Good morning Uni Watchers and a Happy Humpday to all!
This morning I’m rejoined by long-time reader, pal and UW stalwart Walter Helfer, who you’ll recall had several projects featured on Uni Watch recently, including a red/blue color swap project for the NBA, the NHL, the NFL and MLB. Walter also created several “Property of…” t-shirts, including a Property of Uni Watch t-shirt. I should have more on the Property of UW t-shirt very soon, and it’s expected these will be made available for purchase.
Today Walter returns with his latest project — and this one is way out there (in a good way). Walter has created a Professional German Baseball League and designed the uniforms and logos for the entire league. It is an awesome undertaking, so I’m just going to leave it here and turn it over to Walter now. Enjoy!
by Walter Helfer
Today I am visiting a facet of the multiverse where a Professional German Baseball League plays near the highest echelon of the sport. This project has given me license to create teams out of whole cloth, and came at the expense of an league (Baseball Bundesliga) of thirteen teams in many of the cities I chose. The difference is mostly budget; I have unlimited Monopoly deutschmarks (whoops– euros) and get my uniforms from websites that posit locations like “Newyork” and “Saltlakecity.”
There is a Western Division (Aufteilung Westlich) comprising the Düsseldorf Magie, Stuttgart Dynamo, Frankfurt Geparden, Köln Jugend, Wiesbaden Kamele, and the Essen Donner.
The East (Aufteilung Östlich) consists of the Berlin Löwen, Leipzig Dachse, Dresden Welpen, München Wanderinnen, Nürnberg Försters, and the Hamburg Eisbären.
In American baseball, there are plenty of red, white, and blue teams. As you might deduce, many of my teams are black, gold, and red, the colors of the German flag (and the national soccer team).
Western Division (Aufteilung Westlich)
Düsseldorf Magie
Eastern Division (Aufteilung Östlich)
Berlin Löwen
A hurdle to overcome is lengthy German words which don’t fit so easily on the front of a jersey.
Folks who were hoping to see stirrups will in most cases see shooting socks, distinguished by their colorful cuffs and tying straps. This was an effort on my part to give my league a Teutonic flair, a feature foreign to North American eyes, but somehow in the same spirit. I had considered the filigreed socks worn with lederhosen, but found these more colorful and sporting.
As always, feel free to criticize: What I don’t know about Germany could be the largest book in the library!
Amüsieren Sie sich!
I love this! I definitely notice some current and former MLB-influenced colors and design elements, but all with a unique flair. And having some teams sporting shooting socks, in lieu of stirrups, works really well! I’m not so sure about the tassels(?) on those, but the designs are fantastic. What a fun project. Thanks for sharing with us.
OK, readers. What do you think? Do any designs stand out to you? How about the different types of hosiery? The floor is yours.
This is one of the best-done, and most fun concepts I’ve ever seen on UniWatch. I’d like to see all of these in action! Herzlichen Glückwunsch!
Danke schoen, John!
Wildly creative and well done, Walter!
Thanks! It was close to my heart.
GTGFTS: Sep 30, 1956. Dodgers 8, Pirates 6. The last regular season game at Ebbets Fields.
It wasn’t the final MLB regular-season game at Ebbets; that would be a year later, on September 24, 1957, also against the Pirates, but the Dodgers shut them out 2-0.
At the end of the 1956 season, Walter O’Malley was still trying to get a new site in Brooklyn, while Robert Moses was trying and failing to convince him to move to the Queens site that would eventually become Shea Stadium. O’Malley insisted they were not the “Queens Dodgers”, but when it became clear he would not be able to secure a Brooklyn site, well, we all know what happened next.
I stand corrected. 1957 was the swan song for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Look at those lineups! By my count there were seven future Hall of Famers in the teams’ batting orders that day: Clemente, Mazeroski, Reese, Snider, Robinson, Hodges, and Campanella (hitting eighth! eighth?!?). Eventual 1956 NL MVP and MLB Cy Young Award winner Don Newcombe got the win with a clunky line: 7 1/3 innings pitched, 11 hits, six runs, all earned, one walk, and two strikeouts. It was a harbinger of his poor World Series against the Yankees, as he did not make it out of the fourth inning of either of his two starts.
