Edmonton Elks Release New Uniforms

By Phil Hecken, on May 21, 2022

By Phil Hecken

Good Saturday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone has had a safe and pleasant week.

While the NFL has been rather quiet this past off-season, uniform-wise (so far, only the 49ers have announced any changes, and those were just tweaks), up north in the Canadian Football League, the Edmonton Elks (formerly the Eskimos) released a new and updated set of uniforms yesterday.

If the CFL and/or the name “Elks” is not familiar to you, that is because two years ago, the team announced it was changing its name from “Eskimos” — they were known as the EE Football Team and Edmonton Football Team from 2020 until last year, when “Elks” was selected as the new team name.

If the parallel to the Washington Football Team transitioning to an interim name before settling upon “Commanders” sounds familiar, it’s because both teams took similar paths in seeking to divest themselves of a name many considered insensitive at best, and racist at worst. Like Washington, the Elks chose to retain their previous color scheme of green and gold, tweaking their uniforms twice before settling on a new uniform set.

Prior to the change, the team featured rather Packer-esque uniforms, with the popular “EE” logo on the helmets and “ESKIMOS” as a wordmark on the chest.

Their helmet was considered a classic among fans:

Following the name change in 2021, the team introduced slightly different uniforms — the new helmets featured a graphic of Elk horns, while “ESKIMOS” was removed from the jersey, replaced by “EDMONTON.” Numbers changed from gold to white on the green home uniform.

The team also introduced a third (alternate) jersey and altered helmet, the jersey featuring the popular “EE” logo emblazoned on the chest.

Those changes did not prove particularly popular with fans, so the team sought to further tweak the uniforms going into 2022. Those changes began in March of this year, when the team introduced a new helmet featuring the return of the popular (and slightly modified) “EE” logo:

From there, yesterday the team unveiled the further changes to the uniform.

As you can see, the team retains both green and white home/away jerseys, retaining the white numbers on the home jersey, and green ones on the white. The new number font introduced in 2021 was retained, but other changes followed.

Gone was the “EDMONTON” wordmark on the jerseys, replaced by “ELKS”:

Shoulder stripes (gold/white on the green jersey, green/gold on the white) have now been replaced by three solid color stripes, bisected by a new logo, a set of antlers. Numbers on the white jersey are green and numbers on the green jersey are white:

The green jersey features three gold stripes (mimicking the “E” of the “EE” logo) with white antlers, while the white jersey has gold stripes and green antlers:

The back of the jersey features NOB in a block font in the same color as the number (white on green jersey, green on white jersey):

Unfortunately, the green/white/green striping on the pants has now been replaced by a solid green panel, decorated with the new elk antler logo found on the shoulder caps:

You can get a slightly fuller sense of the new uniforms in this video, which also features the uniforms of local high school teams:

According to the CFL,

Three stripes adorn both the home and away jersey sleeves, harkening back to the Club’s most successful period during the 1970s and 1980s, including the team’s five-in-a-row Grey Cup run from 1978 to 1982. The entire look is capped by the return of the highly popular Double E on the team’s helmet, which binds the past with the present.

All in all, I very much like the new uniforms, save for the pants panel featuring the new antler logo. The team will debut the new white jersey uniforms on the road in Winnipeg on May 27th, as well as at home on June 3 against Calgary — both preseason games.

We can probably expect some more NFL uniform news as the season approaches: we know the Rams will be releasing one final new uniform (after adding a white jersey last season, to fill in the 2021 image); while I have no inside information, I believe the team will either introduce a yellow (“sol”) jersey and/or white pants for 2022; additionally, with the lifting of the “one shell” rule, we can probably expect a few teams to release new throwbacks (for example, we believe the Falcons will unveil a red helmet this season). But as far as wholesale changes to uniforms this season? Looks like we’ll need to wait until 2023 for that.

Your thoughts on the Elks new duds?

Guess The Game…

from the scoreboard

Today’s scoreboard comes from Charles Carson.

The premise of the game (GTGFTS) is simple: I’ll post a scoreboard and you guys simply identify the game depicted. In the past, I don’t know if I’ve ever completely stumped you (some are easier than others).

Here’s the Scoreboard. In the comments below, try to identify the game (date & location, as well as final score). If anything noteworthy occurred during the game, please add that in (and if you were AT the game, well bonus points for you!):

Please continue sending these in! You’re welcome to send me any scoreboard photos (with answers please), and I’ll keep running them.

