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Uni Watch

It’s So Easy Being Green

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By Phil Hecken

In a bit of a nod to their roots, yesterday the Oakland A’s — celebrating their 50th Anniversary of their relocation to Oakland — unveiled a new, kelly green alternate jersey, as well as a new cap. The jersey, of course, is the big news. It’s gorgeous.

Let’s take a look at that first (you can click any images below to enlarge):

Although it is difficult to see in the lighting, the jersey has a decidedly more kelly green hue than their current dark (hunter) green alternate. It is a button front, featuring the work “Oakland” in script, and the wordmark is outlined in gold. Numbers appear in block font at the bottom left, also in white with gold outline. The sleeve features a gold/white/gold piping, and there is a 50th Anniversary patch on the right shoulder. The back features NOB in white/gold, and the numbers have the same colorscheme as well.

Here are some additional angles:

The A’s have announced they will wear these jerseys every Friday home game, something they’re dubbing their Green Fridays initiative. You’ll note [t]he jersey includes “Oakland” on the front, an innovative inclusion to feature the name of our home city on a home jersey. While not the first team to do this, it’s rare in baseball for sure.

You can get a sense of how much lighter (kelly) the green is when compared to the darker (hunter) green background:

The patch, as mentioned above, will be on the right shoulder. It’s a fairly attractive patch, rendered in green and gold, with OAKLAND at the top, the number 50 in the right center, and ATHLETICS at the bottom.

The dates 1968-2018 are at the patch bottom with the famous Oakland Oak image between the date. To the middle left is what I am 99% positive is an image of the Oakland Tribune Tower (interestingly, I could not find any information on this, though I admittedly did not search very deeply — but it wasn’t mentioned on the official A’s site). You will note this patch is different from the 50th anny logo we’d seen unveiled previously. Hmmmm.

The A’s also introduced a new cap: it’s kelly green as well, with a kelly green brim, and a white “A’s” on the crown. This cap is not only lighter than their other caps (their two current caps feature either a gold brim or an all green cap with A’s in white outlined in gold. The new cap harkens back to the style worn in 1968, although that featured only the letter “A” and not the “A’s” it does now:

Here’s a couple more looks at the uni, including some shots of the jersey back (and cap back):

And here’s a couple videos from the fashion show/unveiling:

This video has a filter that makes the jerseys seem even *more* kelly than they probably really are, but that’s OK by me…

And there you have it. For their 51st season in Oakland, their 50th Anniversary Season, the A’s have returned slightly to their roots — bringing back the gorgeous kelly they had when they began play in the City of Oakland, and introducing a cap that’s not a faux- or throwback, but evokes the 1968 feel. The A’s had been progressively darkening their green over the years, so this is a nice change. It’s a shame this will only be worn on home Fridays.

What do you guys think?

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More Gridirons on Diamonds

Earlier this year, I ran an article about archivist and historian Ronnie Bolton, who specializes in Old Time Baseball Photos, but shared with us some great football played on baseball fields. I mentioned then that he’d probably be back periodically, and I’m pleased to have a follow up with some more (colorized!) gridirons on a diamond.

Lets go…

• • •

With the Super Bowl coming up next weekend, this one features the “Steagles” — a team created by the temporary merger of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Philadelphia Eagles, during the 1943 season. Ronnie’s not sure who colorized the photo below, but if anyone does know, we’d love to give proper credit!

Green Bay Packers vs Philadelphia/Pittsburgh Eagles/Steelers (Steagles), December 5, 1943, Shibe Park

Green Bay Packers Hall of Famer Tony Canadeo carries the ball against the Philadelphia/Pittsburgh Eagles/Steelers, or as the press dubbed them the Steagles, a nickname that would stick, in a 38-28 Packers win in the season finale.

Because of WWII, many NFL teams rosters were depleted as a result of their players taking part in the war effort, so the Steagles were comprised of players from the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Minus the 1943 season, the Eagles were the only professional football team to call Shibe Park home, playing there in 1940 and then from 1942 through 1957.

• • •

Cleveland Browns vs New York Giants, October 22, 1950, Polo Grounds

An amazing colorization by Don Stokes of New York Giants Hall of Fame defensive back Emlen Tunnell being pursued by several Cleveland Browns players.

Despite the fact the Giants quarterbacks would complete just two passes on the day, they would beat the Browns 17-10 in front of 41,734. Halfback Joe Scott was the star of the game by rushing for 121 yards and a two yard touchdown run.

And these two teams would meet up again in the playoffs in a offensive showdown, this time the Browns would have the upper hand winning 8-3.

This additional photo from Ronnie is also of the Giants playing in the Polo Grounds — although the two photos are about a dozen years apart (this one is from 1938), the field position remained the same.

