Uni Watch Reader Designs High School Baseball Uniforms!

[Editor’s Note: Reader Steve Dodell has had a long connection to Uni Watch. He told us about his DIY Mets throwback jacket, spotted some subtle changes to the Mets’ logo, accompanied me to a Mets game, and was the first to spot the mis-rendered “4” on the Mets’ Tom Seaver Statue. Today he’s written a guest entry about a very special project he recently undertook. Enjoy. — PL]

By Steve Dodell

I’ve been teaching high school math at Frederick Douglass Academy III in the Bronx for over 15 years. This year, we were awarded our first varsity baseball team, and I was asked to be head coach. I had to quickly design and order our uniforms, using our colors of maroon and gold.

Instead of having separate home and road jerseys, my principal suggested reversible jerseys (I think our basketball team has them as well), which are certainly more budget-friendly, I was given a few catalog options that had uniform-designing apps, so I sat down with a couple of students to create the jerseys.

With our school located in the Bronx, I felt we needed pinstripes for the home jersey. The kids liked that idea but wanted a maroon jersey. The design apps did not work well, and I was strapped for time, so I sketched out some designs by hand with some instructions for the supplier so they could create a mock-up:

As you can see, I tried to explain things as simply and straightforwardly as possible, but the first mock-up did not exactly follow all my instructions:

After I explained what “vertical arch” means and what kind of outlining I wanted, we eventually came to the final version:

It took many tries to get them to put the sleeve logo on the jersey’s left sleeve, instead of the left side of the picture. I also would have liked the “Lions” script to slant up a bit, but my message was not getting through.

The graphics are sublimated. Not as classy as sewn, but you can put almost any design on them, and it’s cost-effective.

For pants, we are getting just one set (again, for budgetary reasons) — grey, which will match the road jersey and also go well with the home side of the jersey

Here is the cap, which I think will go well with both jerseys. The main reason I chose a grey cap was because the logo would not stand out on a maroon cap:

I’ll send photos of the finished product once everything arrives from the supplier, which should be in about a month.

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Paul here. I love this story! The budgetary restrictions and communication snafus with the supplier are good reminders that not everyone has access to top-of-the-line uniforms.

Also: Has anyone reading this ever dealt with reversible jerseys? It seems like one side would button left over right (like a standard men’s shirt), while the other side would be right over left (like a women’s blouse), right? Or is there some other aspect to this that I’m missing? Also-also: If the jersey’s reversible, you presumably can’t have the standard inner-collar tagging!

Anyway: I hope you’ll join me in congratulating Steve on his new role as baseball coach and uniform designer, and thanking him for the important work he does as a teacher.