The “BEST OF” Kreindler’s Korner

Hey guys & gals. You’ve enjoyed Kreindler’s Korner for several years now, mostly on the weekends, on Uni Watch, and we’re still doing the “Best of” until Graig can re-devote his efforts to new writeups for paintings you haven’t seen. Hopefully that will be soon!

Here’s today’s offering:

• • •

Title: “Frazee Finds Fortune”
Subject: Babe Ruth, 1918
Medium: Oil on linen
Size: 34″ x 30″

It’s still interesting to me that a lot of people tend to forget Babe Ruth started his big league career with the Boston Red Sox. Perhaps more often than not, baseball fans are exposed to him as an aging superstar with a big belly, wearing those pinstripes of the New York Yankees. Certainly those years of the early 1930s – when he was the absolute focal point of sports in our culture – are rife with more images of him doing more things in and out of uniform than perhaps at any time in his career. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of THAT Babe Ruth, when I see an image of him with the Red Sox as a young, svelte upstart, I’m always very attracted to it.

This particular image depicts the man-boy at Chicago’s Comiskey Park during the 1918 season, when he had almost doubled the amount of games played from the year before, splitting time between the outfield and the mound. The motif of him looking into the camera with a bat on his shoulder was cool enough, but when coupled with such bright light, I couldn’t say ‘no.’

It was that quality of light that I really tried to push here. Whenever I had seen photography or video footage of old Comiskey Park, more often than not, the sunlight was of a blinding quality. So much so that it often washed out the light plains in the very reference I looked at. Obviously, it’s not ALWAYS bright in Chicago, but in my head, I wanted the sunlight in this painting to mimic what I had been used to seeing. As a result, the painting was treated as an exercise in painting something high-key in its value structure – in other words, those values would inevitably stay in the upper (brightest) shades on the scale, with the exception of whatever accents I chose to plug in. I kept most of those in his face and bat where I wanted the viewer’s eyes to be drawn to; but otherwise, there are a lot of very bright areas with seemingly lost edges

The result of this kind of thinking made for a painting that I thought pretty well captured the memory of seeing and feeling that blinding Chicago sun. But I suppose having a 23-year old George Herman Ruth on there helps with the coolness factor, too.

• • •

Thanks, Graig! You can (and should!) follow Graig on Twitter.

Father’s Day deadline reminder: Paul here. In case you missed this news earlier in the week, the folks at the Pillbox Bat Co. tell me that if you want one of the custom-painted Uni Watch bats in time for Father’s Day, you must get your order in by this coming Monday, May 23. The bats are available here, so move fast if you want that special gift for dad.

Also, while I have you here: My latest Bulletin article is a worst-to-first ranking of the 10 MLB City Connect uniforms that have been released so far. My premium subscribers can read the article here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that here (you’ll need a Facebook account in order to pay). Don’t have or want a Facebook account? Email me for workaround info.

Okay, now back to the rest of today’s content.

Uni Watch News Ticker
By Anthony Emerson

Baseball News: Phillies C JT Realmuto was wearing a black helmet behind his mask during last night’s game, rather than the usual red. Perhaps it has something to do with the camo caps and catcher’s gear? (from multiple readers). … Red Sox 2B Trevor Story wore his Rockies elbow guard and batting gloves during Thursday’s game against the Mariners. He hasn’t been wearing them in previous games, so maybe he was wearing them to try to bring some of his Colorado success to Boston after a slow first month (from Andreas Papadopoulos). … Staying in the Sox/M’s series, NOB kerning issues are still impacting the Mariners’ blue alternates, with Robbie Ray the latest victim (from @LevityNYC). … The Cubs wore a patch for their Fergie Jenkins statue unveiling for yesterday’s game (from multiple readers). … The Somerset Patriots, Double-A affiliates of the Yankees, will wear camo jerseys over the weekend (from John Cerone).

Hoops News: The Newfoundland Growlers and Montreal Alliance, the newest Canadian Elite Basketball League teams, have unveiled their unis (from Wade Heidt and Moe Khan). … New court design for Bowling Green (from Pat Dougherty).

Soccer News: From our own Jamie Rathjen: “Newcastle United men’s manager Eddie Howe publicly commented on the club’s not-yet-released third shirt, saying he assumes it’s a reference to Saudi Arabia’s colors and by doing so basically confirming its existence.” … Polish second-tier side Stal Rzeszów will wear ’90s fauxbacks this weekend (from Ed Zelaski). … The mayors of San Jose and Sacramento have agreed to a bet for the US Open Cup match between Sacramento Republic and the San Jose Earthquakes: the losing mayor must wear the winning team’s jersey to a city council meeting (from our own Lloyd Alaban).

