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Olympic Beach Volleyball

London Olympics Beach Volleyball Women

By Phil Hecken

When today’s Olympic Correspondent approached me for a discipline, after a brief discussion, he asked me if anyone had decided to cover “Beach Volleyball.” My reply was “no, if you want it, it’s yours,” realizing there probably isn’t much in the way of uniforms for this particular sport, but then I thought…that’s probably why it’s so popular. Assuring me he’d cover the event tastefully and gracefully, I gave him my blessing. What follows may or may not meet those guidelines.

Our correspondent filed his report before the Games began, so he could not have anticipated the early matches would feature chilly weather, causing the athletes of both sexes to engage in some nighttime coverups worthy of Watergate. But when the sun shone during the daytime hours, normal beach attire returned.

Please be assured that the views and photos below represent those solely of the author of this report, and not necessarily those of Uni Watch. But do be aware, that we’re talking about beach volleyball, and most of the daytime photos are going to focus on body parts, for the most part. Our correspondent is Nate Kurant, who graciously offers his twitter handle at the end of this piece, where you can send him your cheers AND jeers — and here is his report on the wonderful uniforms in the sport of…

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Olympic Beach Volleyball
By Nate Kurant

Beach volleyball is one of the more interesting sports at this year’s Olympic Games. The 2012 batch of participants may more closely resemble these dancers from Beijing in 2008 rather than the athletes on the court, all thanks to a big cover-up that is possible in the London competition. The hard journalism that follows will reveal more details.

Beach volleyball was first included as part of the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. Since then, the sport has become one of the hottest tickets during the Summer Games, combining world-class competition with tanned hard bodies. The game also transfers well to the television audience, and often draws large viewership. The 2012 Olympic beach volleyball tournament will be held at Horse Guards Parade, which will offer an incredible visual backdrop to a sport already full of nice views.

It’s no surprise that beach volleyball draws a large audience because of the high level of competition bikinis, but because of the climate, the beach volleyball tournament will be one of the most interesting from a uniform perspective. The forecast will affect the visual aspect of the tournament, as Olympic officials have announced some very interesting uniform news since London isn’t exactly known for its sunny weather. Athletes will be able to wear special uniforms for cold weather, which means that instead of this, we might get something that looks like this. Alright, that may be a bit of an exaggeration. More likely, the event will look something like this in cold weather.

Here is a graphic, if you can use it, scroll to the bottom.

However, the interest in the beach volleyball attire is definitely at the forefront for the British women’s team. At a press conference recently, a Sun reporter implored the team to “promise to wear bikinis even if it rains.” Salacious or not, the interest is there. Kerri Walsh of the USA team is on the record as being a fan of the bikini as a uniform, saying “I’m not a sex symbol, I’m an athlete. I want to be streamlined out there.”

Beside the fact of the weather, there were previous recent changes to the uniform standards of beach volleyball by the International Volleyball Federation. Of particular uni-interest, competitors are now allowed to wear shorts paired with sleeved or sleeveless tops during play, an amendment made with the goal of showing sensitivity to certain countries’ cultural or religious beliefs. Traditionally, the bikini is beach volleyball canon. Even with the new guidelines, it is likely that most players will bypass the “modest is hottest” uniform and opt for the more viewer-friendly bikini.

There is plenty of aesthetic interest in the beach volleyball competition. Whether the athletes wear bikinis or bodysuits, there will still be plenty of interest in the competition. If people willingly sit without shirts at Lambeau Field in December, though, then certainly some of the world’s best athletes can tough out a London summer in a bathing suit.

Also of note, there is apparently a men’s beach volleyball tournament during the Olympics. There is very little news regarding any of the male attire, which will consist of traditional bathing suits, paired with tank tops and hats, when desired, like so. Unlike the women’s side, there is no debate as to the sexual apsect of the men’s uniform choices, no uproar against covering up for the weather. While unlikely, the most exciting uni news from the male side would be from an athlete sporting some Karch Kiraly neon pink.

The event, bikinis or not, will began July 28th for both the men and women. The final match on the women’s side will take place August 8th, with the men’s gold being awarded the following day. The USA spiked their way to both gold medals in Beijing, but the Brazilians go into the 2012 Games as the favorites on both sides.
And for all the Uni Watch faithful, I offer you this final photo as a dilemma. Good or bad?

. . . . .

Nate Kurant is a jack-of-all-trades. He currently works with the Dunedin Blue Jays in the Florida State League as an in-game emcee, broadcaster, and writer. He also assists with the creative marketing for the team. Nate also works as a Public Address announcer for the University of South Florida for multiple sports, does freelance voice-over work and recently received his master’s degree from USF in Journalism and Media Studies. You can follow him on Twitter @NateKurant.

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Well played, Nate (I think). That was quite a report.

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gabon switzerland

Monday Morning Football:

Our resident Brit, uni watcher, and colourizer extraordinaire George Chilvers has prepared for our edification a review of the uniforms kits in opening games of the men’s soccer football at the Olympics.

Here ’tis:

. . . . .

The football tournament started on Thursday and I’ll review here what was worn.

Group A ”“ Old Trafford Manchester

Uruguay played UAE and wore their Puma traditional sky-blue shirts with a white trim, black shorts and socks. UAE wore a change strip of all red with white trim made by Errea. Both very neat.

Great Britain played Senegal. Team GB made their appearance in their first choice blue kit and we have had enough analysis of it. Opponents Senegal stuck to all white with national colours trim. Puma again provided the necessary.

