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Meet The (Mercury) Mets

Mets - Cap

By Phil Hecken

Twelve years ago tonight, I watched a baseball game with my dad (and as it would turn out, it would be the last Mets game we ever attended together), between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Mercury Mets. Wait, what?

That’s right, twelve years ago, on this very evening, I had the “pleasure” of witnessing what could very well have been the worst uniform matchup EVER, certainly between two baseball teams. You see, twelve years ago, the Mercury Mets played the Pittsburgh Pirates on another planet in Shea Stadium.

The brainstorm of MLB (in partnership with, I believe, Century 21), based off the popularity of a “one-time” 1998 game between the Mariners and the Royals, “Turn Ahead The Clock” games were played between twenty of the major league’s 30 teams in 1999. I won’t recite the promotion for you — a much better scribe than I already did so three years ago. If you want to learn all about the concept, give that article a read.

But what started out as a fun little “one time” thing morphed into this giant promotion, and MLB got two-thirds of the teams to play along. I recall I was at the office on that fateful day 12 years ago when I got a call from my pop, who had just acquired tickets for that night’s game. “Sure, I’ll go,” was my response. I’m not even sure I was aware of the promotion (I knew MLB had been doing it — the Mets were somewhere in the middle of the promotion schedule). As soon as I passed through the turnstiles, however, I knew what was up when fans were presented with souvenir caps. Somewhere over the years, I lost that cap — and I’m not so sure that’s not a bad thing.

The game itself was a bit of a blur, but 87-year old Orel Hershiser started and got creamed, giving up a homer on like the first pitch. He wasn’t known for profanity, but I’m pretty sure he was cursing under his glove — no doubt at having to wear the worst uniform of his career.

For some reason or other, while most other teams simply played in “futuristic” uniforms based on planet earth (sometime in the 2020s or 2030s), the Mets had decided by that year they’d be playing their games on planet Mercury. Brilliant.

And while most teams at least kept some semblance of their color schemes (at the time anyway), the Mets went with silver and black. Oh, that’s right, black had already been introduced into their color scheme in 1998. And it hasn’t yet left.

Because it seemed like many of these jerseys were rushed to production, every team had the same basic design, with vertical names (note the only “nickname” ever to grace a Mets uniform), and the same fonts for both name and number. Some teams, like the Pirates, went with a vertically stacked number Here’s another look. Just all kinds of wrong.

But the fronts of the jerseys had to take the cake for the worst alternate uniforms ever worn for most teams. Some had very little thought given to them (how do you feel about that one, Jim Thome?) — I mean really, could the Giants or Red Sox have been any more bland (by the way, the Red Sox, luckily for them, never wore their TATC’s as planned, as their shipment arrived too late for their scheduled game).

Some teams had a little thought put into their uniforms (that may have just been a warm up top), but most teams simply went with an oversized logo on a dark jersey.

Two teams actually seemed to go the “extra inch,” for this one, however, the Twins broke out Minnie and Paul while the Brewers turned out Barrelman (and even added a special cap). Now, why these teams would put their “retro” logos on futuristic uniforms speaks volumes of how poorly this whole thing was planned. At least the Cardinals created a pair of rather scary looking animatronic birds.

Major League Baseball has had some bad promotions and experiments before, but 1999’s TATC nights took the cake. The original 1998 event (described in Paul’s article) at least had the host Mariners and guest Royals playing in full uniforms created for the evening (and they even special helmets and shoes). The 1999 ‘money grab reprise’ simply had a bunch of slapped-together jerseys worn over regular pants.

But the Mercury Mets were the worst of the bunch. And twelve years ago, I was there to see it live. Wanna see more? Probably not, but my full Flickr set is here.

Let us hope if (when) the next “Turn BACK The Clock” game occurs, they never go “back to the future.”

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Benchies Beginning logo

Benchies from the Beginning
By Rick Pearson

For nearly three years, “Benchies” has been appearing most weekends at Uni Watch. While Bench Coach Phil fills in for Paul Monday through Friday during August, we present a retrospective. New strips will continue to appear on weekends. For further background, here’s the “Benchies” backstory and bios on the regular Boys of “Benchies.” Enjoy.

7-27-11_d-favorite

And here is the full-size version.