Grab Bag: The Washington Post has a good article on the glut of crypto advertising in sports, and what those deals means as the entire crypto market struggles to recover from last week’s tailspin (from Tom Turner). … All ten Australian Football League teams have revealed their indigenous guernseys. You can check them out here (from @JeffChrz).

Uni Tweet of the Day

Much as I have fond memories of two Supes in (basically) these unis, I still think their current home unis are close to Top 5 in the league…

And finally that’s it for today. Lots of playoff puck & hoops this weekend, plus the Preakness and PGA today, and of course, baseball. Enjoy the unis in whatever you so choose to watch. Catch you tomorrow!

Peace,

PH

May 21st, 2022 | Tags: | Category: CFL | 3 comments

Tales From the Dream Shop: Buried San Diego Treasure

By Paul Lukas, on May 20, 2022

Click to enlarge

[Editor’s Note: Today we have another guest entry from baseball jersey restorer extraordinaire Bill Henderson and his business, the Dream Shop. Enjoy. — PL]

By Bill Henderson

For many years, my goal as a collector has been to collect one example of every jersey each MLB team wore from 1972 to the present. But as I spent years researching game-worn MLB jerseys from the doubleknit era, I noticed that there were some jerseys that simply didn’t seem to exist in the collector’s market. For example, the 1972-73 Oakland A’s gold jerseys with white/green lettering and the odd Expos-font front numbers were nowhere to be found. Ditto for Cleveland’s jerseys from the 1972-74 period, or most Padres road jerseys of the 1970s. What happened to them all?

As I eventually learned, these missing styles had all been sent to the minor leagues, stripped of their MLB identification, and then usually worn into oblivion and often discarded.

The Padres were a particularly difficult nut to crack. Search as I might, I could not find a single example of their grey road jerseys from 1974 and ’75. I eventually concluded that they simply did not exist any more.

Fast-forward to last summer: A friend contacted me and suggested I take a look at an eBay auction for a 1974 Alexandria Aces road jersey. The Aces were the Padres’ Double-A farm team at the time. “Could this be an elusive Padres 1974 road jersey?” he asked.

What intrigued me was a grainy photo of the tagging. Minor league teams generally did not year tag their jerseys, so this tagging suggested that the jersey had originated with the big league parent club:

I placed a bid and won the auction. When I received the jersey, I could tell that the “12” on the front (which remained in good condition) and the “12” on the back (not so good) were original to the jersey. The “Aces” wordmark had clearly been sewn on after something else had been removed from the front, but it was so worn that I couldn’t make out enough details to confirm its origin.

Once I removed the “Aces” lettering from the front, it immediately became apparent that the words “San Diego” had indeed been on there before! The clearest evidence was the burned in glue imprint of the center letter “D” that had been right on the button placket. As is often the case, this is a spot where the thickness of the cloth and the heat and pressure from the original heat press was the greatest, thus leaving an indelible mark. (If you look closely, you can see the “D” outline on the previous photo as well.)

Luckily, I already had a recreation of the Padres road insignia, scanned from a rare original I had restored and authenticated some months earlier. As I overlayed the lettering template onto the Aces jersey on the light table, I could see several other places where the “San Diego” lettering had been originally stitched, some 46 years ago.

Who originally wore this jersey? Some quick research indicated that No. 12 was issued that year to coach Jim Davenport. A search of other jerseys he wore during his playing career show that they were size 40 — the same as the jersey I was now working on.

As is often the case with minor league jerseys, this one was filthy. It was probably washed 200 times in a commercial machine along with 50 other filthy uniforms, and the dirt compounded into the fabric with each wash. A hand scrub, then a long soak in a bucket of warm, soapy water (Woolite and OxiClean powder is my magic formula) and then a machine wash brightened the garment considerably. It was ready to be relettered.

I cut and stitched a replacement “San Diego” wordmark for the front. The original back numbers were truly awful, so I decided to replace them, along with creating a matching “Davenport” NOB in the Padres distinctive vertically arched style. The long surname and the small jersey size required some careful narrowing and tight spacing to make all the letters fit.

I’m very pleased with the final product. Although I certainly can’t wear it (I last fit into a size 40 in eighth grade), it will display nicely, and it fills what had been a gap in my collection.