• • •

Thanks, Ronnie.

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More Gridirons on Diamonds…

In response to last weekend’s lede, reader Brice Wallace had the following to share…

Loved the Jan. 21 stuff about multipurpose stadiums.

Your image of Metropolitan Stadium, with the outfield bleachers close to the football field, seemed foreign to me, but then I found that that configuration was used in the early 60s (when I was a youngster). By the mid-’60s, a permanent double-deck structure was put in left field. According to Wikipedia, “The big left field stand was originally planned to be capable of sliding toward or away from the gridiron (as Denver’s Mile High Stadium later would be), but that part of the project was never realized.”

But I also stumbled upon this interesting shot showing two different colors of the infield dirt during a football game:

[That comes from the article, “Met Stadium Memories”,] which is a nice quick read — PH

Brice Wallace

Thanks, Brice!

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“What’s It Worth?” reminder: Paul here. In case you missed it the other day, I announced a new partnership with Grey Flannel Auctions. If you have a potentially valuable collectible, GFA will appraise it at no charge, and with no obligation. Think of it as an online version of Antiques Roadshow. Full details here.

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The Ticker
By Anthony Emerson

Baseball News: Related to yesterday’s main post, the Tigers’ new jerseys are already in use for team promotions. Another shot here (from our own Kris Gross). … This is so cool: The Colorado Springs Sky Sox, the Triple-A affiliates of the Milwaukee Brewers will celebrate 45 years of Colorado Springs baseball with six separate throwbacks, a different one for each month of the season (from Zeke Perez Jr.). … Absolutely gorgeous cream throwbacks for Kentucky, designed by Reece Wallace. More looks here. … The Hickory Crawdads, Single-A affiliate of the Rangers, playfully “rebranded” as the Hickory Crawmoms, which included changing their Twitter display name and profile pic while releasing a statement quoting Marge Simpson and Peter Griffin, to announce their Mothers Day Weekend uniforms. … The Indians had fun with Thursday’s XFL announcement, by photoshopping “He Hit Me” onto Brandon Guyer’s uni. Guyer led the Majors in HBP for the past two seasons. Clever from the social media team at The Jake (from Robert Hayes). … More MiLB news: the Greeneville Astros are now the Single-A affiliate of the Reds, so (naturally) they’ve changed their name to the “Greeneville Reds” and changed their logo to Mr. Redleg in a coonskin cap. They’ve also added a “Wishbone-G” cap logo (from Jay Stancil and our own Alex Hider). … A few days ago, Vladimir Guerrero was voted into Cooperstown, and he will become the first player inducted in an Angels cap. This led reader Patrick Sesty to write in with a question: Vlad wore No. 27…the same number multi-time MVP Mike Trout wears for the Angels. If the Angels retire Vlad’s number (an honor that in my opinion he’s more than deserved), do they ask Trout to change his number? Do they wait to retire Vlad’s number until Trout has left the club? What if Trout plays another 15 years in Anaheim? Do they “retire” 27 but allow Trout to keep using it, perhaps with Vlad’s permission? What if Guerrero doesn’t want to give Trout permission to use No. 27? Does Trout pull a Ray Bourque and switch to 72? Does anyone in the comments (particularly Angels fans) have any strong opinions either way? … The Royals are planning on giving out George Brett Pine Tar bobbleheads on May 19th (from Matt Shevin).

NFL News: The NFL reportedly has extra security in place to make sure that Tom Brady’s jersey doesn’t get stolen again (from our own Brinke Guthrie). … According to the New York Post, new Giants coach Pat Shurmur is already dressing better than Ben McAdoo (thanks, Paul). … Barcelona star Andrés Iniesta appeared in a TV advert as a pro football player, and wore interesting unis with player names on the back and front (from Albert Iosifovitch Rojov). … Cross-posted from the MLB section: Cleveland had fun with Thursday’s XFL announcement, by photoshopping “He Hit Me” onto Brandon Guyer’s uni. Guyer led the Majors in HBP for the past two seasons. Clever from the social media team at the Jake (from Robert Hayes).

Hockey News: Georgia Tech will launch its new hockey jerseys on Monday. … Joe Werner noticed a weird inconsistency on his Coleco table NHL game box: the picture of the game on the box featured a Devils logo on the outer shell of the game, but a Colorado Rockies logo on the scoreboard (highlighted with red circles; here’s a closeup of the Rockies logo). In addition, the box featured a Devils logo. Strange, because the Rockies relocated to Jersey to become the Devils. … Wisconsin hockey added a “JJ” decal to their helmets in honor of Jim Johannson, who passed away on Wednesday (from María Canales). … The Kootenay Ice of the WHL are wearing anti-bullying jerseys as part of their Pink the Rink promo tonight (from Wade Heidt). … Also from Wade Heidt: The Niagara IceDogs of the OHL held their Pink the Rink promo last night, and had pink jerseys and helmets.