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ticker 2

Uni Watch News Ticker (compiled by John Ekdahl): Just as TMZ did earlier in the week, The Washington Post Express (a publication of the Washington Post) got the NFL’s logo wrong. Did no one get the memo that the NFL updated it’s logo in 2008? (Matt Lucas) … From Adam Humble: “The [Oklahoma State] Cowboys are set to unveil their new combos (3 helmets – white, black, gray; 4 pants and jersey full combos – white, orange, black, gray) on thursday 7/28. Go pokes!” … Anyone ever wonder what Notre Dame’s equipment room looks like? (Warren Junium) … The Houston Chronicle recently ran a photo gallery of many of the Houston-related items in the Baseball Hall of Fame (James Poisso). … Remember, these guys played professional football, so it’s probably not a good idea to call them “four eyes” (Matthew Robins). … Take a look at North Carolina State’s 2011 unis (Brent Perry). … We got a follow-up on this weekend’s story about the Vancouver Whitecaps having to borrow jerseys from fans in attendance: “Turns out, I was one of those random Whitecaps fans in San Jose last week. From what we can understand, the airline the team traveled with lost some luggage and so they were short some jerseys. There were about 16 of us who had traveled down from Vancouver for the game so they had a decent pick of jerseys. The good thing for the caps was that the league all uses the same name and numbering, so SJ just did up all the jerseys for them. We were asked for the jerseys and in return, we got a team golf shirt to wear during the game and got to keep, we also got our jersey back at the end of the game, worn, numbered, signed by the player and very sweaty. We’re also waiting to hear from the front office as we were also told that they would give us another blank jersey to replace the one they used.” … Here are some aerial photos of the Florida Marlins’ new stadium (Michael Niekamp). … The Colts recently signed Chad Spann and he tweeted this picture of his new helmet. The numbers look a little bigger, no? (Ben Nicholson) … Georgia Tech wore their new 2011 jerseys to the ACC Kickoff event, which look very similar to the 2009 jersey. Here’s a shot of the 2010 version for reference (Britton Thomas). … Here’s some more information on that Detroit Tigers Zubaz pant promotion (Dan Cichalski). … It appears Boise State won’t be able to wear all blue at home next year (Kyle Tarbet). … German heritage night is coming up in Milwaukee – here’s a look at the bobbleheads the Brewers will be giving out (Geoff Poole). … Is system-of-the-dress coming to Major League Baseball or is Barry Zito’s jersey just out of whack?

~~~~~~~~~~

“I never understood the Phoenix Coyotes retiring Dale Hawerchuk’s number. That was just . . . plain . . . sad. It’d be like the Clippers deciding to retire one of the Buffalo Braves’ numbers or something.” — Lloyd Davis

 
  
 
Comments (174)

    Time for Benchies to hang ’em up. I love funnies, but they need to be, y’know, FUNNY.

    Why not shine the spotlight on a standout logo concept or jersey design every day instead?

    Unless someone is link you with the Benchies, just skip it if it’s not your cup of tea.

    There’s plenty of other material here.

    One of the problems with “Benchies” (and believe me, I’m keenly aware of it) is that people often think it’s a comic strip designed for the sports section.

    It’s not.
    It’s not about sports.
    It’s about the characters: Sports-centric guys and what doofusses they can be sometimes.
    Guys who play in beer leagues and date and watch the world go by from their seats on the bench. Guys who frequent the corner bar and, yes, websites like Uni Watch.
    In other words, it’s about us.

    HUGE difference. There isn’t going to be an A-Rod or Chris Berman joke every day.

    People expecting that will be disappointed. To them I apologize, but the focus just isn’t that narrow.

    Would it be fair to say that softball is as central to the plot of Benchies as baseball was to the plot of Peanuts?

    I like the strip. Some people just feel the need to complain for complaining’s sake (cfcs).

    “Benchies” is fine. If you’ve ever read the original run of “Doonesbury,” back after it went national in 1970, “Benchies” is perfectly in line with that. Not everyone’s cup of tea, sure, but seriously, has anyone who complains about “Benchies” ever actually looked at a newspaper comics page? If “Benchies” were syndicated, it would easily be in the top 20 percent of national comic strips, quality-wise. “Benchies” may not be funny to everyone every day, but it’s better than most of the crap on the “funny” pages. In a world where “Family Circus” still appears daily in most newspapers, where “Garfield” and “Shoe” and “Mallard Fillmore” and “The Lockhorns” and “Marmaduke” still get daily play, nobody should complain about “Benchies” appearing here.

    In a world where “Family Circus” still appears daily in most newspapers, where “Garfield” and “Shoe” and “Mallard Fillmore” and “The Lockhorns” and “Marmaduke” still get daily play, nobody should complain about “Benchies” appearing here.

    Amen, brother. (Anyone else ever suspect that Mallard Fillmore is actually the result of a liberal plot to make conservatives look double-plus-unfunny? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?)

    Count me among the Benchies fans. Even should the world ever be blessedly freed from the cartoon abominations noted by R.S. Rogers, Benchies will always be worthy of a spot on my monitor :-)

