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In the Strangest of Places, If You Look at it Right

Alamodome Baseball - 550

Click to Enlarge – Photo by Kelly Gavin

By Phil Hecken

As we prepare to begin the MLB Season begin the portion of the National Pastime that begins in the United States for Opening Day Night … there were a couple of spring training games played Friday and Saturday in two unlikely places. At least traditionally speaking.

Down in Texas, in San Antonio, the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers hooked up for a pair of games in the Alamodome.

Visually, the two teams didn’t do much, with both wearing their alternate jerseys:

622x350

Actually, the Astros jersey is technically their batting practice jersey, but it’s been designated as an official alternate this season. For those of us who haven’t been following spring training ball closely, we also got some looks at the new Rangers jersey this year — if you read Paul’s annual MLB Uniform Preview on ESPN (and I know you did), you know the Rangers slightly changed their blue jerseys (removing the beveling effect), although it’s difficult to tell at a distance. The Rangers also have slightly altered caps this year, but since they wore their batting practice caps, we didn’t get to see the same-colored squatchee. Visually, about what you’d expect from a spring training game. What made this all interesting, however, was where the game was played.

It was played in the Alamodome, which is designed to host events like football and basketball and dance line competitions and giant conventions and monster truck shows — pretty much anything that fits into its blueprint, which is decidedly NOT ideal for baseball.

Baseball dimensions

But, play baseball inside this setup they did. (And it actually wasn’t the first time they did). I totally missed that 2013 series, so this new one fascinated me.

The biggest obstacle of course, is how do you change something designed to hold a rectangular field and make it hold a baseball diamond? Well, you make it fit.

It’s actually a pretty amazing setup. Give it a look-see here (scroll ahead to about 2:30 for the cool baseball setup):

Faaaaascinating. Now, I’m reminded of one other football stadium that had baseball wedged into it (only this one lasted from 1958 to 1961). That necessitated fitting a round object (so to speak) into a rectangular hole as well:

EXM-N-12328-002~6

By wedging the diamond into the Los Angeles Coliseum, it was necessary to erect a huge screen in left field, because left field was a mere 251′ down the left field line. That’s not quite the setup inside the Alamodome, but close.

Right field in Texas was listed at 285′ for last years’ game, whereas last night & yesterday’s game clocked in at 271 feet down the line. Of course, this led to several short porch homeruns (good for hitters and those who like offense, bad for pitchers’ ERAs).

You can watch several other homers to right here.

Of course, baseball wasn’t made to be played indoors on astroturf, so the games in San Antonio were more of a novelty than any possible relocation spot — still, if baseball were to expand, San Antonio is always one of a handful of cities listed as a possibility. I imagine that if a team were ever to locate (or relocate) there, some kind of retractable-roof, climate controlled stadium would need to be erected. Always food for thought.

~ ~ ~

There was another pair of preseason games played inside on astroturf — in a place that was once the home to a Major League Team…

Stade Olympique

Olympic Stadium, a/k/a Stade Olympique de Montréal, where the Montreal Expos played for decades before relocating to Washington and renaming themselves the “Nationals.” Although I never actually watched a baseball game there (I visited once in January of 1998 or 1999), I saw plenty of games there on television, since the Mets and Expos, as National League East rivals, often played to huge audiences. Well, that’s not entirely true — the Expos, when they existed, had a few good years and probably their best season ended very badly.

I watched both games (on MLB Network, interestingly) and much was said about how the 1994 Strike probably cost the Expos any shot at a much-needed outdoor stadium, which had been in the works. But the strike killed any chance of that, and the city and team never recovered. The Expos did get their outdoor stadium, only it was located a mere 584 miles south of the original plans. I hated watching baseball inside of Stade Olympique, but it was still better than the alternative.

