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Just in case it wasn’t enough for MLB teams to have home caps, road caps alternate caps, BP caps, GI Joe caps, flag-desecration caps, throwback caps, All-Star Game caps, postseason caps, World Series caps, and probably a few other caps I’m forgetting, eight teams released alternate BP caps yesterday, whoopee!
There was a bit of a fuss when Yahoo’s article about the caps included the following passage:
[New Era's] Diamond Era line is the secondary line of caps for MLB players. Think of these like the alternate jerseys teams wear, just the cap version. Players might wear these in spring training games, batting practice or select regular season games.
Uh, no. These caps are not just like alternate jerseys — at least not yet. They’re just BP caps, but New Era and MLB apparently don’t want to call them that, because fans perceives (accurately) that BP caps have a lesser status than regular game caps. So now MLB and New Era are pushing this “Diamond Era” branding, to give these caps a greater aura of legitmacy. Lipstick on a pig and all that.
“But wait,” you’re saying, “the Yahoo story says they might wear these caps in regular season games!” Right — and there’s nothing new about that. Remember last May, when MLB tried to goose BP cap sales by having teams wear BP caps during interleague games? Remember a few months later, when the Yankees, of all teams, wore their BP caps in a game? Any cap in a team’s wardrobe is now game-eligible — that’s not big news. Yeah, we’ll probably see these new caps on the field once or twice, but they’re mostly just for retail sale.
As for the designs, the Pirates entry is clearly the best of the bunch. As for the others, that “a” on the Braves cap looks a bit oversized (but at least it’s not you-know-what), I’ve always loved that Sox logo (although it looks cheesier when rendered in the BP cap fabric), and it’s ridiculous for the Blue Jays to have a cap with no blue. The others fall squarely in the “Who cares?” category.
Interestingly, these caps are not shown in the MLB Style Guide. But the Braves released something else yesterday that is in the Style Guide. Their garish red alternate jersey is now even worse, thanks to a dose of pandering:
Braves unveil "military appreciation" jersey. pic.twitter.com/bS0Pu0u96W
— Paul Lukas (@UniWatch) February 5, 2014
Sigh. Never a dull moment. You can see the dates when this jersey will be worn here.
And there’s more. Yesterday the A’s tweeted a photo that at first glance appears to be your standard spring training shot. But as several readers noticed, it’s worth taking a closer look (click to enlarge):
As you can see in the background, there’s a green Coco Crisp jersey with white lettering/numbering and headspoon piping. That doesn’t match Oakland’s green alternate jersey. So are they getting a new alt?
Yes, they are. From the front, the new green jersey (which replaces the old one) has headspoon piping and a simple white “A’s” logo with gold outlining on the left chest, matching the look of the team’s new road cap. This new green alt hasn’t yet been officially unveiled, but I expect that announcement will be coming shortly.
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Duty calls: On the morning of Feb. 21 — that’s two weeks from tomorrow — I will bike to a courthouse in downtown Brooklyn, where I’ve been summoned for grand jury duty. I’ve already postponed it once and can’t get out of it this time. And since this is for a grand jury (not a trial jury, where attorneys for either side can bounce you from the pool for various reasons), it’s almost certain that I’ll be chosen to serve — most likely for either two weeks or a month, although I won’t know for sure until I show up at the courthouse on the 21st.
I believe pretty strongly in jury duty as a civic responsibility, plus it’s a fascinating experience. But jury duty kinda sucks when you’re a self-employed freelancer — and all the more so if you happen to be a daily blogger. Performing my civic responsibility will definitely have an effect here on the site.
But fear not — detailed contingency plans loose discussions vague thoughts are already firmly established in development being pondered so that you can continue to get your daily dose of Uni Watch while I’m serving as a cog in our criminal justice machine. At the very least, you can assume that my weekday presence on the site will be much smaller, and possibly non-existent (which I’m sure many of you will count as a plus). We may take some of the content Phil usually runs on weekends — tweaks/concepts, colorizations, etc. — and spread it out during weekdays, and interns Mike Chamernik and Garrett McGrath will help pick up some of the slack as well. Also, Brinke Guthrie’s “Collector’s Corner” may increase from once a week to twice a week. I’ll likely switch to covering weekends, but the content I provide there will probably be fairly light.
We’re still figuring out how to handle the Ticker, but it’s probably a safe bet that the bar for Ticker submissions to appear on the site will get a bit higher, and that the Ticker itself will therefore be a bit smaller. We’ll do our best to cover breaking news, of course, although things may not always happen 100% smoothly. On the plus side, it should be a pretty slow period, uni-wise — the Olympics will be over and MLB and March Madness won’t have started yet.