Group B ”“ St James’ Park, Newcastle

Mexico and South Korea kicked off the tournament in the North East. Atletica, a name new to me, designed the Mexican all green kit, with an interwoven Mayan design and red trimmings. Korea stuck with Nike, and their all white kit had an interesting red and blue “swooshy” diagonal.

The second game featured outsiders Gabon and Switzerland. Another Puma-fest, both sets of kits were simple but stylish. The Swiss had their usual red shirts and white shorts, with slight white trimming. The African Under-23 champions making their first appearance on the World stage had yellow shirts and blue shirts, giving them a bit of a Brazilian look.

Group C ”“ City of Coventry Stadium and Millennium Stadium, Cardiff

Belarus versus New Zealand was played at Coventry, the stadium renamed from the Ricoh Arena for sponsorship reasons. Very simple kits on show, Belarus in an all red ensemble from Umbro with white trimmings, while the New Zealand “All Whites” lived up to their nickname and, unlike their ladies, wore all white trimmed with black just around the neck.

Brazil took on Egypt in Cardiff, and Brazil wore the most recognisable kit in football ”“ yellow shirts with one of Nike’s current design elements, broad green trim to the sleeves. Blue shorts and white socks completed the familiar outfit. Their opponents Egypt turned out in their national colours of red, white and black in a simplistic design, the Adidas shirts being trimmed with black and having white panels under the arms.

Group D ”“ Hampden Park, Glasgow

Up north to Scotland, where Honduras took on Morocco. Morocco stuck with a fairly basic red and green kit ”“ with the same white underarm patch on the shirts as Egypt had. Honduras had a very striking design of shirts with blue shoulders above a white band bearing the Honduras national five-stars in blue, above blue and white stripes. Joma, a Spanish company are the producers.

The second game provided a little head-scratching for Japan v Spain, an all-Adidas clash. Spain chose to wear their second kit instead of their normal red, and so we ended with a blue-on-blue. Japan had their all dark-blue kit (the shirts having two tones) with the narrow red vertical stripe down the shirt and socks. Spain wore light blue with a darker blue sash. White shorts and light-blue socks with the Spanish national colours completed the look.

. . . . .

Thank you George. Nicely done, sir. Nicely done.

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#NoUniAds Campaign…Day 11

This will be a regular feature on Uni Watch until the NBA rescinds its incredibly offensive and stupid proposal to place corporate advertising on uniforms.

And now, a personal note from Paul:

It’s important that we keep making our voices heard: Call the NBA’s publicly listed phone number (212-407-8000), ask for Adam Silver’s and/or David Stern’s office), e-mail deputy commissioner Adam Silver at his his publicly listed address (asilver@nba.com), and tweet to @NBA with the hashtag #NoUniAds. Do it now.

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More of your letters to the NBA:

Josh Freed:

Ive been an NBA fan since watching Dr J beat the then-Bullets at a Christmas Day game years ago. The players have changed dozens and dozens of times over. But, happily, the uniforms of the great teams (Lakers, Knicks, Celts) have stayed the same and many of the others have returned to their iconic pasts. This has been a great consistent that makes it easier to root for teams and cities when the players can’t always be determined without a scorecard. It’s especially nice at a time when advertising is ubiquitous that the uniforms we root for remain tied to team and city, not sponsor. The last thing I want for myself or my kids is to root for the VW Wizards (or Barclay’s/CitiBank/Enron?). The NBA has thrived because it’s been able to strike a lucrative balance between sponsorships, advertising, and other ways to leverage its brand and tapping into the tradition that dates back 70 years and close ties to many cities. It’s done that even with players changing teams, teams changing cities and other disruptions of the modern world. The last thing we need is to have one of the remaining few pieces of entertainment real estate tied clearly to a city and team sold off to corporate sponsors. You’re already making great amounts of money. Keep that up! You run a great business. But, please, give us fans a little break when we watch and preserve the last link between team-city-fans.

Logan Light:

Please do not taint the integrity of the NBA uniform with the addition of ads. This has NOTHING to do with the game and screams of money. Isn’t this what the latest CBA agreement sought to fight against? Please reconsider your position.

Jason Torban:

I just read of the NBA’s plan to start allowing ads on uniforms in two seasons. I am vehemently against this move. Not only will this look tacky, it sullies the tradition of the NBA and its member franchises as standing for sporting and competition, above all else. I realize this is yet another revenue stream, but the uniform should remain pure.

Scott Johnson:

I strongly urge the league to reconsider its position on uniform advertising. Some things should remain free from advertising. We are constantly being marketed to and at some point enough is enough. This will most definetely affect my ability to watch or purchase products of the NBA. There is so much advertising already during a game. Leave the jerseys alone.

Thanks for keeping the faith readers! We can stop the NBA if we can keep up the pressure.

#NoUniAds!

Thanks to Tim E. O’Brien and Chris Giorgio for the image in the upper right of this section!

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Screen Shot 2012-06-24 at 10.32.36 PM

“Benchies” first appeared at U-W in 2008, and has been a Saturday & Sunday feature here for the past two years.

. . . . .

Depends, is it inside or outside the Beltway?…

7-30-12 tank Connie

Click to enlarge

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olympics-london-2012

More Olympics:

This new section will feature updates, lesser news, and reader submissions from the XXXth Olympiad — keep the Olympic news coming in! (Usually in the order in which I receive them — think of it as an “Olympics Ticker”.)

. . . . .

