* What’s with the sidewalls on the new baseball caps this spring? Something special for the fashion designers in the audience? Enough with the stylish enhancements. Baseball uniforms ought to be lumpy, misshapen and preferably made of wool (cf., the St. Louis Browns, circa 1939). That allows the players a chance to sweat out the booze and pills from the night before.
* Can we look forward to new designs on batting helmets, too? It only took them 30 years to realize that bigger holes in the top might make the helmets a little more comfortable in the sun. I’m worried, though, that they might push for more aerodynamic structures, and the helmets will start to look like the Coneheads kind of things that Olympic lugers wear.
* Is it redundant to call them “Olympic lugers”? Or is there a semi-pro circuit I’m unaware of?
* It’s time to start a pool to predict the first time that Lou Piniella will throw a water cooler onto the field in frustration. And by that, I mean, the first time during spring training.
* FWIW, I haven’t met a single Cub fan this year who will give a stronger prediction for 2007 than sighing and saying “It’s going to be an … interesting … year.” (Discounting the usual, die-hard crap about how the Cubs are now due, and are strong enough and pure-of-heart enough to conquer Middle Earth.)
* You’ve probably heard of how the White Sox have taken sponsorship money from 7-11 stores and will start all their night games at 7:11 pm. Will that make me want to stop more at 7-11? Maybe. For starters, I’d buy a big bag of peanuts to smuggle into the park, because a 5-oz bag only costs a buck at 7-11, versus $5.75 inside Comiskey (prices approximate).
* I don’t mind the new UnderArmor ads on the outfield doors at Wrigley Field. Be realistic. How else can the team afford to pay for talent like Jacque Jones?
* Believe it or not, now you can order an offical MLB-licensed urn for your cremated ashes. What’s even funnier is the headline that Deadspin put on their post about it:
“Not A Gift You’d Give to a Tigers Pitcher”
* And finally, here’s a picture I found a few weeks ago in the bottom of a box, of outfielder Jim Northrup (a childhood hero) modelling the first ever appearance of the color orange on a Detroit Tigers uniform. While this one’s not a blight like various White Sox or Astros uniforms over the years, thirty-five years later, I still think it’s crap. Orange simply doesn’t belong on a baseball jersey, not even if the team is from Florida. Thankfully the Tigers’ home uniforms are still the classic white with the old English D.
Remember the Astros uniforms from the mid-70’s? Hoo, boy. Profoundly unbaseball-like.
Those uniforms would have been a disgrace at a Dairy Queen.