    You left “Frec Bassett” out of the un-funny discussion.
    Quite possibly the least funny of all “funnies”.

    Hey, Fred Basset is a great strip.

    Or at least I thought it was in 1975 when my dad would read it to me.

    The state of comics is in the terlet…but Benchies is a nice exception.

    If you’re looking for a comic strip that will make you double over with laughter each and every day, there’s always…wait, has there *ever* been a strip that lived up to that? Sometimes I laugh at Benchies, sometimes I don’t, but it almost always makes me smile. And if you can find a strip like that, you’ve found one that’s worth reading.

    Laugh out loud every day? Absolutely.

    link“. If we lower the threshold to lough out loud at least 4 days out of every 7, “link” and “link“. And if we make room for weekly strips that are laugh-out-loud funny every time, “link“.

    Those are all being actively published right now. Among defunct strips, there’s “Calvin & Hobbs”, “Bloom County”, and the first 15 years or so of “Peanuts”.

    Plus, “link” is deeply hilarious in its own special, kind of dark, way. At, not with, if you dig it.

    And you know what else is pretty awesome? “Benchies”.

    Wow, “Mark Trail” is still getting published?

    Maybe we need Joel Robinson’s “CarTuner”! (ref: link – 4 minutes in)

    “Ziggy had Garfield neutered? Now that’s funny!”

    I seem to remember Griffey Junior even spray painted his glove silver for the game against KC.

    Wouldn’t that hurt the effectiveness of the glove? I remember seeing pics of it, but it’s always seemed sillier than painting the shoes to me.

    If he used spray-on enamel, yes. It gets as hard as a carp.
    If he used spray-on shoe coloring (available at shoe stores and shoe repair shops), no problem It’s designed to be flexible.

    Now, why these teams would put their “retro” logos on futuristic uniforms speaks volumes of how poorly this whole thing was planned.
    ______________________

    I dunno about that… we seem to be stuck in the middle of a retro trend right now, at least in terms of alternate uniforms. A few teams going future-retro doesn’t really seem that far off.

    The Mets still looked silly, of course.

    I came here to say that. I would argue the Twins and Brewers going retro on TATC unis shows some foresight into the real future. Granted the uniforms themselves were ugly, but keep in mind in 1999 the Twins had yet to resurrect the TC logo or the Minnie-Paul logo (that wouldn’t be till 2002). And the Twins also wore special caps that night with the TC logo and I believe a silver bill. Meanwhile, the Brewers only brought back the MB-mit caps a few years ago. I argue great foresight by these two teams

    The Mets meanwhile…. *sigh*

    Supposedly the Red Sox’ turn-ahead-the-clock uniforms got lost in Tropical Storm Floyd. But I think there was a sense that the team simply didn’t want to play in such crummy-looking uniforms – and, at the time, they were considered a franchise of tradition, much like the Yankees. If the promotion had been done 10 years later, though, I bet the Red Sox would have worn them, as they have discarded tradition in recent years by wearing red, navy and green softball tops…

    Actually, Floyd hit in September, and that was when the Tigers @ BoSox TATC game was scheduled (it was the last TATC of the year, on 9/18).

    It would be interesting to see any evidence the Bosox actually received the uniforms in time and just decided they didn’t wish to participate. If a team felt it was foolish, they could use any excuse they wanted. Other storied, successful franchises of tradition like the Cardinals and Pirates did go along, so that’s just how things went on that particular night.

    I know I’m in the minority but I actually liked the Turn Ahead The Clock promotion. It was a lot more fun and innocent than some thinly-veiled advertisement for some corporation — and I remember being happy that no matter what the jerseys looked like, the major leagues had assumed that even in 2020 the uniforms would be blesedly free of advertisements.

    (Consider what’s happened to Caribbean teams in jsut the past decade or so. Do you really want link on uniforms? Give me garish big team logos and silver and black any time.)

    And vertically-stacked jersey numbers may look goofy in English, but when they’re link, they look great. They fit the player’s back perfectly. (Check out Jeremy Brahm’s Uni Watch membership card; it’s in Japanese, and he’s #18.)

    It was a thinly veiled advertisement. Century 21 was the global (interplanetary?) sponsor.

    And then in 2002 Viagra helped sponsor series in which teams wore turn-back-the-clock uniforms (it seems the Mets were decked out in ’86-era uniforms). Somewhat similar to Century 21’s deal, only with a backward-looking concept.

    I liked them too, for the simple reason that things that suck are okay on a one-off basis. It’s when teams adopt things that suck permanently that you have problems.

    In the BR Bullpen page referencing the TATC promo, it says that the Houston Astros declined to participate. So where/when did they use that vertically stacked jersey?

    Considering the Astros unis of 1975-1986 it was probably a case of “been there done that”.

    I think it would have been fantastic if Houston HAD participated in the TATC Day … and wore the tequila sunrise, just as it was originally designed.