Here’s my cutting proof — every order that goes through the shop gets one, even mine:

As a coda to the story, I was contacted by the other person who was bidding against me in the eBay auction. He was a historian for the Alexandria Aces and had wanted the jersey for display in their museum. I promised him I would take the Aces lettering that I’d removed from the jersey and use it to make a reproduction Aces jersey for him.

———

Paul here. I love these stories so much. Big thanks, as always, to Bill Henderson for sharing his expertise with us. You can see more of Tales From the Dream Shop here.

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Bulletin reminder: In case you missed it on Thursday, my latest piece on Bulletin is a worst-to-first ranking of the 10 MLB City Connect uniforms that have been released so far.

My premium subscribers can read the article here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that here (you’ll need a Facebook account in order to pay). Don’t have or want a Facebook account? Email me for workaround info. Thanks!

• • • • •

 

• • • • •

Click to enlarge

We don’t see many of these in Brooklyn: A buddy and I spent most of yesterday in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, where we encountered this handsome elk!

We had hoped to spend the entire weekend exploring the park, but they’re expecting some serious snowfall there today, so we high-tailed it back to Denver and I’ll be flying back to NYC this morning.

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• • • • •

Uni Watch News Ticker
By Anthony Emerson

Baseball News: While exploring the archives of the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame’s website, Will Scheibler found an undated photograph of a baseball jersey made out of a flour sack as the team was unable to afford the cost of new uniforms. Considering the circumstances, I would guess that the jersey dates to the Depression. … In 1988, the Reds wore a black strip on the sleeve of their unis during their first homestand to honor Ted Kluszewski, who died shortly before the season began. The thread goes on to detail how the Marge Schott-owned Reds did little, however, to honor Hall of Famer Edd Roush, who died a week before Kluszewski (from David Thomas). … The chairs in the dugout box seats at Jacobs Field still have the old Cleveland logo on them (from Ben Teaford). … The Jersey Shore BlueClaws, High-A affiliates of the Phillies, will wear Spider-Man uniforms next Thursday (from John Cerone). … The Cascade Collegiate League have shamelessly stolen the 2021 MLB All-Star Game logo for their 2022 All-Star Game.

Football News: Cartersville High in Georgia is adding QR codes to seniors’ uniforms for today’s scrimmage. When scanned, the QR codes bring you to the player’s recruiting information (from Gerry Dincher).

NBA News: The Warriors have revealed their Western Conference Finals uniform schedule (from Carlos Montalvan).
 

Soccer News: Manchester City have revealed their new 2022-23 home kit, going with a rare center-oriented club badge and maker’s mark. … Arsenal have launched their 2022-23 home kit (from multiple readers). … If you’ve lost track of the major clubs who’ve revealed their new kits, goal.com has you covered (thanks, Phil). … The Bundesliga has revealed their 2022-23 match ball (from Ed Zelaski).

Grab Bag: Czech sporting officials are currently debating a unified national name across all sports (thanks, Phil). … Syracuse’s dome has a new corporate name (from multiple readers).

May 20th, 2022 | Category: Minor League Baseball, MLB, Tales from the Dream Shop | 44 comments

Little Things Mean a Lot: La Stella Gets a Lowercase ‘a’

By Paul Lukas, on May 19, 2022

Click to enlarge

Greetings from northern Colorado, where I’m currently spending a few days doing outdoorsy stuff (but may have to high-tail it due to an approaching storm — we’ll see).

Anyway: While a bunch of us were watching the Giants/Rockies game at Coors Field on Tuesday night, we were so busy being purple-sociable that we missed an important uni detail: Giants infielder Tommy La Stella now has a lowercase “a” on his NOB! (He actually made his season debut on Monday, but nobody noticed it then either.)

His official surname includes a space between the “La” and the “Stella,” but the NOB doesn’t appear to have a full space — it’s more like a hint of a space, like they’re trying to have it both ways. Hmmmm.

Amusingly, La Stella has always had the lowercase “a” (without the space) on the back of his Giants batting helmet:

Up until now, La Stella has always worn a small-cap “A” on the back of his jersey — not just with the Giants, but also during his stints with the A’s, Angels, Cubs, and Atlanta. The spacing was variable (often it varied even more within a given team’s assorted jerseys):

I’m trying to decide whether I prefer the lowercase “a” or the small-cap “A,” and I’m thinking I don’t like either of them. What I’d really like to see is a slightly larger small-cap, so it doesn’t look quite so diminutive. Maybe someone could Photoshop that for us?