Pretty interesting designs… though maybe doing the late 70s San Diego Padres contrasting raglan sleeves with both a contrasting placket and racing stripes down the sleeves may be a bit too much.
I came very close to using that treatment for the green and yellow team, the Rangers.
I always enjoy seeing projects where someone creates an entire league and this is no exception. I thoroughly enjoyed the variety of uniform designs as well. Between that variety and the color variations, this would be an interesting league to see on the field.
Love the concepts, especially some of those logos. I would definitely wear the Cubs, Badgers (I like to imagine it’s a raccoon) , and Polar Bear logos if they were on a fitted hat. I also like the extra hose design to help break up the pants and socks colors. It’s minor, but adds a unique touch to the uniform that I enjoy.
Walter, I can’t tell from this if you actually speak German but some of the translated terms (fachmännisch, Aufteilung) sound extremely stilted to me as a second-language speaker. Like, it’d feel strange to read an article about an American sport with absolutely zero loanwords. They’d more likely just use “Division.” It’s hard to know because no German sports league I know of actually uses divisions or has “professional” in its name. “Profi” (Fußballprofi or whatever) tends to be used to describe pro athletes, at least.
Plus, in the team names, “Wanderinnen” has a female ending which would be inappropriate for a men’s sports team (it means a female group of hikers) while I’d think of “Förster” as “forester” and “Welpe” usually means a puppy.
The one year of German I learned forty years ago was light on idioms, and little to no German was spoken in the house. Nearly all the team names were made in an English-to-German generator. The readers of this site are my test group, and it’s good to have people like you to iron the kinks out!
I’d also add that there is a stigma in Germany with the term Dynamo (though that is more to East Germany). In Soviet times, any team named Dynamo was affiliated with the secret police. Dynamo Berlin were the record champions of the East German soccer league, primarily since Stasi head Erich Mielke put his thumb on the scale so his favorite team would always win.
Interesting! I never would have known that. I wanted a team referencing a Power Station, but it would have been called the “Kraftwerk”, and I didn’t want to step on the toes of the musicians who go by that name.
Danke Schoen Walter!
Bitte, Dave! (Man, auto-correct does NOT like German words! )
GTGFTU
2003 Week 1
7 September
First ever regular season meeting between Texans and Dolphins, which Houston won 21-20.
Only regular season meeting played on the Joe Robbie baseball diamond.
Walter, you’ve outdone yourself! I always love your contributions to Uni Watch, but your German baseball uniforms rank as one of my favorite projects of yours. Every uniform is fun, well-considered, and well-rendered. (But could we get a non-blurry version of the Essen Donner unis so we can look at them in all their fine-detailed glory?)
I was disappointed by that image, too. This darned digital camera of mine doesn’t look fuzzy in the viewfinder, even after all of the focusing graphics appear on the image. Grrrr!
I can’t speak to the translations, but I love the design choices! I have to be honest, you seem to align PERFECTLY with my own particular peccadillos–team name on home jerseys, city on away, always high-cuffed, cap logo should always be a letter.
Regardless, while you may want to outsource some more accurate use of German, NO NOTES on the designs themselves!
Muchas gracias, mein Freund!
Nicely done!
If there’s room for a small town in the expansion era, how about Hammelburg?
Even I have never heard of that place, and I considered 42 cities!
… But then again, I don’t watch “Hogan’s Heroes”.
The Kamele logo is GREAT!
I’m proud of the secondary logo, too: A dromedary with baseball stitching on its hump.
Wow, really creative and fun work, Walter! I love the crowned B on the Berlin Lowen cap!
Was your concept done over time or did you just get on a roll one Friday night and couldn’t put it aside until it was finished?
Bursts of activity over a four-month period. I am presently working on a six-team expansion.
Fantastisch (Vielen Dank, Langenscheidt.com)!
Berlin’s home orange pinstripes is my favorite of your concepts.
A lightening bolt sleeve patch for Essen’s sets would be a nice touch – ja oder nein?
I went a bit overboard with the thunderbolts and used the shattered lettering for the Dynamo. My “lightning” is yellow pinstripes on a black background.