So when it was announced the Mets and Blue Jays (now Canada’s sole representative in America’s National Pastime) would play a two-game series in the old concrete dump, I was pumped. I wasn’t expecting great baseball (although both games were very close), and surprisingly, the Blue Jays (the home team), actually eschewed their blue BP tops and wore their beautiful home whites. The Mets, despite having one of the more beautiful road gray unis, wore their BP smocks:

Mets Blue Jays Montreal

But the games weren’t about the Mets and Blue Jays (other than sorting out a few last minute roster moves, and possibly seeing who would be the fifth starters) — it was about baseball returning to Montreal. And the fans turned out in droves (yesterday’s attendance was 50,229 and Friday night packed in 46,121 — to put that into perspective, that’s more fans than will ever see a home game at CitiField, the capacity of which is 45,000). Most of the fans who wore team gear busted out their Expos stuff, and showed their love for their departed team, and their city:

Montreal fans

And it was also about The Kid. On Friday night, with his wife and daughter in attendance, Gary Carter was honored. During a touching pre-game ceremony, a banner was unveiled in right field which featured Carter’s No. 8 and the words “Merci! Thank You!” You can watch a video of that tribute here.

For those of you who don’t know — and you should — Carter began his career with the Expos, having several All-Star seasons there before being traded to the Mets, where he had several more. So, the decision to have the Blue Jays play the Mets in Montreal was undoubtedly due to this fact. When Carter passed away, he was honored by the Mets with a jersey patch, and also given a tribute at Shea CitiField. This was Montreal’s chance to say “Goodbye” as well.

~ ~ ~

That about wraps up those two games played in two odd indoor carpeted stadia. Now we can move on to the regular season, which kicks off for real tonight in San Diego. I usually watch Opening Night games (even though it’s still not “real” Opening Day until Monday), but with the Padres decision to wear camo, I may skip this one. I probably won’t because despite the uniforms, it is still baseball. Back, once again. For real. And all will once again be right with the world.

Once in a while, you can get shone the light…

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Title Box


Lewis & Clark Uniform Design Contest

Every Sunday, we’ll have news and updates on the design contest being sponsored by Ross Clites. If you missed the introductory post on this, please click here. Last weekend, we introduced Part VII which is the second article here. You can also visit the Lewis & Clark homepage for more information and updates.

Yesterday we revealed the fifth set of concepts for the “Lookouts” (you can still submit for the Navigators [deadline 4/2] and the Pathfinders [deadline 4/9]). And today, we’ll reveal the eighth team for concepting.

If you missed yesterday’s post, which revealed the readers submissions for the “Lookouts,” you can vote for your favorite concepts (you may vote for up to three). Link here.

Here’s Ross with this week’s updates/information:

. . . . .

Hey O, Pios!

Next up on the LCBL docket is the Pioneers. Personally, this team has the best color palette of the lot. Unfortunately, the sky/baby/columbia/carolina/powder blue and navy combo has been overdone in recent years. There really is no primary and secondary shade of blue, so there are tons of ways to dress up the Pioneers to make the look unique.

As for the font, this is the one and only LCBL team with a traditional frontier-style font — Pointedly Mad. It certainly screams “Pioneers” so it had to be done.

. . .

Pioneers

. . .

I envision the American buffalo, since it has to make an appearance in anything named the Lewis & Clark Baseball League, right? Y’all know the drill at this point. Wow me (like you have so far) in an unexpected way. Same rules as always. Take care, good luck, and thanks again.

~ ~ ~

To all that entered the contest for the Governors of the LCBL, thank you for your thoughtful presentations. Big thanks to all the readers that cast votes. It made it easier for us (the league execs) to choose what we want; choosing the best out of two is more our speed. Ryan Foose and Bert Ayers squared off in the finals yet again, both with grizzly bear themes. There must be something to their rivalry, because one never finishes in the top two without the other.

The league decided to go with Ryan’s bear:

Governors Final

We loved the cleaner cut iteration with some slight modifications — graciously done by Ryan himself. The secondary logo really brings it all home; Missouri is where we are proud to call home.

The uniform will remain a mystery until a final reveal of all twelve at the end. But we wanted to give Uni Watch Nation a taste of the winning identity.