*In the Republic of South Africa / Sweden women’s football (soccer) match, both teams were wearing really nice striped socks (that Paul would love). Here’s the full set from that game. (Joe Makowiec)

* A gambling site has won its battle with London Olympics over sneaky advertisements. “Pretty awesome win, even if it is for a gambling firm.” (Graham Bakay)

* ‘It’s What We Have’: Spain’s Athletes Sigh, And Put On Olympic Uniforms. (Brinke)

* “Super suits records to be broken?” (Jeremy Brahm)

* Uniform Fail Number 1: “I found a picture of the uniform fail. I didn’t notice until later that number 3 of Belgium later got her jersey right, see other pic with red number and NOB. (Mitch Hendriks)

* Uniform Fail Number 2: “It seems the Kazakhstanis can’t reach consensus on how their country name is spelt, or at least their Olympic outfitters can’t! These are two of the women’s weightlifting coaches, with differing amounts of vowels on their polos.” (“Les” [no last name given])

* Sophomoric humor: “I don’t know if this is hilarious or unfortunate… this was a women’s team badminton match between China and Russia. One of the Chinese athletes had quite the NOB.” (Aaron McHargue)

* “Saw this after the U.S. beach volleyball team’s win over Australia on Saturday. Misty May-Treanor (left) has the Nike logo on her top, while teammate Kerri Walsh-Jennings (right) has some type of “O” logo on her top.” (Terry Duroncelet)

* “Olympic Humor: Thought you might get a kick out of this, if you haven’t seen it yet.” (Ryan Raymond)

* Empty Seats: At London Olympics, empty seats have organizers scrambling, giving away tickets to children and soldiers. (Paul Lukas)

* “This weekend for the opening games for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams they used different shorts then what they used during the exhibition games. Instead of having the two-toned white in front and color in the back (men’s team blue, womens’ team red) they had both wore solid white shorts with color striping on the side. What gives? I have three theories: (1) The women opened against a Croatia team wearing red uni’s and they wore all so there wouldn’t be confusion. The same story with the Men’s team and France, who wore blue. (2) Some obscure olympic rule. (3) The two toned white shorts were just too ugly.” (Derek Hummel)

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Reminder: Paul is on summer break until Aug. 23. Phil Hecken is handling the weekday content and John Ekdahl is running the show on weekends; contact info for them is available here.

The Uni Watch e-mail address is being auto-forwarded to Phil, so any Ticker submissions or story ideas sent to that address will go directly to him. If you have a question or comment for Paul, go ahead and send it in, and Phil will make sure Paul receives it. We’re particularly interested in keeping up-to-date with college football uniform unveilings, so definitely keep submitting those. Thanks.