    HA…That would have been the kicker that everyone would remember about the whole thing. Such a great punch line it’s almost worth reviving the promotion for it. Almost.

    And of course the Yankees can rightly claim that they did participate in TATC night…

    Sadly, the Astros are a team that should look a little more futuristic. The last decade has been ridiculous.
    The 90’s set was underrated.
    link

    I think it would have been funny if the Astros simply wore the original Tequila Sunrise jerseys for the TATC thing. The players could have said, “What? We were already in the future!”

    Also, anyone notice the mechanical cardinals are sitting on an ALUMINUM bat. Arrrgh!

    Maybe I’m the only one who was momentarily confused, but the second ticker item refers to Oklahoma State. For a second, I thought Jerry Jones had lost his mind.

    Well, if there’s one owner who’d flaunt the NFL’s rule against multiple helmets…

    I almost wish Dallas would do it (not so much the black… but silver/white/blue would work)… the NFL’s rules against multiple helmets are stupid anyway.

    Heck, there’s multiple teams with 2 helmets now, they’re just arbitrarily limited to being worn just twice. I mean, is there any *real* reason (besides a fine) that the Steelers shouldn’t be able to wear their yellow helmet at home and their black helmet on the road, if they really wanted to?

    …and no, a “loss of brand identity” is not a valid reason when the league is happily selling fashion jerseys in pink or with forest patterns on them.

    Yeah, I was momentarily confused when that ticker item came in to my inbox as well. So, the obvious course of action was to pass along that confusion. This was either intentional or I’m a complete idiot. I report, you decide.

    Clarifying….

    Where did the sketches of the uniforms come from, anyway? Looks like the artist expected the Mets to wear pinstriped pants, where, at least in those pictures of Oral, they sure look like the icecream man pants being worn.

    im not sure where i found them, but it looks like they were simply using that years MLB style guide and slapped a graphic of the TATC jersey (and cap, in some cases) on top

    back in 1999, the mets still had their pinstripe uniform as their primary — thank god they had a full alternate (snow whites) back then — can you imagine how much more awful it would have looked if they wore that black/silver thing over blue pins?

    The Astros were one of the few teams that did not join in the TATC, yet would have been the most logical considering they were born during the space race, play in Space City, and were known for wearing “out there” unis. I always wondered what they would have looked like…

    The Cards did the least changing of their existing unis, and yet I have hardly seen it outside of this site. Maybe it will be eventually displayed in the Cardinals Museum…

    Phil, I do agree with you that the Mercury Mets were ugly, but someone wanted to go all out for this one night uniform. Has Paul or anyone else said who designed the Mercury Mets uni? Specifically, why it was so stark in the colors used and moving the team to Mercury?

    Yeah, the image attributed to the Astros isn’t the Astros. They didn’t participate. And they didn’t have pinstripe pants at that time either.

    Henderson has that same pic and says it’s the Pirates.

    That is the pirates. In 1999 the Astros were still blue and gold. They didn’t switch to brick and black until 2000. Also, they didn’t have a number 30 on the team.

    RE: the vertical names on the futuristic jerseys.

    Did they think that in the future everyone’s head and neck will be tilted to the right?

    -Jet

    Well… people do have this bad habit of turning their cellphones sideways while recording video…

    Reminds me of the old question from design class:

    What would a chair look like if our knees bent the opposite direction?

    You may begin your sketches…now.

    We wouldn’t need chairs. We never would have evolved past wallowing in the mud.

    That’s a terrible question! If our knees bent the other way, but the rest of our anatomy were unchanged, bipedal locomotion would be impossible. Since chairs are a consequence of bipedalism, if we couldn’t stand upright, the concept of “chair” would have no meaning. We’d either crouch on our ass like a dog or lay on our side like every other mammal species. What is this, a link for designers? [Kidding!]

    Jet, book titles are written like that and we have no trouble reading them.

    I myself would like to see more under-the-number NOBs like Cincinnati (and the Sacramento Kings) used to do. (Given that there have to be NOBs to begin with. I’d really prefer just numbers on the backs.)

    Still trying to figure out why the Reds’ subscript NOBs were conventionally arched (high point in the middle) rather than radiating from the number. Maybe that would have looked too much like a smiley face? Especially if you wore 00.

    I love traditional uniforms as much as anybody here, but I think TATC was a fun idea, in theory. I just wish ALL the teams and/or uniform designers had put more thought into it. Brewers, Twins, Cardinals? Those are all neat ideas they had. The oversized logos that most teams had, though? Garbage. Why, in the future, would teams be doing that? I would have loved to heard the explanation behind that. And even the Mets idea was, in a way, sort of interesting… though considering the logistics against humans ever inhabitating Mercury, they should have went with the Moon or Mars. Though neither “Moon Mets” or “Mars Mets” really rolls off the tongue.