(My thanks to Sean Presley and Twitter-er @ABL_LoSox for letting me know about La Stella’s new NOB.)

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ITEM! City Connect Power Rankings: For my latest piece on Bulletin, I’ve done a worst-to-first ranking of the 10 MLB City Connect uniforms that have been released so far.

My premium subscribers can read the article here. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do that here (you’ll need a Facebook account in order to pay). Don’t have or want a Facebook account? Email me for workaround info. Thanks!

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Father’s Day deadline reminder: In case you missed this news earlier in the week, the folks at the Pillbox Bat Co. tell me that if you want one of the custom-painted Uni Watch bats in time for Father’s Day, you must get your order in by next Monday, May 23, so I wanted to pass that info along.

The bats are available here.

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• • • • •

The Ticker
By Lloyd Alaban

Baseball News: A throw last night by Astros SS Jeremy Peña to first base tore through teammate 1B Yuli Gurriel’s glove. The play was scored as an error on Peña (from Mike Chamernik). … Twins SS Carlos Correa had his last name misspelled on the A’s scoreboard yesterday (from Bill Vaughn). … The next few items are from our own Phil Hecken: The Astros will give out a series of moon rover-themed bobbleheads this month. … The Fort Wayne TinCaps, affiliate of the Padres, are using a promotional night of jersey sales to raise funds to support a monument to the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Football News: Ravens QB Lamar Jackson has filed for a couple of trademarks —presumably for an upcoming restaurant (from Marcus Hall). … Here’s a sportswriter’s ranking of Washington State’s uniforms (from our own Phil Hecken). … Also from Phil: Here’s the entire 2022 NFL schedule – all 272 games — in one graphic.

Hockey News: After some initial reports that the Coyotes would not be allowed to put their logo on the ice while playing “home” games at Arizona State for the next few seasons, it now turns out that the Yotes logo and the ASU logo will both appear on the ice. … A statue of former Blackhawks C Fred Sasakamoose, who spent decades helping develop Indigenous hockey players and reconciliation efforts, was unveiled yesterday outside the Sasktel Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (from Wade Heidt).

Basketball News: F Paolo Banchero might have given us a first look at the NBA’s upcoming draft caps (from Donald Wine II). … The NBA Draft Lottery took place yesterday. Some interesting tidbits about how teams are actually chosen are in this ESPN article. For example, the NBA has a backup lottery machine in case the first one fails, and a backup in case power fails: a literal basketball with a hole cut out of the top. Yesterday morning before the lottery took place, the league went to get its hole-in-the-ball lottery machine, but they noticed it was a Spalding ball, which was problematic because the league switched from Spalding to Wilson for this season, so officials had to find a Wilson ball and cut a hole in that one (from Mike Chamernik). … Reader Dario Moretti found a picture circa 1994 of Hawks PF Danny Manning wearing a jersey with no front number.

Grab Bag: Under Armour president and CEO Patrik Frisk will step down from his post next month (from our own Phil Hecken). … The U.S. Air Force could soon allow airmen to have mustaches that extend a quarter-inch past each corner of their lips, for an extra half-inch of hair in total (from Timmy Donahue). … Also from Timmy: U.S. Space Force recruits will be allowed to have neck tattoos.

May 19th, 2022 | Category: MLB, Player Names/Nameplates, Typography | 30 comments

The Purplest Day of My Life

By Paul Lukas, on May 18, 2022

Click for full purple effect`

I don’t mind saying that yesterday’s Purp Walk was absolutely epic. The photo shown above — that’s the Rockies’ costumed mascot, Dinger, posing with me and reader Tim Cox at last night’s Rockies/Giants game — was one of many, many highlights. (It may also set the record for the most shades of purple ever to appear in a single photograph.)

The great Kary Klismet took a bunch of photos, which you can see here. I have plenty of photos as well, which I’ll share in a day or three as part of a full-blown Purp Walk party report..

Big thanks to everyone who came out and for all the enthusiasm and kind thoughts you expressed about Uni Watch. I wish I could have spent more time with each of you — one of the frustrating things about this type of event is that I always end up talking a little bit with everyone but not enough with anyone.

That’s it for today. Sorry, no other news, no Ticker. We’ll get back to regular content tomorrow. Thanks for understanding, and a merry post-Purp Walk to all. — Paul

May 18th, 2022 | Category: General | 35 comments
 
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