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ticker 2

Uni Watch News Ticker: Robert Griffin III began his first real Redskins practice with “HTTR” written on his cleats — that’s “Hail To The Redskins” for those of you who don’t speak in the language of acronyms (thanks to Paul for kicking off the ticker). … The 1987 Trappers 25 years ago set the all-time baseball record for consecutive wins. So they wore throwback uniforms to commemorate the feat. Naturally, they lost. (from Tim Haslam). … OK, so it’s not quite Benchies, but there is a sports related comic called “In The Bleachers,” which ran this this comic showing a bullpen cart on Friday (spotted by both Wayne Koehler and Brett Gaul). … Bradley Wasserman is “a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and I came across this story (Friday). The font they used on the jersey are off of Bruce’s new album cover art. New uniform for the night for the minor league team.” … A town was forced to remove a cross from logo after facing lawsuit threat. John Muir thinks the new logo looks poached from Oregon Trail. … Couldn’t they have bought the rights to a bowl game instead? Tom Van de Kieft notes this Florida High School hopes to sell school stadium naming rights to Nemours Children’s Hospital for about $100,000. … Noah Goodman comes through with “3 Finds” (at least two of which I wish were still hidden): Oklahoma State Grey Jerseys, NBA Retro nights, and new black jerseys for San Diego State! (Exclamation point his). … Thanks to Joshua Pryor, we now know “The Jaguars seem to be the first professional team to openly encourage people to bring in their own food now.” … It’s a good thing Paul is on vacation, because Kyle Pellet thinks “Nike is taking over the weather now.” How so? See for yourself (that shot was taken by a Belgian photog covering La Tour de France). … The B1G has a nice post, including a Uni Watch twitter quote, summarizing the 2012 uniform changes. IU’s sticking with #LaFlamaBlanca for big games (gracias to Tim E. O’Brien). … When the New York Red Bulls face Tottenham on Tuesday, Chester Baker notes, the Red Bulls will have the names of season ticket holders on their jerseys, adding them onto their jersey numbers. … The Mississauga Steelheads of the Ontario Hockey League unveiled their uniforms (Home, Road & shoulder patch) for the upcoming 2012 ”“ 2013 season (with thanks to Stephen Tihal) — White at home, as God intended. … Beautiful rups on Red Schoendienst (and more pics in that flickr set), with a big round of applause for Chelsea Madden. … Speaking of Cardinals and as God intended, it looks like the bat boy gets itâ„¢, since Kevin Malarkey notes, “apparently the batboys haven’t gotten the memo that the Cardinals wear blue caps on the road (though the red undoubtedly looks better).” … An “article in the San Diego paper about a local 8th-grader who signed with U-W to play football,” says Brian Hilemon. “Uni-related item here is the photo of him in a pretty spot-on Chargers uni in something called the throwback league.” If, like our tipster, you’ve not heard of the Throwback League, some guy wrote about it about two months ago. … Zac Neubauer says, “In this article you’ll see Fulham FC has just signed a player by the name of Moussa Dembele while actively shopping one of their current strikers…Moussa Dembele. If the current Moussa stays, it’ll be interesting to see who wears what on their shirt.” … Another one from Paul: Here’s a fun, interesting article about podium/lecturn placards in the prexy campaign. … Brock Lusky simply sent me this EA Sports Dolphins screenshot and asks, is this a new Dolphins alternate? … Larry Bodnovich thinks this Nebraska uniform from the 1930s would have been a better choice than the new adidas pseudo-fauxback (and he colorized it too!). Keeping that theme, and also from Larry, “nice old artwork from 1932-33 Nebraska yearbook. Red jersey with white N.” … Jeff Seals spotted two logos/unis that borrow from the pros, from the 2012 Nevada State American Legion Tournament. 1) Bishop Gorman HS – a local high school powerhouse is wearing its version of Houston’s Tequila Sunrise jersey. 2) Coronado HS – a local high school has already copied the Houston Cougars new logo & placed it on its baseball jerseys. … A Jags rookie is posing with a pre-suckitude Jags jersey: Roarke (who provided no last name) found this picture on Topps Facebook from the Rookie Premiere in May. He asks, “What’s up with this jersey? It looks Nike, right? It would have to be if it’s for a rookie in 2012 like Blackmon. But this is different than the jerseys Nike revealed for the Jags.” … Beau Schott found a couple strange things — At Seahawks training camp, the offensive linemen and several defensive players have been wearing a type of “screen protector’ clear plastic sheet on the front of their helmets. He suspects it is used to not scuff the matte finish on the helmets or sticker stripe on the front. It is only contact players that wearing while receivers and quarterbacks are sticker free. Also, a trading card he noticed on ebay. TOPPS is claiming that this jersey card was used by Robert Turbin. However this piece of jersey is from last years old style. “Kinda fishy and shame on TOPPS. I could understand if the jersey was from the pro day photo shoot but it is not.” … No photos, but Dennis Hasty has a question, “I was at the Lexington Legends-Hagerstown Suns game yesterday in Lexington and they were completing a game that had been halted on Friday night due to storms. The Legends wore ‘Military’ red white and blue style uniforms because it was military appreciation day that Saturday. The problem is this game was a completion of the Friday night game in witch they wore their basic style uniform, the Legends then must have decided to wear Astro rainbow uni’s for the regular scheduled game that night that they were going to wear the military style in. The question I have is when do you ever remember or has this ever happened when a team wore two different uniforms for the same game??? I don’t think anyone noticed this at all.” … James MacNeil (checking in from Western Australia) has been regularly scouring Google images for the past couple of months to see if the Brooklyn jersey’s have been leaked. One fan design has been often linked and multiplied, but interestingly to the point where Chinese merchants are making knock-offs. His question, “Is there a precedent for this?” Anyone? … The Greater Western Sydney Giants were wearing a special jumper v Collingwood Magpies this weekend as part of the Building Australia promotion (thanks to Leo Strawn). … Samuel Allison notes that with the passing of Jim Carlen this past week, focus has returned to one of WVU’s finest teams, in 1969. What’s uni notable is that WVU never wore white jerseys on the road. … Iowa assistant coach Brian Ferentz tweeted out a picture of the new Iowa jerseys. They’re mostly the same, with the exception of the addition of a B1G logo patch (H/T to Jesse Gavin and Kyle Becker). … The Wheeling Nailers are switching up jerseys and colors to more align with the Penguins, their NHL affiliate (thanks to Yancy Yeater). … Jason Bernard was at the “Pittsburgh Vintage Mixer” on Sunday, basically a cool flea market in a local theater. He picked up this serving tray — featuring an original portrait of coach Bill Cowher – for $3. … Robert Silverman writes, “Through a strange labyrinthine internet journey, I found myself at the site for the fictional team, “The Gotham Rogues” that’s in The Dark Knight Rises. On their webpage, there’s an editorial/explanation of why the team’s Gun logo (not pictured) was replaced. I’m still stunned by the fact that someone went to this much trouble to make a website for a fake team (Aside from the fact that there’s a link to Under Armour’s page where you can buy real merch for the fake team, natch), but to have a uniwatch-esque debate on the merits of gun/violent logos? Unreal.” … From the, “I smell a lawsuit” department: Tony Crespo wonders which came first the Big Ten logo or this sale. … More from Jeremy: Japanese Super Featherweight WBC Champion Takahiro Aou throwing out the ceremonial first pitch with his championship belt on! Also, Here is the Japanese triathlon team in their official uniformMichael Lampert has been hearing tons of rumors about new unis for this upcoming season, and came across these shirts on fansedge.com. He asks, “Do you think its safe to say the home and away unis will be similar to these shirts with the new straighter ‘NEW YORK’ font and new alternate logo on the back?”

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Just a small post to start off your work week. Everyone have a great Monday.

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“Kerri Walsh still looks pretty good after having kids since the last Olympics.”

–Joseph Gerard

 
  
 
Comments (129)

    I, for one, welcome the return of the Suns 92/93 era Sun burst jersey, though I’d prefer the purple road instead of the black alternate. Pacers from early 90’s Knick rivalry days would be sweet too but can’t have everything. Raptors, Hawks and Rockets “retro” shenanigans all need to die in a fire though…

    Interesting how some teams want to throw back to an era not all that glorious (Sixers). But I always loved that 60/40 split Kings’ uniform, perhaps because I can’t imagine how it could have been weirder.

    It’s important that we keep making our voices heard: Call the NBA’s publicly listed phone number (212-407-8000), ask for Adam Silver’s and/or David Stern’s office), e-mail deputy commissioner Adam Silver at his his publicly listed address (asilver@nba.com), and tweet to @NBA with the hashtag #NoUniAds and #No90sThrowbacks. Do it now.