    And this quote from Boise State’s Chris Petersen sums up all that I feel is wrong with college football uniforms: “Nike has saved us by giving us a bunch of different combinations,” Petersen said. “… If we can’t wear what we want to wear, then we will wear a bunch of different other stuff.”

    I was thinking the same thing about Mercury since the day side is over 700 degrees and the night side is near 260 degrees below zero. Maybe we should send whoever thought up the promotion up to Mercury to scout a stadium location.

    The oversized logos that most teams had, though? Garbage. Why, in the future, would teams be doing that? I would have loved to heard the explanation behind that.

    Absolutely agree. Moreover, the whole thing had a uniform (pun intended) whiff to it — almost NFL-like. Why did everyone have to do the same “future” thing? OK, I know why, but baseball over the years has usually had a pretty nice spread of uni designs and styles. Overtly squashing that in a piss-poor “promotion” looked like a big whiff.

    The equipment room in the ticker is not Notre Dame. It is USF. The sign in the equipment room says so.

    Wrong.

    1) The black and white shoe boxes stacked in the background are Adidas boxes. USF is an Under Armour team, Notre Dame wears Adidas.

    2) Why would USF’s locker room have a full mockup of Notre Dame’s home uniform (for both blue and green jerseys)?

    3) Note the red LED letters above the USF sign. That is a clock, counting down the days until Notre Dame kicks off its season against USF.

    Not to mention all of the golden dome helmets with/without facemasks stacked on the shelves.

    I will say it is damn confusing. I can’t iamgine why the equipment room for ND would have helmets for Michigan and others (Michigan is the only one I can make out from the photo, but loads of others down that shelving unit on the left.) Anyone have ideas?

    Stress relief. Pissed off and have an urge to throw a helmet at the wall… grab an opponent’s.

    Or they could be for the occasional TV interview with the weekly helmet matchup in the background. Or…something.

    It appears that they have a copy of every helmet in the FBS. As for why the clock says USF, it appears to be a countdown clock to their first game against the Bulls on 9-3-11.

    link

    Almost every equip. room I have ever been in (maybe 5-6) has always had opposing teams helmets in them and on display. I think its a equipment manager trading type thing…they swap a helmet with an opponent the first time they play, etc… It leads to a very cool display over time.

    Yep. Not sure about now, but in the late 90s, many equipment managers swapped helmets with teams they played (obviously only if they didn’t already have that helmet).

    Oklahoma’s equipment room has a shelf (about a foot from the ceiling) that runs throughout the equipment room, with most of the helmets from teams they have played.

    How was TATC a “money grab”? I don’t recall the teams selling much if any merchandise around the promotion.

    The Brewers TATC cap is one of my personal holy grails. The awesomeness of that cap by itself justifies the whole sorry exercise. And say what you will about the Mercury Mets wearing ugly uniforms, at least they embraced the spirit of the thing. If you’re going to do a thing, do the thing, don’t half-ass it. The Mets went all in and didn’t half-ass it, and for a silly uniform promotion like this, that’s pretty much all that matters.

    they did more than “embrace the spirit”

    rickey henderson led off for the mets that night, and his image on the scoreboard (so pissed i didn’t think to bring a camera) was of him in GREEN, with pointy ears and two “antennae” coming out of his skull (think gazoo only without the helmet) … obviously they hadn’t clued him in on the joke because he stood at home plate, stepped out, and just stared at the scoreboard in disbelief — to say he was pissed would be an understatement

    the next time he batted (i think the third inning), his regular image was back

    they didn’t do that with any other players — not sure they had planned to and scrapped it, or if rickey was the only one — but that was a huge fail

    they played “futuristic” music that was at the time 20 years old — i recall bowie’s space oddity echoing throughout the stadium

    i really forget all the goofy shit they did, but it wasn’t fun — it was very awkward … not awkward in the sense of sarah palin failing to understand the bush doctrine, but more like your drunk uncle making a homophobic slur during a wedding toast

    did the mets try? hell yes…but they failed miserably

    The Ricky thing doesn’t strike me as the Mets doing anything wrong, but rather as Ricky being a jerk. You’re a 40-year-old earning $2 mil to play pro ball, you’re the best player on a playoff-bound team, it’s like sci-fi night at the ballpark, and they put you on the scoreboard once looking like a Martian? Dude, it’s not going to kill you. I thought Ricky was cooler than that. And why is he looking at himself on the scoreboard anyway? Keep your head in the game, pops. No wonder he link and got subbed for Melvin Mora that night.

    You have to ask why Rickey Henderson interrupted his at-bat to look at a picture of himself? It’d be news if he didn’t look.

    Somehow, I can imagine Rickey standing there, going “Rickey ain’t sure who that green Rickey is”.