~ ~ ~

Thanks, Ross! One final note — Ross wanted me to inform everyone that “we will be skipping the Settlers in the alphabet. We are in a bit of time crunch and they are a 2015 expansion team.”

So, to anyone who was hoping to design a uniform/logo for that team, that won’t be included as a part of this year’s design contest.

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all sport uni tweaks

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

~~~

We begin today with Mark Lilley, who has a logo for the Broncos:

DenverBroncos-Alternate-Logo - Mark Lilley

Hey Phil,

I’ve never liked the Broncos seldom-used alternate logo. The wild horse looks more afraid, like it’s recoiling from a snake or a mouse. The current styling has too much human qualities and musculature, and just isn’t very accurate, and it’s simply not very intimidating to opponents. So I created a concept that is more aggressive and reminiscent of the old-school Broncos logo with the D, with the front legs up and a stance that says Time to Ride!

Thanks,

Mark

. . .

Next up is Robbie Anthony with a new look for Dartmouth Football:

Dartmouth Football 2014[1] - Robbie Anthony

Phil,

Attached is my concept idea for a new Dartmouth College football uniform. The design keeps our current helmet, I am a senior at Dartmouth and just finished playing WR here, and updates both the top and pants. The back’s slogan is the New Hampshire motto, “Live Free or Die”. There are a few teams on campus that wear the block D on the chest so these uniforms are a combination of Dartmouth’s illustrious history with a modern concept.

Go Big Green,

Robbie Anthony

. . .

And we close today with Bryant Grosso who has some possible badges for a future Miami MLS team:

Grey-Black-Blue - Bryant Grosso

Pink-Black - Bryant Grosso

Dear Uni-Watch,

Now that the MLS-to-Miami-With-Beckham ball is definitely rolling, I thought I would send over one of my designs for the New Team’s Name and badge. Due to Miami truly being an international city, I came up with Inter Miami FC as the name. I thought of going with a circular design instead of the traditional shield styling. I am sending over the badge/crest in 2 color ways (pink/black) and (grey/black/light blue) I am hoping your readers like them ”“ always willing to receive feedback”¦ Thank You!

Bryant Grosso

. . .

And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

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Uni Watch News Ticker:

Baseball News: A reader who goes by “Fuse” asks if there is “Anyway [sic] to convince the Indians to ditch the block C and go back to this?” Only if they bring this back too, right? … Here’s a (sort of) action shot of KU’s throwback unis from Friday night’s game (h/t @RockChalkTalk). … The Port Authority Police have some, um, interesting baseball uniforms (thanks to Micholas Schiavo), one of which he describes as “Bad News Bears-like.” … Also from Nick, check out the nice stirrups on the NC State Wolfpack. … Speaking of stirrups, check out the hosiery on Vanderbilt baseball. Interesting that Vandy is a Nike school, but those stirrup stripes remind me of another uni manufacturer. … John FitzGerald looked at the Durham Bulls uniforms (white & gray). “They are the Rays Triple-A so I thought it was interesting that it looks like they have the old Rangers font‘.” … Very disappointing logo juxtaposition on this Cleveland cap seen for sale (from David A. Arnott). … From the 1972 book “Pitching” by Bob Shaw, Don Conrad sends us this wonderful scan on how to properly roll your stirrups. … “I was working on my blog about the 1972 Topps set and found this fantastic shot of Cesar Cedeno,” writes Jonathan Daniel. “Love the uni, the stirrups, the logo in the on deck circle, the fact that he had his glove in the on deck circle, pretty much everything about it.” … Ooooooh, check out this 100 year old Arkansas Razorback baseball photo (h/t @pal3327).

Football News: “Vernon Davis posted a training video on Facebook sporting a black Niner helmet,” writes Jason Charles Franklin. The “screenshot is rough, but the video is available on his page.” You can see that here. … John Benson saw this Uni Watch post from 2011, “and thought it was a neat idea for a template so I made this.” … On Friday night, lucky Buccaneers “Season Pass” holders got a sneak peek at the team’s new uniforms. No word on whether there were several less Season Pass members afterwards. … At a charity hoops game yesterday, Anquan Boldin wore his jersey backwards (h/t Eric Garment). … Remember that NFL in OKC design contest? Well, now now there’s a winner (for the complete original entry for the winner, click here). Big thanks to Justin C. Cliburn for tipping us off to the contest. … “Michigan State kicker wears shorts during game in 1960” read the subject line of an e-mail from Chuck Nolan. It turns out he was referring to this article from the Boston Herald about a soccer player doing kickoffs (and wearing shorts?). Interesting.

