I believe it to be true.) Let us hope the Astros DO NOT cross the baseball gods by wearing their batting practice tops for OPENING DAY NIGHT.
In other news, yesterday we welcomed our first two teams to the Final Four (and two more will join them today). First off, to borrow a line from Jim Vilk, we were treated to the color palette special…
…of the tournament — that’s gotta be a contender for the #1 in Jim’s forthcoming “NCAA Tournament 5 & 1”. Number 1 seeds have been taking a beating in the tourney so far, and Syracuse (#4), who took out East Region #1 seed Indiana on Thursday, dispensed with #3 Marquette yesterday. Too bad, Marquette has one of the best unis in all of College hoops, and Syracuse will be wearing white probably be wearing orange in their Final Four matchup next Weekend. That’s because Wichita State once again…
…SHOCKED the world, this time taking out #2 seed THE Ohio State University in the West Regional. You may recall, especially if you’ve had your bracket completely destroyed, that last weekend, the Shockers ousted West Region #1 seed Gonzaga. As the #9 (and lower) seed in Atlanta next weekend, Wichita will wear their road unis and Syracuse will be in white, not their gorgeous Orange roadies the winner of Louisville/Duke today will be in white. Syracuse plays the winner of the Michigan (#4)/Florida (#3) matchup today.
Congrats to the giant-slayers from Kansas. Hey, at least Kansas will have one representative in the big dance. It just won’t be Jim Vilk’s Jayhawks.
Colorize This!
Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.
Again, a smallish set today — but since I had run “Colorize This!” only a week ago, it’s a pretty nice one, all things considered. Two from *newcomers* and a pair from a familiar name.
Click on each image to enlarge.
We begin today with Matt Lange with a nice shot of Terry Bradshaw, long before he needed NutriSystem:
Hi Phil””
I tried the other email address and it didn’t work. I wanted to submit a side by side colorize I did of Terry Bradshaw at Louisiana Tech.
—
Matt Lange
Owner • Lange Creative
Designer • Atlanta Falcons
Next up is first-timer Matthew Meo with an old time base ball image:
Hello,
I went to High School in Rutherford, and I have also been really getting into photography as of late, so when I saw the image in the ticker yesterday I wanted to take a shot at colorizing the image. I don’t think it came that bad for my first time colorizing an image.
Matt Meo
We close today with NFL Colorizer-extraordinaire John Turney, with two NFL photos:
Phil
1949 Bears and Redskins.
Bears wearing the blue over orange combo.
John
Phil
1936 College All-Stars versus Lions.
John
That’s it for today. Great stuff from everyone, as always. Lets keep those colorizations coming Uni Watchers!
Uni Tweaks Concepts
We have another new 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:
We begin today with Christopher Chayban, who has a name change & new helmet for the Washington Football club:
Dear Phil,
I saw that people were sending concepts to the uni-watch site, here’s one.
Redskins change name and logo to the Owls Helmet Concept
Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Christopher Chayban
Next up is Jacob Morris, with two separate concepts for two Canadian teams in two sports:
Hi Phil,
I’ve been a long time reader of your blog, and have decided to wet my feet in the pool of designing some uniforms for the uni tweaks/concepts feature, which has always been one of my favourite sections of the site. I’m including two concepts, one big and one more minor.
The big redesign is a rebranding of the Toronto Raptors as the Toronto Huskies. I’ve always found Raptors to be a gimmicky name, since they were named when Jurassic Park was a big thing, and felt that the name never really matched the city. The Huskies were an NBL team that played in Toronto for one season in the 50s and the Raptors have worn fauxback Huskies jerseys in the past. My concept introduces royal blue to the colour palate, matching the other big teams in Toronto, but retains their Canadian identity through the incorporation of the maple leaf into the logo. I’ve tried to keep one of my favourite aspects of their existing branding intact, the claw design on the back of the jersey and at midcourt has been replaced with a huskie paw.