    Medical science will probably figure a way to stop the aging process – in fact I’m watching a show on that subject right now on the Science Channel. So you and I will be around in the future to remind the world of what taste is.

    Unfortunately, science will not be able to “reverse” the aging process. So as time goes on, you, I and the rest of the followers of Uni Watch will find ourselves part of a smaller and smaller minority of old farts in a growing population of self centered twenty-somethings. Which means that no one will give a fuck about what we’re telling them about “taste.”

    I guess MLB just wanted to cap off the monstrous 90s with a bang in July of ’99. A decade that baseball aesthetics may never fully recover from.

    Chad Spann’s numbers look just fine to me… the Colts have always had rather large helmet numbers, and the angle the photo was taken at make them seem even larger.

    link

    What is the Mercury Mets logo supposed to be? It kinda looks like the logo of an evil women’s lib movement.

    I notice all the TATC jerseys are pullover. With little half-sleeves.

    Who would have predicted in the disco/sansabelt/pullover late 70s
    that in 2011 every MLB team would be wearing buttoned shirts and belted pants?

    They could be playing in cow pastures with fingerless gloves in 2060.

    Equipment managers frequently collect other schools’ helmets for souvenirs and trade their own.

    It could also be a case of assembling all if that season’s opponents as a sort of visual reminder of the schedule. Put an X placard over the teams you beat, that sort of thing…

    That has been a long time practace in college equipment rooms. Usually, it is a one-for-one helmet trade, but not every team trade. For thise, we at my alma mater had to be creative in gaining the new helmet. ;-)

    Ya know what? F BOISE STATE and their blue uniforms and blue grass. They agreed to the rule when they joined the conference, and some Nike a–hole is now working them to get it changed. Nike has ruined college football almost as thoroughly as they ruined hockey with $600 skates and $200 sticks. When Boise State stops crying about deals they signed and stops sucking Nike’s corporate d— I’ll be impressed.

    Wow. So the real story here is that the Mountain West teams are afraid of Boise State and the only reason they added them to their conference is because they’d drop off the map once TCU leaves. Believe me racking up the huge offensive numbers that Boise State does isn’t happening because their turf and unis match. You have no clue. I think it’s ludicrous that the other schools even complained. If anyone was whining it was them. Boise State is gonna run the table in the Mountain West this year.

    They probably will run the table.

    And I’m glad that you’ll actually be able to see their players while they’re doing it. I cant’t stand watching their home games when they wear the monochrome blue.

    I’m not saying it was pretty nor easy on the eyes, but it was a distinctive of their program. Smurf turf and blue unis. My guess is they do a lot of blue jersey and different colored pants at home.

    Y’know, green-over-green on a green background is pretty hard on the eyes, too.

    The thing I remember about TATC is that the Rockies had an weekday afternoon game vs. the Braves, and my boss gave a coworker and me his season tickets behind the 3rd base dugout, told us to go and not to take it off our vacation time. And Larry Walker hit a 3-run walkoff shot against John Rocker.

    As forgettable as the 1999 TATC promotion was, I did like the gold billed hats the Bucs wore that night in New York. In 2003, the Pirates made that hat an alternate, so it’s possible the 1999 game planted the idea about wearing such a design.

    god, now i want to claw my eyes out. what were they smoking when they approved all of those uni’s? cuz i could use some

    What made the Mercury Mets game even worse was the scoreboard. They depicted Rickey Henderson as a green alien..complete with pointy ears!

    link

    Looks like the days of the all-blue Boise State Broncos have come and gone. Don’t be surprised when they lose their first home game.

    It makes me wonder, though: what will they wear instead? Blue over orange? Blue over white? Monochrome orange? None of those sound like particularly good options.

    My first thought about the Marlins’ new stadium was about the ship from Flight of the Navigator.

    I have always wondered why the Mets seem to have shouldered the majority of the blame and ridicule for a silly, league-wide promotion that only spared a few clubs that take themselves too seriously.

    i wasn’t singling out the mets, per se, it’s just that i happened to see that game live, and today is the 12th “anniversary” of the event

    but pretty much all 20 teams who participated deserve equal scorn…i still think the mets unis were among the *worst* (although one does have to give them credit for trying)

    and i kind of respect teams like the yankees and dodgers for telling century 21 to go eff themselves…if you want to consider that “taking themselves too seriously” that’s fine — I think they respected the sanctity of the institution of baseball

    and to build upon what “pushbutton” said above:

    “And of course the Yankees can rightly claim that they did participate in TATC night…”

    im pretty sure steinbrenner, when asked why the yankees weren’t *participating* in the promotion, said something like “the yankees ARE wearing their uniform of the future” (or something along those lines)