NBA News: YouTube TV is using a New Jersey Nets logo as the thumbnail for a Brooklyn Nets pregame show. I wonder who’s responsible for that? (From Dennis C. Abrams). … Isaac Harris of NBA.com has a great interview with Mavs equipment manager Al Whiteley, mostly about the design process for the Mavs’ City Edition unis but also about a ton of other stuff too. Highly recommended (from @profjimmyc). … Speaking of the Mavs, they debuted their new city jerseys alternate unis, but still fell to the Trail Blazers … DeMar DeRozan tore his new Raptors alternate jersey after missing the game-tying shot last night (from our own Mike Chamernik). I’m not sure we can blame this one on swooshie.

College/High School Hoops News: Steve Angle noticed that Michigan’s shade of maize on uni numbers and NOBs didn’t match. “You would think that multi million dollar companies like Nike and the university would be able to color match numbers and name” he says. … Did you know that the Tar Heels’ shorts in the 1960s featured a reverse tar heel logo — dark foot, white heel? Doesn’t really make sense that way…tar and pitch are dark-colored, shouldn’t they be depicted as darker than the foot? (Excellent spot by James Gilbert).

Soccer News: Soccer blog The Gentleman Ultra has ranked the top 10 Italian national team kits of all time (from Ed Żelaski‏). … The Philadelphia Union have slightly updated their crest, secondary logos and colors (from Mark P.). … Cross-listed from the NFL section: Barcelona star Andrés Iniesta appeared in a TV advert as a pro football player, and wore interesting unis with player names on the back and front (from Albert Iosifovitch Rojov). … Penn FC, a USL team from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania formerly known as the Harrisburg City Islanders, launched their first home kit as Penn FC yesterday afternoon (from Chris Bratton).

Grab Bag: NASCAR driver Terry Labonte was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame last evening, and Reddit’s NASCAR sub tweeted out this awesome tidbit: in 1982 Labonte led the 1982 Winston Cup points total, but owner Jim Stacy didn’t like Labonte’s firesuit, so he pulled Labonte’s sponsorship with Labonte in the lead (from Christian M. Zummer).  … Halo Resourcing, a British job recruiting firm, seems to have stolen the logo of Halo Burger, a Michigan-based burger chain. Halo Resourcing’s logo was launched in 2017, while Halo Burger’s logo was designed in 2016 by the Detroit design company Skidmore Studios and was even featured on the design blog Brand New (yeoman’s work from Ryan Keberly). … Actor and occasional-pro-wrestler Stephen Amell had an…ahem, interesting use of a cancer ribbon on his new anti-cancer logo (from James Gilbert). … Denver University men’s lacrosse equipment manager John Mead worked with Warrior to help create the new Denver helmet; the gold cage and black matte inside is meant to cut down on glare and make the ball easier to track (from Tyler Till).

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Comments (36)

    I love the kelly green color but would much rather see the 1968 vest jerseys and the pullovers of 1972-73-74. I’m not a fan of the jersey design. It’s a half-assed effort.

    Another green jersey for the A’s. How original. Would have much preferred to see the team do a fauxback to the vest style, but then they couldn’t sell that to the masses.

    As great as Vlady was, Trout is already superior to him, so I wouldn’t think many would ask or demand that he change his uniform number.

    link like the Angels don’t retire numbers upon enshrinement. So, if they haven’t deemed Guerrero’s number worthy of retirement to this point (that’s not meant as any kind of shot at Vlad), they don’t have to now.

    For the first time in years, I’m compelled to go online and purchase a baseball jersey. Great job A’s. A nice look.

    Holy Schnikes, those A’s alternates are spectacular. I’m a traditionalist with baseball (white home/gray road) but those are great.
    Union’s update is also an improvement.

    Earlier this year, I ran an article about archivist and historian Ronnie Bolton

    All the way back to last week…

    LOVE the kelly green, Oakland! Why restrict it to Fridays?

    Glad to finally see an Angel in the HOF, even though Vlad will always be an Expo to me. I could see the team retiring the number for both players. If Trout wants to change numbers, then fine, but I’d leave that up to him.

    Typo alert: “The dates 1968-*2008* are at the patch bottom with the famous Oakland Oak image between the date.”

    That A’s jersey is GORGEOUS! And since the team traces it’s roots back to Philly, maybe I could get away with this one minor case of sports bigamy…

    Weird fact o’ the day–from 1910 to 1930, the A’s won five World Series in Philly. In their entire 135-year history, the Phillies have won two.

    I think there needs to be some yellow on the cap, maybe like the 70’s twins batting helmet’s?

