Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong made his much-anticipated MLB debut last night in Colorado. I’ve had my eye on him for years because of his prodigious NOB, so it was fun to see him finally make it to the bigs. I’m surprised they didn’t come up with a compressed lettering font for him!
Here are some additional shots of him from last night’s game:
Crow-Armstrong’s NOB clocks in at 13 letters and 14 characters. That ties him with Dee Strange-Gordon in the NOB sweepstakes but is still shy of Salty’s 14-letter mononym and Simeon Woods Richardson’s 15-letter compound surname.
There was particular interest in Crow-Armstrong’s debut, however, because he’d been wearing a double-decked NOB in the Cubbies’ farm system:
But the Cubs gave him a conventional NOB during spring training this year and last year:
He also went single-decked — with a smaller, less clunky font — during this year’s MLB Futures game:
Crow-Armstrong first came across the Uni Watch radar in 2021, when he was in the Mets’ system and they gave his NOB a ridiculously long hyphen during spring training (which prompted me to write a post about the aesthetics of NOB hyphens):
One final note about Crow-Armstrong: When he entered last night’s game as a pinch-runner, the Rockies’ scoreboard operator either didn’t know who he was or else couldn’t fit his name into the appropriate field:
But everything worked out in the end:
Pete Crow-Armstrong and his mom shared a beautiful moment after Pete made his MLB debut as a pinch runner tonight 🥹 pic.twitter.com/EaFfoFsSwU
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 12, 2023
Crow-Armstrong and Strange-Gordon are just whimsical names to begin with.
I’d love to hear the reason why he ended up listed as unknown on the scoreboard. Unknown pinch runner is funny, I am just imagining the Rockies’ staff frantically trying to figure out who he was when he entered the game.
Unacceptable. There are Rockies staff members who should be fired for this. If this is Player X, who was just traded to the club, but had played in every game this year, fine. This was Crow-Armstrongs MLB debut. To see “unknown” on the board is one, disrespectful, and two, an admission of unpreparedness on the staffs part (considering that before every series, they are handed the visiting teams roster sheet, which list every player and name pronunciation. They also get “day of game” roster sheets as well).
Fired? Really? A little heavy-handed there. Perhaps we should find out if Mr. Crow-Armstrong himself was offended.
Wow, you should really ask to speak to a supervisor.
Saw an article on him recently. There have been a bunch so this may not be “breaking news” to informed sports fans.
His mom is Ashley Crow, an actress, who had the role of the young player’s mom in the movie Little Big League. Real life imitates the reel life, I guess. I do wish she had been in Rookie of the Year because that kid played for the Cubs.
I saw that yesterday as well. What an absolutely crazy coincidence.
I can’t tell if it’s the just way he’s standing or how his jersey naturally lays and folds, but is the 2 ever so slightly lower than the 5 on Crow-Armstrong’s back?
It looked that way to my eyes, too.
This reminds me of the late Oscar Taveras being supered as Minor League Guy when he pinch ran in a spring training game.
after 7 characters the font should get smaller for every additional character
Yet another reason why NNOB always looks good.
Maybe they were trying something psychological with prices ending in 8. Growing up, they always ended in 9 so it was “99 cents” instead of a dollar. But there was a trend for a while of prices ending in 7, because 7 is less than 9, of course.
Or, perhaps, 28 cents was the price to the nearest penny and that’s what they wanted it to be at retail for all profits to be made.
I find annoying and weird that I don’t even have the option to type the cent symbol on my phone’s keyboard.
Hold down the “$” key.
The Euro currency and British pound and a few others pop up when I hold the “$” key, but not the cent option.
I have an iPhone maybe that is the difference?
I too have an iPhone. When I hold down the “$” key, here’s what I get: link
Feel free to copy and paste: ¢
Hmm interesting, I have exactly the same symbols minus the ce
In other hyphenated news, pitcher Sawyer Gipson-Long was called up by the Tigers and had his first MLB win.
White Sox @ Tigers link
Somebody order an “UNKNOWN” jersey
Maybe they could a picture of a crow and save a few spaces.
They could make it into a rebus! Just like that old gameshow Classic Concentration.
Why can’t they just make it smaller and why does it have to be arched?