    im pretty sure steinbrenner, when asked why the yankees weren’t *participating* in the promotion, said something like “the yankees ARE wearing their uniform of the future” (or something along those lines)

    My dad (who was a radio newsman) told me this story at the time. So even if it’s apocryphal, the story is contemporary and was circulating among the newsmedia as true.

    I think teams should have “Turn Back the Clock Turn Ahead the Clock” day and wear their current uniforms.

    Or “Turn Back The Clock to 1969” and have a whole league of beautifully-uniformed teams.

    I’d be content if they threw the damn clock out the window and lived for the present once again.

    I think the cap with the Mercury symbol is actually pretty good looking.

    Re the Houston Chronicle photo gallery: I had never seen or heard of Astrodillo until I saw that coffee mug. Was he/she/it widely promoted?

    Seems that while so many college teams are going over the top with the uniforms (see Oklahoma State), it’s nice to see what NC State did with their uni.

    I know it’s not a huge change from last year (looks like only the addition of the state wordmark on the front). Nonetheless, I think it looks pretty good.

    The only thing I would change is possibly the addition of a stripe/stripes to the pants. Something about white game pants with no stripe looks strange to me.

    I agree with the pants striping. A single red stripe to match the helment would be fine. I would have preferred “NC State” as the wordmark because “State” seems way too movie generic for me, especially on a red jersey.

    I think the NC State unis are boring. I agree Keith that the addition of stripes would look nice… but with Red and white how could they do this without being tooooo much like Nebraska and Wisconsin (both Adidas teams as we all know). They all wear the red white and stripes… I guess Adidas wanted them to “stand out” some by going with less? How many teams go by “State” on their uniforms? I can think of Michigan State using it on their basketball unis.

    Check this out. The catcher is a Priate and he is wearing a gold jersey with white pants while the Giants are in white too.

    link

    Possibly a spring training game, no? I would have suggested the catcher is playing for Oakland.

    Pretty sure Willie McCovey’s record-breaking 512th home run did not take place in a spring training game.

    Specifically, that photo purports to be from Saturday, June 9, 1979. Giants beat the Pirates 6-2 in Pittsburgh; McCovey pinch-hit for shortstop Johnny LeMaster in the 8th and hit a 3-run homer to right.

    McCovey’s career homers:
    link

    Game info:
    link

    Bonus for anyone who sees this and cares: Pirates wore gold jerseys and black pants June 6, 1979.

    But the stands do seem awfully brightly lit for 9:30 pm, so perhaps it’s not actually a photo of McCovey’s 512th homer. Which, if so, for same, Topps!

    Well, plus the Giants are wearing home whites in that pic. So that’s either at Candlestick, or Spring training.

    This may be a discovery of a uni combo we did not know existed, a la the white and red combo the Indians wore that we didn’t know about.

    Assuming that’s a photo of McCovey hitting a home run, and not just popping out to shortstop, he didn’t hit any homers against San Diego in 1979. But he hit four against the Padres in 1978, including on consecutive Sunday afternoons in April. April 9 in Candlestick and April 16 in San Diego. (Was it San Diego Stadium or Jack Murphy in ’78?) I assume the photo would be from the April 9 date in San Francisco, in which case the uniforms make sense for both teams for either 1978 or 1979.

    Yeah, the yellow sleeve/white pants on the catcher would be pretty definitive he’s a Padre. Good call.

    But the stands look nothing like Candlestick, so I’m guessing Spring Training.

    Gotta be a spring photo. There is no way that photo was taken at Candlestick Park.

    Somebody please correct me if I’m wrong, but the seats were (still are?) orange, the first row of the stands near home plate was much lower and the Giants’ dugout was on the first base side.

    The Giants’ dugout was definitely on the first base side in Candlestick. Can’t speak to color or elevation of the seats.

    The bottom line here is the reminder to never trust trading cards as documentary evidence.* What is captioned as being a photo of a record-breaking regular-season home run in a night game at Pittsburgh turns out to be a photo that probably doesn’t even show a hit during spring training, in a day game, against San Diego, at home. It’s basically just good luck that it even shows Willie McCovey.

    *Unless we ever find a trading card that shows the Broncos with a brown horsey, in which case that’s case closed.

    Upper Deck had a card set a few years ago that actually did print the dates that the photos were taken. But I’ve always assumed that, unless it’s a World Series or postseason card, that the photo doesn’t depict any real event.

    ok…did some digging…

    here’s the text on the back of the card:

    “— Pittsburgh, June 9, 1979 0 Giants’ Willie McCovey tonight belted a 3-run Pinch-Homer to highlight Giants’ 6-2 win over Pirates. The wallop was the 512th of McCovey’s career, setting a new NL mark for lefties. The record of 511 homers was held by Mel Ott.”

    found here — scroll down to “1980 Topps — ’1979 Highlights’ — Card #2”