NBA News: There was an interesting article on Kobe Bryant’s “controversial comments about Trayvon Martin posted yesterday. Most of the points aren’t germane to Uni Watch and instead speak to the larger question of race and professional basketball’s response to the shooting, but did include a call by Project Islamic H.O.P.E. that “African American youth should no longer buy Bryant’s jerseys or shoes and should boycott all products he endorses.” Interesting — I don’t know the value of sales of Bryant’s jerseys or shoes, but I’d imagine any successful boycott would be a pretty big hit to the pocketbook for Kobe and Nike. … Ryan Collins, another NBA player to express misgivings about the NBA sleeved jerseys, isn’t “buying” them: “You don’t really go to a party with a jersey anymore. Back then, it was the thing to do if you’re ‘that guy.’ ‘That guy’ means like you [say], ‘Look at that guy with the jersey.’ You don’t want to be that guy.”

Hockey News: The Lake Erie Monsters have a jersey bracket on their website, so fans can pick their favorite specialty jersey (thanks to Tom Pachuta). … The Boston College hockey team will honor the Boston Fire Department with a helmet sticker (more information here). … The Minnesota Golden Gophers were truly Golden Gophers yesterday as they played Robert Morris in the NCAA semis. … Interesting custom Gilmour-Clark Maple Leafs jersey created by Super Star Sports. Doug Gilmour was, of course, Number 93 with the Leafs and Wendell Clark wore Number 17. So, together, they make 110 (or at least I think that’s what the creator was going for).

Soccer News: I’m not exactly sure what the “MLS Muppets Supporters’ Group” is, but their leadership group recently gathered for a group photo (with thanks, I think, to Mark Coale).

College Hoops News: Jersey mistakes aren’t new — in fact Chris Flinn “saw this Kentucky jersey typo just now. Seen it before? (Probably)” That comes from this website. What is it about Kentcuky? … Tyler Haney writes, “I’m a railfan, and I’ve found some shots of a couple of short line railroads who over the past month have painted some locomotives for some of the March Madness teams.The Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad painted a unit for Wichita State, while the Paducah and Louisville has painted two locos: one for Kentucky, the other for Louisville.” … Bit of a uni snafu last night as one Wildcat was missing the “A” from his collar – should look like this (nice grab by Shannon Michael).

Grab Bag: Aussie Rules Football fan Leo Strawn, Jr. was up early yesterday and sent this: “It’s about 6:15 a.m. on Saturday morning, and there’s two AFL (Aussie Rules) color on color games currently being played down under. Fremantle v Gold Coast, and Sydney v Collingwood.” … As part of Second Annual NASCAR Race To Green Initiative, the cars featured light green window stripes to bring attention to the environment, says David Firestone. “They also had the unintended effect of making the manufacturer logos, and white lettering all but invisible.” … Scott Crawford says, “Not really uni-related, but I think you will ‘enjoy’ this” article about misuses of quotation marks. … “A couple weeks ago someone mentioned the new trend in football to have the enlarged logo (Boise st, Miss St, Tex Tech),” says Jared Buccola “Here’s two examples of it in this weekends NCAA Lacrosse games: Johns Hopkins and Syracuse.

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And that’s all for today folks. Enjoy this fine last Sunday in March (out like a Lion is more like it) and get ready for some Baseball! The holiest of holy days is tomorrow (I still haven’t decided if I’m going to play hooky…I am getting a bit of a tickle in my throat). So we’ve got that going for us.

Thanks to Ross for the next uniform/logo to concept, and of course, the concepters. And won’t you join me in wishing a (one day) early birthday to two of Uni Watch’s finest (if flighty) commenters, Jason Bernard and Matt Powers, who’ll both be celebrating their big days on Monday. Happy early b-day fellas.