    (fixed)

    Brock Lusky simply sent me this EA Sports Dolphins screenshot and asks, is this a new Dolphins alternate?

    Nothing to see there, just Madden’s ability to mix & match uniforms. The Dolphins could wear the mono-aqua again (they did it in 2002-04), but that screenshot doesn’t mean anything.

    exactly. heck the default away jersey in Madden 12 for the Browns was white top with brown pants. it’s been years since they’ve worn that combo.

    speaking of their brown pants, if it had stripes they wouldn’t be so bad

    My thoughts exactly. A pair of orange stripes on the side would have been boffo.

    At the Brickyard, Regan Smith’s #78 Furniture Row car paid tribute to the victims of the Aurora movie theater massacre:

    link

    link

    link

    George,

    Atletica is a Mexican apparel company and made the national team kits for El Tri before Nike and (now) Adidas got the contract to do so.

    What really interested me was the Mexican change strip they wore versus Gabon. A red strip means (hopefully) no more black.

    Atletica has the contract to outfit the entire Mexican Olympic team (including men’s soccer), just as Adidas outfits the French (including women’s soccer). Spain is another team where a national Olympic team outfitter supersedes whatever contract an individual sport such as soccer has.

    re: * “Saw this after the U.S. beach volleyball team’s win over Australia on Saturday. Misty May-Treanor (left) has the Nike logo on her top, while teammate Kerri Walsh-Jennings (right) has some type of “O” logo on her top.” (Terry Duroncelet)

    Walsh-Jennings is sponsored by Oakley hence the “O”

    Same thing with the pants. Strange that their “uniform” appears to be indentical except for sponsors’ logos.

    Looks like the Iowa jerseys have a new, thicker number font. Not a big fan (pun intended); looks awful.

    Like the Dieter Brock era Winnipeg Blue Bombers, where it looks like the number AND its outline both are white.

    Here’s a good shot of that clear plastic decal some Seahawks players, engaging in contact, are wearing at the link

    The Mets mound had both the color NY logo as well as a color MLB batterman logo. The MLB logo looked really huge, don’t have a screenshot tho.

    Women’s hoops at the Olympix, FRA vs. AUS:

    Most. Lackluster. Uniforms. Ever.

    Maybe adidas brought out practice unis for both sides.

    “Family Guy isn’t funny might be the best show on TV, Tim.”

    ~~~

    (fixed)

    seth macfarlane is a friggin’ genius

    Well, Tony, Aussies have an Arial font, both teams have a lack of color trim, FIBA banned the unitards from AUS and BRA…

    Makes the pumaeuroshit look seemingly brilliant by comparison.

    Great shot of Red Schoendienst displaying the correct stripe spacing for the classic Cardinal-style stirrups. If you note the White stripes are wider than the Red and Navy ones. Today’s replica stripes all tend to be of the same width.

    Wonder if the Mississauga Steelheads will complete the look and wear Leaf-style hose?

    Re: the Blackmon jerseys – the trading card companies at the Rookie Premiere bring a bunch of jerseys for the players to wear for a few seconds so they can call them “player worn” and then cut them up to insert into cards. Most of them are retail replicas or older jerseys. That was most likely an old Reebok jersey they brought. Since it’ll be cut up into 1″ x 1″ pieces, the brand or style doesn’t matter much.

    Not just that, but they give them extra-huge jerseys as to extract as many swatches as possible. I remember one player – I don’t recall who – tweeted a photo of himself wearing a dozen or so of the jerseys as once during one of these events. It’s pretty much the flimsiest way possible of making something “player worn.”

    Not sure if anyone’s noticed, but one of this site’s advertisers is using a spoofed site-search window on their ad. As a result, Readers attempting to search the UW site get hijacked to said advertiser’s own home page. I doubt that Paul & Phil would be on board with this kind of behavior (if that’s not “douchebaggery,” God knows what is), and thought a friendly alert might be appropriate.

    I usually ignore the ads… but since you mentioned it I scrolled up to look… and yeah, that’s really rotten. In my case it opens their page in a new tab, but still, very not cool.

    thanks for the tips — this isn’t my area (i don’t have anything to do with the ads on the page) but i forwarded your concerns to ek and paul

    if you’re using Chrome just add adblock and you wont have to worry about these links

    Agreed that fake functionality within ads should be a no-no. Back in my “interactive marketing” days a decade ago we prohibited banner ads with stuff like search boxes for precisely that reason, it compromises your site experience.

    I never use ad blocking solutions because I assume every page view means a fraction of a penny (or so) for folks like Paul who bring me awesome free content. If you’re blocking ads, aren’t you blocking that revenue?

    I think that ad still has to load in order to be blocked. The pageview probably still counts, even if the user doesn’t actually see the image.

    I could be wrong though.

    Lots of interesting images on that Chinese jersey site. I especially like this Alcides “Escobra” uni. Would this be a CKOMNOB (Chinese Knock Off Misspelled Name On Back)?

    link

    Love that the site has NHL in its name, but superimposes those initials on an NFL shield in its logo… because that just smacks of “legitimate business” right there, doesn’t it?

    For James MacNeil’s question, yes, Chinese knock-off makers do pounce on fan concepts that get posted online, as evidenced by various fake Winter Classic jerseys that popped up over the last couple of years. link shows some knock-offs that were made based on 2011 Winter Classic fan concepts, notably the Penguins jersey that was inspired by their late-1970s design, while link takes a look at a Philadelphia Quakers-inspired Flyers fan concept knock-off.