    I guess now we know why the philadelphia eagles have to wear the lameshit midnight green crap -the Oakland A’s have been hoarding all the beautiful kelly green dye for themselves.

    Gorgeous jersey all around! Kudos to the Athletics!

    I love the A’s new kelly green alt jersey, and I wish they would go back to kelly green full time. Change all the other uniform elements (caps, hunter green trim and hunter green alternate jersey) in their set to kelly green, and call it a day.

    … I’m not perceiving any noticeable difference in the shade of maize on the Michigan jersey. But then, that’s a rather fuzzy JPEG, so it’s really hard to tell.

    It was very noticeable when they played MSU in East Lansing (which I believe I noted in the comments here).

    There’s some weird sublimation-type stuff going on with the numbers–prolly why they look different than the names.

    If the Angels were that keen on retiring number 27 for Guerrero, they wouldn’t have given it out. There are numerous examples of teams not retiring a number for a player who played for their team and was enshrine in the HOF. The Angels have several options. I seriously doubt however that they will retire 27 this season and ask Mike Trout (perhaps the best player in MLB) to change his number. It feel like it would be disrespectful to Trout, whose established himself as a future HOFer to change his number in mid career. Eventually Perhaps a scenario will unfold where the Angels retire 27 for both players after Trout has retired. Very much like the Yankees did with number 8 for Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey.

    I was going to say the exact same thing, but reference the Cubs retiring 31 for Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux. So there’s certainly precedent.

    Not necessarily. The Reds gave out Joe Morgan’s #8 to Bo Diaz,
    Steve Christmas, Rafael Landestoy and others before Morgan was elected to the HoF.

    As a Mariners fan…. It’s painful for me to say, but dang those A’s jerseys are sweet.

    Gorgeous coloration of Emlen Tunnell at the Polo Grounds, as well as the Packers-Steagles. I’ve seen the B/W image of Tunnell before (maybe from one of the old Punt, Pass & Kick books), but this is the first time I’ve noticed in the background that there’s a big sombrero (?) sitting under the center field clubhouse.

    Love the Oakland jersey. But since we are obsessive here, I am bothered with the kiss cut application of the graphics. You can really see it here

    link

    It changes the texture as the yellow outline is more raised than the white lettering, as opposed to the old school dual-layer application where the white would be the upper level. Makes it look cheap (well it is cheaper to make). Anyone with me?

    So this new A’s cap omits the other-than-white accent color, like the black White Sox caps without silver. That’s not a knock, just an observation because it’s relatively rare.

    Guerrero played six years for the Angels. Yes, he won an MVP and was an all-star a few times, but does that really rate a number retirement? I did a little research and see they retired Rod Carew’s number after a seven-year stint, so maybe it does.

    If anything I assume they’d retire it with the understanding that Trout could continue wearing it (and if Guerrero doesn’t “approve,” they should scrap the retirement).

    Watching the NHL Skills competition right now. James Neal’s jersey looks REALLY cramped, with the ASSC patch crammed in with his alternate captain’s A and the Golden Knights Inaugural Season patch.

    Regarding the Trout/Vlad jersey situation. It wouldn’t be a Ray Bourque. It would be a Carlton Fisk, who switched from 27 to 72 when he joined the White Sox.

    No, really it would be exactly an Esposito-Bourque situation. Espo left the Bruins, they issued number 7 to
    Bourque. When the B’s decided to “honor” Phil, they specifically said they were NOT retiring the number (unlike all the other “honored” Bruins). It was Ray who chose on his own to remove the jersey number off his back – as part of the ceremony he literally removed his #7 jersey, gave it to Phil, and revealed his new #77.

    It would be lovely if Trout felt compelled to repeat this, but unless it were on his own initiative, it would probably feel sort of hollow.

    Fisk changed to 72 when he went to the White Sox because 27 wasn’t available. Different context, in fact more akin to when Esposito went to New York and adopted #77 because #7 was not available.

    I just watched the movie “Chasing 3,000” on the MLBTV. It looked like the Clemente character was wearing his stirrups over his pants. As if they were tucked down into the socks.

    Oakland jerseys are fire. No need for the matching lame cap though. Current darker green cap provides crisp contrast and makes the jersey pop. Current hat with striped socks/stirrups and they’d be perfect.

    I wonder why teams like Oakland and the Eagles have gone with darker green? Seems like everyone likes the kelly green.

    A little clarification on the Greeneville Reds logo. Greeneville is located in Greene County in northeast Tennessee. Davy Crockett was born in Greene County. There is even a Davy Crockett Birthplace Park. There is also a Davy Crockett High School in the next County over. Several teams in the area incorporate the coonskin cap into their mascots and logos so it was kind of a given that Mr. Redleg would sport the coonskin.

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