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

.. … ..

“Reds will presumably wear white jerseys for their home opening day game, even though every other home day game they wear the red tops. So it’s not like the Padres couldn’t have an exception to their jersey ‘rule’ on opening day.”
–Scott Merzbach

 
  
 
Comments (58)

    Pioneer park luxury lifestyle living at affordable price in most promising location in gurgaon, developed on 76 acre of mixed use land to live, work, shop and play.

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    The “KENTCUKY” misspelling has a kind of -unintentional- subliminal message: The misspelled letters combine to form ‘C-U-K’, which can be interpreted as “See UK,” which is kind of what they’re hoping you do.

    Seeing that … maybe it’s not -unintentional- after all. (Puts on tinfoil hat.)

    Not sure if BC hockey honored the fire department yesterday. I was at the game but didn’t get a close enough look.

    Good stuff. Hopefully San Antonio and Montreal are being used as test sites for possible expansion. Just need the Rays and A’s to secure stadium deals in their current areas first.

    I attended an Alamodome game in 2013 (sitting behind home plate in the mezz. level) and yesterday (sitting in the 3rd row of right field, just to the foul side of the foul pole, er, ribbon).

    The one thing I noticed, that I didn’t remember from last year, was that the turf looked TERRIBLE. You could see the seams, the turf almost looked like camo. Pretty hard to look at.

    I posted a picture that shows the turf and the “ribbon”

    link

    Being a Cleveland fan, I’ve often brought up the idea of bringing back the “Crooked C” but from what I’ve been told, was that the Crooked C was also seen as racist. The fact that the letter was askew suggested that Native Americans were illiterate and couldn’t properly write. Has anybody else ever heard this?

    I’ve certainly never heard that before, and frankly I think that the person who sees an oddly drawn letter and thinks “that implies illiteracy and it’s racist” has a problem. That C isn’t any less proper than the N in the Yankees logo. Who would ever write an N with inwardly curved stems? I guess New Yorkers are illiterate too by that logic.

    It’s less that it implies illiteracy but that the font in general is very cavemanish or at least quite crude and childish. The “noble savages” implications are quite apparent. The problem with your argument The is that no such stereotype of savagery exists with regard the Yankees, and nothing else at all about the Yankees identity would give credence to the idea that “New Yorkers are illiterate”.

    That said, it’s pointless to complain about the font because the font only becomes a problem as it’s bound up with the general problems of the Indians identity and Wahoo.

    Not a Tribe fan, not a Wahoo fan, but I liked the crooked C era uniforms. I never heard anyone say anything like that before. What would they say about the Cavs’ new fishhook C, then?
    link

    I’ve got a solution for the Cleveland “C”:

    Have it look link, with a square serif on the top hook and a round serif on the bottom.

    If your computer has the right fonts, you can see it here: Ꮳ

    You may ask, “That looks weird; why would you want to do that?”

    Well, this letter is, technically speaking, not a “C”. It’s from the Cherokee syllabary, as designed by Sequoyah about 200 years ago. He couldn’t read English, but saw the Anglo-Americans around him making tremendous use of writing, and wanted to do something like that for his own people. So, not knowing which letters matched up with which sounds in the Latin alphabet, and in fact not knowing that letters corresponded to sounds and not syllables, borrowed and tweaked the forms of the letters he’d seen, and assigned the sounds of Cherokee syllables to them.

    And as luck would have it, “Cherokee” is in fact an over-Anglicized pronunciation; the Cherokees themselves say it “Tsalagi”. And the first syllable in that word — the “tsa” — is that C-like letter!

    You can see all the Cherokee syllables here: link

    Read it as a C and it stands for Cleveland. Read it as a ‘tsa’ and it stands for ‘real’ Indians. The more I think about this, the more I like it. I’m going to make a Cleveland mockup illustration with the Ꮳ. Go Ꮳleveland!

    I attended an Alamodome game in 2013 (sitting behind home plate in the mezz. level) and yesterday (sitting in the 3rd row of right field, just to the foul side of the foul pole, er, ribbon).