My less intricate tweak is of the Toronto Blue Jays new BP caps. The current design screams “Canada” but has a notable absence of team branding on in. I’ve added a white front panel, which has been introduced on a number of BP cap designs this spring and the Jays wore proudly from their inception in 1977 until 1993. Additionally I have added an overlay of their primary logo, minus the small maple leaf in the corner, on top of the large leaf in the centre of the hat in order to add team branding to the Canada-imagery heavy that MLB wanted to push. As an added bonus, the logo overlaying the leaf pays homage to the caps the team wore from 1997-2002.
I hope that one, or both, of these designs will end up on the site. Even if they do not, any feedback you have to offer would be much appreciated.
Jacob Morris
We close today with Michael Patton with ChiSox makeovers:
Phil,
The White Sox have been red and/or blue for most of their existence, so why not combine the best of the current black uniforms with the best of the classic uniforms of the 1950’s Go-Go Sox. Basically, change the existing black to a very dark navy and use red for the accent color rather than silver, adding a red outline to the Sox logo on the cap. Oh, and get rid of the ugly road uniform script and use the classic Sox logo. We’ll also lose the outline and add a red bill and a red button to a road cap.
Michael Patton
And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.
OK lads and lasses. That will do it for today — A very Happy Easter to all who are celebrating! Enjoy the day, however you celebrate it.
Please also join me in wishing a Happy Birthday to two of UW’s readers and occasional weekend contributors, Jason Bernard and Matt Powers. Have a good one, fellas.
Don’t forget, we’re accepting submissions for the Uni Watch Fantasy Football Design Contest (see link for details) and see yesterday’s post for an update. Thanks (as always) to all the colorizers and concepters. RIP Phil.
Catch you next weekend.
Peace!
“So who can stake claim to the “Shocker” hand gesture first, teenage boys or fans of Wichita State?”
–Steve B.
The Astros beat writer for the Houston Chronicle reported on Twitter earlier this week that they would wear white tonight. Also as a long-time Astros fan, let me say “Screw You, Bud Selig, you incompetent clueless idiot!”
Would have preferred the navy piping one the home and orange on the away Astros uni’s.
Syracuse will be playing the winner of Florida/Michigan, not Wichita State, in the Final Four. So, I’m guessing there’s still a chance they wear the orange on Saturday.
Syracuse plays the winner of the Florida-Michigan game.
Looks like Michigan.
Since both are #4 seeds, hopefully we’ll be treated to another “orange vs yellow” matchup.
With Orange coming out on top. :)
Syracuse will not be matched up against Wichita State.
(To Sammy & Don too).
See. This is what happens when you rip up your bracket. My bad.
I’m not a Houston Astros fan, but would like to echo those Bud Selig sentiments.
As someone who lives in the Toronto area, I agree with the Raptors taking the drastic step, and rebrand back to the Huskies.
This is stupid. I am neither an Astros nor Rangers fan, yet I am legitimately giddy that there is going to be a regular season baseball game tonight.
And yes, I am using a vacation day tomorrow to watch my Tigers play the Twins on mlb.tv that cost $125.
Sports are funny like that.
Seeing that beautiful cheerleader smiling for the camera is a nice Easter present.
“TWO IN THE PINK, ONE IN THE STINK, BRAH!!!!!!!!”
And if you consider that beautiful, you’ve got REALLY low standards.
She looked good when I woke up and posted that. Maybe I was still drunk from last night.
Happy Birthday Matt and Jason!
Thanks Coleman!
Ugh… dammit Jacob, you don’t need to put a maple leaf on every Canadian team. Your Huskies would look much better without it.
I like those White Sox makeovers a lot!
White socks would be even better. And if the script “Chicago” was so offensive, use block letters instead, just like 1959.
When it comes to things in baseball to complain about, the season starting with one game on a Sunday night rather than all on a Monday afternoon ranks pretty far down there.
Yeah, it’s not my biggest complaint about MLB (welcome to Interplague every series!!! — Thank$ Mr. $elig!), but it just always felt right when Cincy would ‘start’ the season and then everyone else would follow later that day. It’s “Opening Day” not “Opening Night” for me. Same thing with the NFL and starting the season on a Thursday. Ugh. If you want to have a TNF during the season, knock yourself out, but please don’t start it on a Thursday. Same with baseball — SNB is fine during the season, but lets start it on a Monday, K?