    if you click on the “1” comment, someone else picked up the same thing we all did:

    “John Bateman | December 29, 2009 at 6:51 pm | Reply

    I think the catcher in the photo appears to be a San Diego Padre and the background does not appear to be Three Rivers Stadium.”

    here’s the actual back of the card

    reads like topps took it straight from the wire

    pretty sure (like everyone else) that aint three rivers

    It’s not Three Rivers. The Giants wouldn’t have worn white in Pittsburgh. When the Pirates wore gold jerseys with white pants in ’77 and ’78, the white would have had the stripes. And they didn’t do spring training in the same state. So an exhibition with the Padres sounds right.

    ok…99.99% positive that’s a padre catching

    gaylord pitched for the pads in 1978 & 1979, so both of those years jive with the jersey he’s wearing and the catcher appears to be wearing

    pretty safe to say this was a game against the padres…but was it even 1979? could be from 1978…

    This is most likely a Cactus League played at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. That was the spring training home of the Giants at that time.

    Both teams in white, too. Or did someone already mention that? Just more indication the catcher’s a Padre.

    Does anyone recognize those stands? Note that the on-deck hitter is, of course, a Giant and on the third base side, which is usually the visitor’s side, making this all weirder. Don’t think it’s spring training, because don’t the Giants play in the Cactus League and the Pirates in the Grapefruit League, so they wouldn’t meet?

    Since when is the third base side “usually the visitor’s side?” It always used to be about even the number of teams that had dugouts on each side of the field.

    How those ridiculous sleeves are supposed to suggest that the uniform is futuristic in any way, I have no idea. The thing is, I think futuristic uniforms could have looked really cool if more thought and variety and been put into the design.

    Anybody know where to find pics of the two Tigers TATC games? The one where they hosted the Royals, and that last TATC game at Boston?

    I’ve tried looking, but like some other stuff from the 90s, they seem hard to find…

    My oh my, where can I get that Barrelman cap?! That may be the best thing to come out of that TATC promo. And just to nitpick, the NOB’s weren’t vertical, just sideways. This is vertical: link

    This is sideways: link?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=16747509

    I see on ESPN that new Giant Jeff Keppinger, a high-cuffer whom they just got in a trade with Houston, is going with the Zito stripes, and not plain black socks like the other high-cuffed Giants.

    Supposedly, someone asked a Mets’ spokesperson, “How you gonna play on MERCURY? It’s the closest planet to the sun. You’ll burn up.”

    The Mets’ spokesperson smiled knowingly and replied, “Oh, we know that. We plan to play only at night.”

    (Okay, granted, it WAS Omar’s first year with the club, but supposedly he learned a lot more in the years that followed.)

    Phil changed his handle to his full name. His meteoric rise in name recognition from posting during the week has compromised his security. It’s a “Cheney undisclosed location” thing. I’m sure you understand.

    You mentioned the “Florida” Marlins’ new home. Don’t you mean the “Miami” Marlins’ new home? link

    If Jane Jones is getting married to John Smith next year and they are currently buying a house together, do her friends say “Jane Jones is moving into a new house” or “Jane Smith is moving into a new house”?

    I guess it would be correct to say either:
    “Jane Jones’ new house”
    or
    “the new house of Jane Smith”

    I know we have talked about this before but i just need to vent.. I cant stand how the grey cool base jerseys dont match the grey pants and every time I watch a game where a team wears grey I cant help but point out to my friends how they dont match, and all my friends just look at me like I play for the Mercury Mets!

    Just now getting to scan everything so sorry if it’s already been stated. BUT those MLS all star SHIRTS are just awful. The highway worker silver tape…barf. Take that off and it is only bad. Not classic bad like the Mercurys, but more like I don’t even want Jim Vilk to wear it bad.

    Other news of the day: Benchies = good. Rasmus = goodbye. Butch Davis = typical. Bengals decisions = dumb. TATC = awful and gorgeous all the same. World Series = Phillies/Red Sox. World Series = ESPN wet dream. LI Phil moniker = good (don’t go changing your jersey number like rpm!)

    “The [Oklahoma State] Cowboys are set to unveil their new combos (3 helmets — white, black, gray; 4 pants and jersey full combos — white, orange, black, gray) on thursday 7/28. Go pokes!”

    Wasn’t there a post on something just like that some time last year?

    LI Phil moniker = good (don’t go changing your jersey number like rpm!)

    Sounds like No Mas needs a new Naming Wrongs shirt

    Lose the reflective strips (and the AT&T logo) and I could almost live with this:
    link

    Think link saying, “Take that off. Do you realize how bad it looks?”?

    what the fuck are those “T” shaped things on the Man U shoulders where the uni sleeve meets the uni torso? their on all their unis, home and road.

    I think the back of it says,”Disaster Relief Team”.
    That’s very common in the AT&T family.

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