    The one thing I noticed, that I didn’t remember from last year, was that the turf looked TERRIBLE. You could see the seams, the turf almost looked like camo. Pretty hard to look at.

    I posted a picture that shows the turf and the “ribbon”

    link

    I suppose the “official alternate” tag for the Astros BP jerseys is in the MLB style guide for 2014. But the Astros wore the BP jerseys last season for all Sunday home games, except for the March 31 opening day Sunday nighter vs. the Rangers. The Padres should have taken note for tonight.

    Gary Carter was a good guy, but didn’t the Montrealers really say “goodbye” rather than “goodgye”?

    Wow…that Alamodome setup makes the new Yankee Stadium look like the Grand Canyon. And count me in as a supporter of baseball in Montréal. Ça sera fantastique!

    I like the idea of baseball at the Alamodome. Reminds me of the old parks that had to make do with the space they were given. I’d cover the lower deck in right field and put up a higher fence. Or keep the seats and put up a giant chain-link fence. No need to build a new park…own your quirkiness.

    Or hang a net (pulled tight, or chain link) from the 2nd deck to the fence from the foul pole to the batters eye as a “fence”. Put yellow strips on the top and the sides to help indicate HRs. It would be angled which would quirky and those seats (minus like the 1st 10 rows) could stay open for in interesting vantage point

    The quirks would be fine, but baseball should be played on natural grass and outdoors. That’s two strikes against the Alamodome. And why would San Antonio need a retractable dome to lure a big league team? Minor league baseball has succeeded in the city for decades without.

    Here’s what you do: cover the front 20 rows with a darkened plexiglass screen that the fans underneath can see through, but the outfielders can’t. The screen is angled so that the ball bounces off and goes back onto the field.

    Then you say that balls that bounce off this screen are in play.

    How much fun would that be to watch?

    The opening baseball game of the Texas League season, attendance 53,748, was played at the Cotton Bowl on April 11, 1950, and pitted the Dallas Eagles against Tulsa.
    link

    scroll down here for interesting photo
    ‘The most memorable Opening Day in Texas League history drew 54,151 fans to the Cotton Bowl to celebrate some of the game’s greatest stars. The previous record for a Texas League game was 1,018 set in 1930.”
    link

    link

    Great intro Phil.Im really looking forward to the season.Looks like Montreal had a classy presentation for the return of baseball to the city,albeit an exhibition game.

    Montreal could certainly support a major league team, with Olympic Stadium an…acceptable temporary stadium. Get a big-pockets owner (Bell needs content now that Rogers has the NHL) to avoid a repeat of Jeffrey Loria’s first MLB fiasco, and you’d be in business.

    Not sure if there are enough players to handle stocking two new teams (and their farm clubs). Perhaps if Cuban players could be free to play professionally without having to defect…

    When the CFL left Montreal, for a while it looked very dead – with no talk of it coming back. Then it started to change, and when it did come back – it enjoyed unprecedented success – a 10 year honeymoon, with the province of Quebec producing some of the best Canadian football players – a remarkable turn-around

    There is some odd parallels starting to emerge, whether it will come to full fruition is still a long shot, but if they ever built a downtown 35K seat stadium – (and the Cdn dollar doesn’t tank) – watch out. Maybe the future home of the Rays?

    IIRC, the “new” Alouettes weren’t doing too well attendance-wise, neither, when they came back in ’96. Things were looking a little iffy until they had to move a play-off game to Molson Stadium because U2 had already booked the Big O for a concert.

    McGill offered a much more fan friendly atmosphere, with those in attendance actually being closer to the action. They eventually made Molson Stadium their permanent home and have been consistently selling out games since then.

    Until they expanded McGill Stadium to 25K, they no longer sell out. I don’t believe they sold out a single game last year.