    In regards to the Cardinals bat boy who Gets It ™, I think there are multiple layers going on here. A) Aren’t the bat boys in the visiting dugouts from the local area (meaning that would be a Chicago-area kid)? B) Aren’t the BB uniforms provided by the visiting team? If both of those are true, wouldn’t the faux pas (or correction, depending on your point of view) be on the equipment manager, not the BB? All that makes me wonder … 25 years ago, if I’d been given the word, “Good news! You’re going to be a bat boy for the Chicago Cubs!” I would have been ecstatic. If that was followed up by, “Yeah! You’ll be in the visiting dugout. Here’s your Cardinals uniform to put on.” I don’t know if I could have done it!

    When I was a bat boy for the A’s, I wouldn’t wear the opposing team’s uniform unless the pants were REALLY baggy and tapered at the ankles.

    Re: Lexington Legends jersey carousel
    The switch likely was requested by the players if I made an educated guess. Maybe they like the patriotic uniforms less than the one they wore for the full game. Maybe heat was a factor. I do know that it’s standard for minor league ball teams to wear different uniforms when completing postponed/suspended games as part of an abbreviated doubleheader.

    I’ll miss the St. Mike’s Majors double-blue unis. The Steelheads look too much like the Maple Leafs, hopefully they don’t play too much like them.

    A note about the OHL, the teams usually switch sweater colours halfway through the year. Usually white is worn at home until about Christmas and then dark is worn at home from then until the end of the season.

    Did the St. Michael’s Majors change their name or is this an entirely new team in Missisauga?

    On the Gotham Rogues website, on the lower right, there is a scrolling slide show of fans showing off their Terrible Tow … um, Rogues Rags … in different settings. One of them has the Super Bowl XLIII logo on it!

    looks like they used Madden or maybe even Backbreaker for the team photos at the top of the site

    It’s definitely Madden. Backbreaker doesn’t have that number font available and the players look a little less realistic.

    The Rogues site also appears to have hacked by Anonymous, as of my visit a few minutes ago. Not sure if this has anything to do with the logo, but it does seem interesting.

    really wish that group would go off somewhere and never be heard from again. i just don’t get how breaking into Sony, BOA and other large companies websites and stealing users’ accounts and releasing them to the general public to do wthat they want with them(ie steal other people’s hard earn money) helps the common man

    I think he was joking… there’s a blurb on the site about cleaning up the hack from the “anonymous chapter of Occupy Gotham”.

    As for the group itself… there is no group. The whole point of “Anonymous” is that it can be anyone. Any hacker can claim to be Anonymous – there’s no leader or plan or anything. Any hack, good or bad, can be blamed on Anonymous.

    there’s no leadership or what not, but it’s still acting within a group mentality.

    As a United fan, I like it.

    I hope they just put the bow-tie emblem on the shirt instead of the name. I’d buy that.

    Well, they do pronounce it “shev-ro-lay” rather than “shev-ro-let”… so they’re not really American anyway…right?

    Not all change is bad, not all change is good.

    I was mostly trying to point out that if someone thinks the Braves wore royal and red from the beginning of time until going to navy and the tomahawk in the late ’80s, they needed a uni-history lesson.

    Like, maybe, I dunno, look at photo of Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee (or early Atlanta, for that matter) Braves. Or Warren Spahn. Eddie Mathews, perhaps? Know what else, I think the Braves might have been the World Series in ’57 and ’58.

    Ford owners pronounce it “shev-ro-leave-it-lay”.

    Your tax $ at work abroad!

    Can’t wait to see how Top Gear handles this news.

    Point of clarification, though: This is not our tax dollars at work. The federal loans to Chevrolet have been repaid in full according to the terms of the loans, though the Treasury still holds some Chevy stock. So if the United sponsorship leads to improved sales in Europe (and Asia, which I presume is the primary target here) and that raises the stock value, then the Feds will be able to see a profit for taxpayers on the bailout.

    Saw a Volt on the road for the first time yesterday. I’m not a Chevy fan, but it’s a good-looking car, except for the shiny black plastic panel beneath the side windows.

    I’ll never buy a Chevy or attend a Man U match.
    That’ll show ’em both I mean business!

    “The federal loans to Chevrolet have been repaid in full according to the terms of the loans,…”?
    The Inspector General disagrees.
    According to their latest report (from like 2 days ago), GM still owes about half of the $50B it received from the taxpayer funded bailout; Ally Bank(formerly GMAC), GM’s lending arm, owes about $14B of the $17B they got from us, and it looks like they’re looking to adopt lending practices similar to those of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
    GM’s stock has lost about half its’ value due to weak growth in overseas markets. The stock would need to make a turnaround if epic proportion for taxpayers to break even.

    Sorry for the tangent, UniWatchers.

    Regarding pandering presidential podium placards…

    I found 1 which predates the 2008 campaign by 20 years:

    link

    Pretty sure that wasn’t used outside CA.

    Speaking of Cardinals and as God intended, it looks like the bat boy gets itâ„¢, since Kevin Malarkey notes, “apparently the batboys haven’t gotten the memo that the Cardinals wear blue caps on the road (though the red undoubtedly looks better).”

    You have the Atlanta Braves to thank for starting this chain of navy and red teams usurping one another’s looks. When they adopted the tomahawk uniform, they stole the California Angels’ color scheme and unwittingly began a game of musical chairs, one of the results being that blue St. Louis hat.

    Didn’t the Los Angeles Angels of Anehiem in California of the United States of North America of the Western Hemisphere of Planet Earth steal that color scheme from the Milwaukee Braves?