Thanks in advance for your patience during what it likely to be a trying time for everyone connected to the site.
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Troll update: There’s a new entry on My Pet Troll, involving a Philly sports talk radio host who tried to confront his very persistent troll and ended up being suspended as a result. Check it out here.
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Tick-tock: Today’s Ticker was compiled and written by Mike Chamernik.
Baseball News: The Rangers have changed their stadium’s name to Globe Life Park. Many readers say they are looking forward to a possible “I’m Still Calling It The Ballpark” T-shirt. The renaming might be a little more tolerable if a classic Texas beer had bought the naming rights. That neat mock-up was created by Ryan Campbell. … Al Gruwell worked security at Minute Maid Park for the Houston Winter Invitational. He had his eye on some of the games, though, because he says he likes Arkansas Monticello’s jerseys and Henderson State’s stirrups, and he detests Winona State’s purple get-ups. … Here’s a video on how the Pirates are packing up for Spring Training (from Chris Weber). … Heritage Auctions is selling a really nice button-front1920s Red Sox sweater (from Chris Bisbee). … The Padres let fans decide the team’s social media pregame show logo (from Brady Phelps). … The El Paso Chihuahuas will have new uniforms this season (from Phil). … Yesterday’s Ticker linked to an artist who placed cartoon characters in corporate logos, but RJ Kramer notes that there was a sports example. … Joe Neumann bought this Turn Ahead the Clock Rockies jersey on eBay last night. “Now I need to find someone that has the lettering and number font for it,” he says. “Been looking for over 8 years for this jersey.” … “I spotted these classic Tucson Toros uniforms in a 1985 re-run of Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven last night,” says Brian Noel. “The actors wore blank navy blue trucker caps, which was irritating, but the jerseys, pants and stirrups were actual Toros uniforms. A little IMBD research explains how the episode included the Toros name, logo and field. Growing up my brother and I had a soft spot for the show because Michael Landon’s sidekick, played by Victor French (also of ‘Little House’ fame), always wore an Oakland A’s cap.”
NFL News: Put as much faith as you want in this, but someone on Reddit says that the Broncos will get a complete redesign for the 2015 season and that Nike plans to make them “the Oregon of the NFL” (from Jason Greening). … Joe Namath found his fur coat he wore for the Super Bowl coin flip by doing a simple Google search (from Tommy Turner). … Seattle police wore Seahawks logo caps during yesterday’s victory parade (from Markus Kamp). … Highlights of the Super Bowl were reenacted with Legos (from Jon Solomonson). … “I was on the Skinit website looking for a new case for my phone,” says Joe Bailey. “I was checking out the Cleveland Browns section and one case is a Brandon Weeden jersey. When I moused over the image this message popped up: ‘Be the first to own this design!’ It’s so sad being a Browns fan.” Well, Weeden is better than the only other Browns player available.
College Football News: Yesterday was cleat fitting day for the Irish. … Arizona now has solid color numbers on its red and blue jerseys. The team wore gradient numerals last year. … Kentucky showed off its chrome helmet at signing day, and Baylor is selling some of their chrome helmets.
NBA News: The Pelicans will change their arena’s name to Smoothie King Arena. “It will always be the New Orleans Arena to me,” says Ryan Bohannon.
College Hoops News: FIU has new Sunday home jerseys. … South Dakota State will wear camo jerseys tonight. … Minnesota’s Andre Hollins wears a nickNOB, or a shortened version of a FNOB (from Josh Winrotte).
Olympics News: Fashion designers have created some notable Olympic uniforms over the years (from Phil). … Samsung, the company giving athletes a free Galaxy Note 3, is demanding that Olympians cover up Apple logos on their iPhones during the Opening Ceremony.
Grab Bag: More ketchup container-related news from Brinke: MIT scientists have developed bottles with super slippery interiors. … NBC News redesigned its website (also from Brinke). … Cincinnati has new lacrosse jerseys. … The Blackhawks’ Antti Raanta has some sharp looking pads for the team’s Stadium Series game on March 1. … Speedo will make customized swimsuits for USC, California, Florida and Michigan (from Ansel Hillmer). … “I live in Quito, Ecuador and noticed a bit of an obscure uni-related item on a bus yesterday,” says CJ Hague. “This sign features the old ASU devil logo and states ‘Por favor timbre solo una vez … no sea kchudo,’ which basically translates to, ‘Please ring bell (to request stop) just once…don’t be rude.’ ‘Kchudo’ is a shortened spelling of ‘cachudo,’ which literally means horned, explaining the ASU devil, but is used locally to describe someone who is rude or deceitful.”
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