    There are some interesting examples of franchises leaving cities then returning to great success – Colorado and Winnepeg-NHL, Cleveland and Baltimore – NFL, but I really wonder about Montreal and MLB. I don’t have anything but the “Smell test” to go on, but it smells to me more like Atlanta’s NHL experience.

    That is one sweet Astros’ uniform that Cedeno is wearing. Those were the days, my friend!

    Not really. AFL has a rule that visitors wear white shorts, and they have a clash rule, but in both of these matches it was home kit v home kit. When it doesn’t cause a clash, the AFL tends to look the other way a lot, to the tune of 2 matches/round (2 games out of every 9) so far this season.

    Oh, when I said “clash rule”, what I mean is clash regarding jumpers (most of the older Victorian clubs didn’t have home/away until recently, and Collingwood, e.g., hardly ever wears their away jumper). So clubs are required to have a special jumper (sometimes only worn once/season) for clubs with whom there is a natural clash.

    Perfect example of an AFL clash:
    Essendon
    link
    Richmond
    link

    I really wish a major american sport would take up the Clash idea. The NHL in particular would be very interesting. Imagine some of the possibilities, Colorado in blue or burgundy, Minnesota in red or green. Eliminate the mandatory white jersey and the league could really make itself stand out uniform wise.

    If Montreal ever gets another MLB team, it won’t be via expansion, it will be a relocated team, most likely the Rays, according to Forbes, MLB’s least valuable franchise.

    Time for MLB to expand so 16 teams can be in each league and the daily interplague games can end. Is Forbes really a reliable source for whether MLB will expand or not? Just another person’s opinion.

    “There was an interesting article on Kobe Bryant’s “controversial comments about Trayvon Martin posted yesterday.”

    Man, is Kobe chickenshit.

    ” “Michigan State kicker wears shorts during game in 1960″ read the subject line of an e-mail from Chuck Nolan.”

    Kicker Cecil Heron, presumably the uncle of Gil Scott Heron.

    I see the Alamodome set up for baseball, and it brings back the horrible memory of BC Place set up for baseball, and how its crappy Astroturf turned Edgar Martinez from a 3B to a DH in a meaningless exhibition game.

    Hughes Stadium in Sacramento used to be set up like the LA Coliseum, with a big net in left field. Saw Hank Aaron there, when he played for the Brewers, in an exhibition against the Solons (they were the Brewers’ PCL team for a few years).

    Hughes Stadium in Sacramento used to be set up like the LA Coliseum, with a big net in left field. Saw Hank Aaron there, when he played for the Brewers, in an exhibition against the Solons

    link

    Vive Nos Amours! Montreal didn’t fail little-m major league baseball, Major League Baseball Inc. failed Montreal. That ass Loria put the final nails in the coffin built by Claude Brochu. Imagine your local team not having local radio or TV coverage: not because there was no interest, but because the owner, in a definite move to kill the local market, refused to sell broadcast rights.

    In a city where Loria could have double dipped on the rights with both Anglophones and Francophones, he simply refused to put the product on the air. This was in addition to all the other crap that he pulled (bailing the Yankees out of Hideki Irabu’s bloated contract?), selling off the best players and generally hamstringing the franchise for, how long has it been? They finally made it to the playoffs last year? I don’t think the big question here is why baseball failed in Montreal, it’s why MLB allowed that idiot to drive another team into the ground.

    By the way, IIRC, at the peak of the contraction talk, Selig (speaking of asses…) was looking hard at Minnesota and Montreal. Odd, considering that for the ten years prior, the Expos actually averaged a higher attendance than two other clubs, neither of them part of the contraction discussion: Oakland, and Bud’s beloved Brewers. Yes, the Expos were a better draw in Montreal than the Brewers were in Milwaukee.

    Back in the 1990’s the Sydney Blues/Wave of the Australian Baseball League played some home games at Parramatta Stadium, the home ground of the Parramatta Eels of the NRL and the Western Sydney Wanderers of the A-League. Like the Coliseum, there was a short distance to the left field fence, but the Blues did not install an artificial fence to make it more difficult to hit home runs.

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