Hello! Welcome to the first new Uni Watch post on Substack. I’ll be posting here occasionally, with no set schedule, in the weeks and months to come. You can learn more about Uni Watch on Substack here; if you haven’t already subscribed, you can do that here. Enjoy! — Paul
As you can see in the graphic shown above, the Rockies will be unveiling two statues at their ballpark later this summer — one for Larry Walker and one for Todd Helton. Some teams keep their statue designs under wraps until the unveiling, but the Rockies have given us a sneak peek by revealing the replica giveaways that will be distributed on the unveiling dates.
Let’s take a closer look at that Larry Walker statue design:
Whoa — he’s wearing the Turn Ahead the Clock uniform! That’s because the statue’s pose is based on Walker’s game-winning homer on August 18th, 1999, when the Rockies were wearing the futuristic threads for their home game against Atlanta. Here’s a photo of Walker’s home run follow-through, followed by a video clip of the home run that shows his pose from several different angles:
If you look again at the photo of the statue, it appears that the sculptor cheated a bit by giving Walker real jersey sleeves, instead of the weird cap sleeves that the TATC jerseys actually had. (Or least that’s the case on the replica giveaway; maybe the real statue has more accurate sleeves.) But even with that compromise, it’s pretty amazing to see the futuristic uni immortalized on a statue.
Most of the teams participating in the TATC program played just one TATC game, so for a second I thought to myself, “They’re statue-fying a uniform that was worn on the field only one time!” It turns out, however, that the Rockies wore the TATC uniforms for one other game that year (on July 30th, on the road against the Cardinals). But even though Colorado’s TATC uni was two-and-phew instead of one-and-done, it still almost certainly sets an MLB record for a uniform’s fewest on-field appearances before being depicted on a stadium statue.
But was this home run really such a defining moment in Walker’s career that it deserves to be carved in stone (or cast in metal, or whatever)? The Rockies definitely think so. When Walker’s election to the Baseball Hall of Fame was announced in 2020, the team honored him with a logo whose design was clearly based on the TATC home run pose, and they also released a bobblehead based on the TATC homer:
The team’s merch shop even refers to “Larry Walk-off” when the TATC jerseys are in stock:
So let that be a lesson to everyone: If you’re going to do something memorable, be careful which uniform you do it in, because you might be immortalizing a clown suit! (Rockies fan and Uni Watch pal Ron Ruelle points out that it could have been worse: They could have based the statue on Walker’s backwards-helmet stunt in the 1997 All-Star Game.)
While we’re at it, let’s take a look at the Todd Helton statue design:
That’s the pose that Helton struck as he recorded the final out of the 2007 National League Championship Series, sending the Rockies to their first World Series. Again, here’s a photo and a video clip:
The Rockies were wearing their alternate black vests for that game, so that’s what’s depicted on Helton’s statue. The team thus finds itself in the unusual position of unveiling two new statues without either of them depicting the team’s primary home or road uniform — a particularly odd state of affairs when you consider that the home and road designs have been largely unchanged throughout the team’s 33-year history. (But hey, at least they didn’t use the wrong number font.)
All of which raises some interesting questions: What are some of the other most unusual or counterintuitive uniforms that have gotten the statue treatment? When designing a sports statue, should the goal be to honor a particular historical moment, regardless of its aesthetics, or should the team’s classic uniform get precedence? And is it okay that the sculptor may have taken some liberties with the TATC sleeves, or does that defeat the whole point of depicting a historical moment?
These questions are similar to the endless debates surrounding which cap logo should appear on a player’s Hall of Fame plaque. I’m not sure there are any “right” or “wrong” answers, but it’s all fun grist for the mill. Discuss!
(Special thanks to Ron Ruelle for bringing Walker’s TATC statue design to my attention, and for letting me know about the Walker logo and bobblehead.)
Bannermark Update
Remember the MLB “bannermark” logo, which I recently wrote about? Reader Jay Roddy reports that the bannermark appears on the covers of these vintage MLB rulebooks published by The Sporting News in the 1970s. The photo popped up in a Facebook group devoted to baseball books that Jay belongs to.
So now we know that the bannermark appeared on the All-Star MVP trophy, the cover of the 1970 All-Star Game program, World Series tickets from 1970 through 1976, and now these Sporting News rulebook editions. I’m wondering where else it appeared!
Big Brannock News
As most of you know, I’m a huge fan of the Brannock Device (that gizmo they use to measure your shoe size) and even got to throw out the first pitch when the Syracuse Chiefs held a “Brannock Device Night” promotion back in 2018. So I was super-stoked when the great design podcast 99% Invisible recently decided to do a Brannock episode as part of their new “A History of the United States in 100 Objects” project, and then I was even more excited when they asked me to be a big part of that episode.
The episode, which is mostly a conversation between myself and 99PI host/founder Roman Mars, has been in the works for a few months and is now complete. It’s currently available to SiriusXM subscribers, and it will go public for everyone else this Friday, July 31st. I hope you’ll check it out!
Uni Watch, created by Paul Lukas, has been covering the world of athletics aesthetics since 1999. He also writes Inconspicuous Consumption, which is sort of like Uni Watch for everything other than sports.
Maybe the inevitable LeBron statue in Cleveland will honor the chase down block from G7 of the 2016 Finals - when they (in)famously wore their sleeved jerseys.
The Bobby Orr statue in Boston depicts his OT goal to win the Stanley Cup in 1970.
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