    Yeah, as I mentioned when this got pointed out yesterday: The Braves were wearing those unis and colors long before the Angels existed, and they continued to use the red/blue color scheme during the first decade of the latter’s existence. No real leg for the Angels to stand on here.

    And compared to past decades, the dark blue/red color scheme is relatively rare. In the decades before WWII, that particular combo was used by the Braves, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Pirates, Cardinals, Red Sox, and Indians. (three-fourths of the NL–count ’em!) At various later points, the White Sox and Senators would adopt the same color scheme. In other words, this is scarcely a Dark Age of uniform variety.

    And compared to past decades, the dark blue/red color scheme is relatively rare.

    So, 7 out of 30 is “relatively rare”? Really?

    Meanwhile, green & red, green & orange, red & yellow, red & orange, yellow & blue, brown & anything, etc, are all completely unused.

    For Celestia’s sake, the A’s are the *only* team that has a primary cap that isn’t a shade of red, blue or black. The MLB has anything but uniform variety.

    My apologies: I unwittingly pasted an item from today’s column in yesterday’s comments. That’s what I get for jumping around.

    Yeah, not so much. The early to mid 1980s Indians were rocking a red-and-navy scheme that was much closer in its details to what the Braves wound up introducing than were the Angels unis.

    And I’m pretty sure there might have been a link prior to the 1980s that wore link in a similar configuration.

    Say what?

    When the Braves went to the tomahawk they were going back to a uni they’d worn since the late ’40s, including their early years in Atlanta and their entire stay in Milwaukee.

    Or did baseball only exist from the ’70s forward?

    Or did baseball only exist from the ’70s forward?

    *sigh* If only. If baseball only existed from the 70’s onward, no one would have a problem with “softball tops” and it’d be a much more colorful game.

    History and tradition SO get in the way sometimes, don’t they.
    Especially since, y’know, they really have no value.

    Indeed, Ricko, indeed.

    Tradition only matters when people don’t like the changes. Sometimes this a good thing, other times not so much.

    Actually, there’s plenty of basis for colorful uniforms in baseball’s history. It’s just that you have to look back before the 1940s-1960s era that defines “tradition” and “history” for most traditionalists. “Softball tops” are actually more traditional in baseball than fielding gloves, catcher’s masks, and red-seamed balls.

    For fear that I appear to be condemning the Braves or exonerating the Angels, I want to argue instead that teams don’t show much imagination. Nobody made the Washington Nationals choose a navy & red colorway, but they opted to add to the mess. In The Jeff’s defense, I bet there are initiatives for teams to stick to mass-produced color swatches and the economies of scale they create.

    I’d suggest it’s more than just mass production, which surely plays a part. (Which is to say, New Era’s unwillingness to produce caps that actually match team specifications and instead standardizing down to a very small number of identical color templates.) More significant, I suspect, is the advent of fan consumerism. If the primary – make that “only” – purpose of a ballcap is to identify players on a given team on the actual field of play, teams have more license to adopt creative and distinctive styling.

    Now that the primary purpose of a baseball team’s ballcap is to be sold to fans, teams have a strong incentive to avoid anything that might alienate fans. Wild designs, bold patterns – anything really distinctive like soutache stripes or pillbox profiles or pinwheel panels or halos or scrambled eggs on the brim – all of these are liable to scare off potential retail purchasers, who mostly just want a simple, preferably dark, cap to wear around the lawn or trips to Home Depot or whatnot on weekends.

    With that mindset, it’s easy to see how the Nats decisionmaking goes on the road caps. 1. We’re switching from red-at-home-blue-on-the-road to a mainly red red/blue team. 2. But we’d still like to sell a second cap to our fans. 3. We could go with a blue brim on our regular road cap, but New Era will bitch about the standalone production line, and probably won’t deliver in sufficient quantity to keep the cap in stock as a result. 4. So what about navy with a red brim? Simple, easy, and since it’s already used by the Braves and Twins, New Era can keep us stocked.

    There are all kinds of ways that thought process can go if the main consideration is outfitting players on the field. But so long as the main consideration is selling caps at retail, you’re all but locked into the outcome the Nats actually arrived at.

    1. Gouge guards on the helmets to protect from damage.

    2. The Turbin jersey is probably from his Utah State days. Pretty sure of that.

    Anybody see the beveled USA womens’ volleyball unis? Interesting that #4 has an underline underneath the 4 – Is this to distinguish between the 4 and the 9?

    So…if the team captain is identified by an underlined number… what exactly is the deal with the one player wearing a different colored uniform?

    Jeff, you haven’t been keeping up with your volleyball, have you? ;o)

    The libero is the differently-clad individual. The libero is exclusively a defensive player. The libero was added in 1999 in order to foster more digs, and thereby extend rallies in order to promote the game on TV.

    The libero remains in the game at all times and is the only player not limited by rules of rotation, usually replacing the middle attacker when he/she rotates to the back row. The libero, being a defensive player, always remains in the back row and cannot attack.

    The libero is selected by the team before the match, or Olympic tournament in this case, and that chosen libero must remain as the libero for the entire match/tournament. If the libero gets injured, he/she can be replaced by any bench player, but that newly-chosen player must remain the libero for the remainder of the match.

    ya know what’s funny…i googled libero this morning (at about 7:00 am, since volleyball was on on one of the nbc channels…maybe nbcsports, nee OLN, then versus)…

    and about.com said almost the exact same thing

    When I played high school volleyball and we were crowned the best team in the province, it was still two years out from having the libero position established. I knew what the purpose was, but there are several important details that I didn’t know that make the position vitally important. Had I explained it as “the libero is the guy who plays defence”, it would be like describing a quarterback as “the guy who throws the football”.