Hi Walter, Stevie from Munich Bavaria/Germany. ,
Thx for this far out concept, love your drawnings (Camel through the hole of the needle, tha bomb;)
I don’ t want to nit pick or something with this (knowing that your no native speaker nor from around here), but maybe my it’ll help with further german or european Fantasy leauges, creations, concepts(I also Love to do this from time to time)
1. Would make more sense to have North and and south divisions, because Germany is way farther apart Frau m north so south than east to west. Besides that rivaley between north and south is much bigger (being from Bavaria/southern Germany I know;).
2. Using the colors of the German flag wth team/franchise colors is less common here than in the US.rather regional colors that have a historical meaning (black red gold used to be the colors of a prussian regiments uniform in the napoleonic wars and the colors of the flag while the Weimarer Republik from 1919 to 1933, then the flag of the Federal republic from 1949 on. Has just not the same meaning than let’s say the french colors or american colors for the people here) . For example in Bavaria the traditional colors are white and blue (as in the state foag ad on the coat of arms) and much more popular than black, red, gold.
3. The colors of the german national soccer team is white (jersey)/ black (shorts). These were the colors of Prussia the dominant state in the german empire when the team was formed.
I know they sometimes include the flag as piping, stripes and what not. But until the mid 80s the home jersey was predominant white/black (away green/white for whatever reason).
4. Names that would fit your teams more, based on regional specialitys/traditions ( in my Humble opinion).
– Berlin Bears: as the bear is in the coat of arms of the city of Berlin
– Essen Miners : the Ruhrgebiet in which Essen is the biggest City, used to be Germanies main industrial region with plenty of coal mines.
– Cologne Carnival: they have the biggest carnival festival in Germany and are known for it ;)
– Stuttgart Speedsters: Home of Mercedes and Porsche (at least nearby)
– Munich Lions/Brewers/Royals: heraldic animal of Bavaria/beer capital of Germany/used to be the Capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria (1806 -1918, and independent till 1870)
– Dresden Saxons: their heritage, still called saxons in that region.
Would love to see what you’ll make out of these teams/franchises, my proposals.
Lastly: It’s just Förster (is already plural) and it’s Wanderer correctly spelled. Young uns would be “Jugendliche”. Expansion Teams could be from: Hannover, Dortmund, Braunschweig, Bremen, Kiel, Regensburg (Baseball is really popular here), Mannheim, Münster, Augsburg,, Kassel, Saarbrücken, Magdeburg and so on ;)
Hope you don’t see this as disrespectful or rude and feel offended. Not my Intention, just trying to help and spin this further, adjust here and there. If I stepped over the line, please excuse. Thanks for inspiring. Take care, from a devoted Bills/Knicks/Yanks/Isles fan, greetz from Munich.
Do the natives really refer to Köln as Cologne? I understand the French spelling rolls off the tongue better, but that’s hard to wrap my head around. Your input is much appreciated, though!
Having studied German and lamented that baseball isn’t popular there — I still remember the Fußball ist König lesson from my high school textbook and the soccer game involving Eintracht Frankfurt — I really liked these concepts. Even the slightly unusual naming doesn’t bother me; I’ve seen my share of amateur teams in Japan with English-based names that a native speaker would never use!
I particularly liked Wiesbaden’s number-above-the-name sleeveless jerseys, and the ice-blue of the Polar Bears. But my favorites have to be the dark blue Munich uniforms with the white pinstripes and no names on the backs. If only the Yankees had gone that way in the ’70s when they almost went with color on the road!
Mark, you have unmasked me! Redesigning the Yankees (or Red Sox or Cardinals) would be slaughtering a sacred cow. But brand new teams created out of whole cloth have no traditions, and I can make the uniforms I always wanted.
I also thought there should be a team called “the Cheetahs”, a mascot unused where English is spoken, for obvious reasons.
Very nice work, Walter (the wobbly translation facts have been pointed out) but no Hannover? I suggest as an expansion team the Hannover Ritter (Knights) in maroon, white and lime green!
I realized an expansion would be necessary when I overlooked Dortmund, Bremen and Hannover. Do I just put a team in the eighteen largest cities, or try to spread them evenly around the country?