I don’t quite understand why the Reds need to be special (I also don’t get why the Lions & Cowboys get to own Thanksgiving), but I guess I generally agree with Phil here. There’s no reason to try to turn “Opening Day” into “Opening Week”. The NFL and MLB both need to scale it the fuck back. You’re two of the biggest sports leagues on the planet, you don’t have to put any extra effort into hyping yourselves up.
“I don’t quite understand why the Reds need to be special”
Because they are the Reds.
I can remember when the only Sunday Night game in MLB was in Texas. The Rangers had over 75 home games at night some years.
For me, I mean.
Jacob – I really like the Huskies concept. Good color palette to match the Jays and Leafs. Its much more city focused. I do think that 8 primary logos on the floor are a bit much. Ad in the two on every players shorts and you’ve got an lot of leaf/head combos. In this case, I’d say less is more.
I too love the idea of renaming the Raptors the Huskies (BTW-the original Huskies were a charter member of the BAA, who along with four NBL teams formed the NBA in 1948-49) because that’s a more Toronto/Canada-sounding name. I love your Blue & White colors. The uniforms need some tweaking though.
When the Raptors announced their name back years ago I called them about why they didn’t call themselves the Huskies. I was told they didn’t want to copy either UConn or University of Washington. Pretty lame reason.
The Astros Sunday jersey is more BP shirt than any other one in the league. With those panels (which I like the nod to the tequila sunrise era), they should have gone with the name across the chest or at the very least put the numbers on the front to make it seem more like an actual jersey and not one you slip on to warm up.
Other than under-designing the blue top they look sharp, a little plain with the lettering but at least they didn’t go too far in the other direction.
Phil, the Astros decied early on to keep the new home whites for their first home game of the new *gag* AL seasion. They will also have names in their backs too. The Orange alts will be Friday Home jerseys. The BP jerseys are actully well received and will be just BP jerseys…but I wouldn’t put it past them being warn for a game or two.
Thanks to the colorizers.
The return of Christ and baseball celebrated on the same day. Jesus was a far better leader than Selig. As per, “The Bible”, eh, I read book.
Wait…there’s a book?
Yeah, but it drags a bit, the video adaptation is much more entertaining.
I’m guessing that the Bible is just going to rip off the first season finale of The Killing tonight, as in the cops get their man, but do they really? Cliffhanger, tune in next season, except nobody will, because the whole thing with making the scruffy good-guy sidekick into a cheap sellout traitor at the last minute without even any foreshadowing will piss off the most loyal audience.
Anyway, between the finale of that other show abut resurrection, the Walking Dead, and the season premiere of Game of Thrones, I’m pretty sure my DVR is going to prevent me from watching at least a bit of tonight’s all-Texas American League opener.
Incidentally, there’s a book based on the TV series. So I guess while the show would be considered “The Bible: The Book,” there’s also a book titled “The Bible: The Book: The Mini-Series.” Or something like that.
Speaking of resurrections, i mean regenerations, also te return of Doctor Who this weekend.
/nerd
Astros going with the home whites.
I’m really torn on the Astros. Although I like the addition of the piping and the front number to this look I think it’s still looking lacking w/o the shooting star. I usually despise anything retro/fauxback but the look is an improvement on what they had been wearing. I never liked seeing them in pinstripes.
And I’d also like to echo the Selig comments from this morning. I still say the Brewers should’ve gone back the AL. Then again I still wonder why my poor Pirates on the hunt for Season 21 are in the NL Central instead of playing the Natinals, Mets, and Phillies where they belong.
They’re a huge improvement, but bland.
If I am not mistaken, when I was a kid in the 1970s, the Reds would always start the season, usually on Monday, with only a few other games that day and most of baseball would start on Tuesday.
Are all Major league teams still planning to use the cell phones as part of the new marketing deal? I’m pretty sure I saw the Astros’ pitching coach call down with the regular “old” phone.
I’d be poised for Kenny Ware memorials on Louisville teammates’ sneakers or other places at the Final Four. I wonder if the NCAA will try to stamp that out.
Sheesh, it’s not like the guy’s dead.