    In a nutshell, that’s the job, but the details are what make the position so great and so important. Many great volleyball players have transitioned to the libero position in order to prolong their careers on the international stage.

    Maybe I’ll just post link next time. God forbid that make someone click an extra lin… wait, I just did that.

    It’s hard to tell, but I’m pretty sure the “O” logo on Kerri Walsh-Jennings’ top is an Oakley logo.

    Illini football coach Tim Beckman just tweeted these possible future looks that have already been highlighted here.

    RE: Jaguars allowing fans to bring food inside the stadium
    The Rays have done that for years, since probably 2007 or 2008. Whenever we go as a family, we always stop at the grocery store on the way and get chips, crackers, pretzels or whatever else we want. We’re also allowed to bring unopened bottles of water inside too.

    Good for the Jags, more sporting events should be like that.

    I go to Daytona races once or twice a year, you’re pretty much allowed to bring in whatever you want foodwise, and drinkwise you are allowed a 14″x14″x14″ soft sided cooler which holds 36 cans of whatever you want to bring in, beer included.

    I mean, that makes it all worthwhile knowing you won’t have to spend 50 bucks or more just to eat and drink once you’re in. We tailgate beforehand too so eating inside usually isn’t required.

    Same in St. Louis. In fact there are hot dog/peanut/cracker jack/kid-friendly drink vendors all around the park letting you know as such, too.

    The Jags may be the first NFL team to allow it but it seems to me most MLB teams are A-OK with bringing in your own food and unopened bottles of water. In the past I have brought in pizza, subs, bags of peanuts and other assorted goodies. Oddly enough, minor league parks seem to be quite the opposite.

    Two twitter related tidbits:

    – Alex Morgan of the USWNT tweeted out a picture wearing a United kit. They play at Old Trafford in their next game.

    – For your No Ads people, you may want to be careful if you are tweeting out NBA conact info. A reporter got his account suspended for being critical of NBC’s Olympics coverage and tweeting out the corportate email of an NBC exec.

    I wonder. If a company paid for a jersey sponsorship for the sole purpose of *removing* the sponsorship logo from the jersey, could they increase their public goodwill enough to make it worth their while? Could they possibly make enough revenue to recoup the cost of the sponsorship by winning the hearts (and wallets) of not only the ad-hating people who would gain respect for them, but also from the apathetic portion of the public who might actually take notice at such an anomaly in today’s world? Doing the opposite of what people expect you to do in order to gain that exposure might not be a bad plan, though I wouldn’t expect to see it happen until every square inch of the earth is covered in ads.

    No, I’m sorry but that wouldn’t work.

    We have got so used to the adverts that there is no groundswell of opinion to remove it. I dare say most people watching the Olympics would be able to say what was different from those shirts and normal league shirts.

    Money talks.

    Not a fan of how the Red Bulls arranged to put season ticket holders’ names into the numbers. They did it alphabetically, starting with the 1, so with 1 and 2 being the most common digits, the fans with last names in the beginning of the alphabet get to be on a lot more jerseys than everybody else. They should have done it by seniority instead.

    someone wanna tell me why the Oklahoma St gray jerseys are considered hidden? they wore them the first game of the season last year… link

    Between the new Northwestern jerseys and all the purple I’m seeing in the Olympics, perhaps Paul chose the best time to take a month off.

    As it relates to the Topps card, I wonder if they simply took an old Seahawks jersey and had him put it on for a few seconds so that they could specifically bill it as “player worn” instead of “game worn”.

    Regarding link new duds:

    Iowa will be wearing Nike Pro Combat 2nd Gen. jersey tops, at least (don’t know about pants).

    You can tell it’s NPC 2nd Gen. because the tailoring/seams are the ones used in all of the Nike Pro Combat uniforms, but 1st Gen. has the Flywire link, and the NPC 3rd Gen./4th Gen./Elite 51 unis have the Flywire link. 2nd Gen. has no Flywire anywhere.

    Greetings from Portland (Ore)! My fixation for today was the Olympic soccer kits exhibited by Squire Chilvers. My faves are African: Senegal (even better in home uni) and Gabon. Classy but lively. But poor Mexico! One of the world’s greatest outfits — green shirt, white shorts, red socks — has been supplanted by trendoid nothings. And Brazil should bring back ITS green socks, dammit.

    Green socks? Since when? Their change socks have been blue since 1958 or so, to match the change jersey.

    Jeez, 1958 is yesterday.

    PS Didn’t they have green shorts? What was green besides the numeral?

    “…if the Brooklyn jersey’s have been leaked…”

    *jerseys

    If the Brooklyn jersey is have been leaked?
    If the Brooklyn jersey has have been leaked?
    The Brooklyn jersey possesses a have?

    A greater catastrophe is the “NHL” in the NFL shield logo.
    Its pretty funny’s.

    I know I’m pretty late to the party today, but I started my new job, so I’m cool with that.

    I just wanted to say that today’s entry was amazing all around. Soccer AND hot women in bikinis?! Pinch me now, I’m in Uni-Heaven.

    Two interesting items from that article:

    1. SP Tommy Hanson only uniform bearer not to participate (sore sport…)

    2. Heyward tweets “High sock Mondays” could be a new trend (please God..)

    Uniform Fail Number 1: the Belgian #3 actually started the game with the regular red number plus NOB. She suffered a bloddy nose when a ball hit her in the face. Since blood-stained shirts are not allowed she had to switch to a spare one, which apparently had NNOB and a black number.

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