Baseball
Birds of a Feather: The Double Knits
New uniforms. Is there anything so exciting as that? The prospect that maybe, just maybe, the perfect design will be unveiled. In the 70’s a big change in the way ball players dressed themselves took place. In came the era of the double knit. Polyester replaced flannel, but much more than just material changed.
Many teams took the chance to streamline and reinvent just what a baseball uniform was. Troublesome things like buttons and belts gave way to pull-over style jerseys and elastic snap waistbands. Polyester also gave way to bold new colors, exhibited by the prevalence of the baby blue road uni several teams had, and the greens, golds, and blacks of the A’s and Pirates.
The O’s made the switch in ’71 and things get a bit complicated. So, the home uniform design didn’t 
change drastically, in true O’s fashion. The script remained the same, the buttons stayed, the little bit of neck piping stayed. The biggest change (along with the polyester) came with the new tri-color striping that appeared down the legs, around the arms, and on the elastic waistband. The caps stayed the same, and the database shows the socks changing to solid orange this year, which they did eventually, but there are photos of the O’s in the polyesters wearing the striped socks, so…take from that whatever you will. The year is most notable for one of the biggest uniform debacles ever.
The story on the street is that the all orange atrocities came at legend-hero-hall-of-famer Brooks Robinson’s request, as it related to a sports apparel business that he had a stake in. Fortunately nobody was under the delusion that they looked good and stories range from the O’s having worn them as little as once and as much as a handful of times.
The next big change came for the 1973 year. The Baltimore script was pulled from the road jerseys in favor of the same Orioles script that was on the home jerseys. The reasons for this bears some explaining. Washington D.C. had just recently lost their Senators and so the O’s brass saw the opportunity to brand the team as more of a regional entity. Many debate whether such an effect ever really took place, but in any event, Baltimore wouldn’t return to the road jerseys for 35 years.
1975 brought a new cap, the tri-color, black back, white front, 
orange bill cap. Also introduced was the orange pullover alternate jersey. A cap with an orange front was around for a scant two years. This main uniform, however, became the standard all the way up until the 1989 change. Also of some note, the O’s wore a hybrid 40 years anniversary/world series patch in 1984.
The uniforms of this era are pretty iconic. For some O’s fans they are the best. I like them as a throwback, they are dated enough so that they are good identifiers for their time, but not so much that they just look silly (a la the Padres). It’s nice to have the throwback nights for the team and to have the smiling bird logo availiable for purchase for the fans, but it remains a throwback. So while the uniform which saw some of the best years in the Orioles’ history has earned a place as a classic, it’s far from timeless, and I am nonetheless happy that it’s been changed.
Birds of a Feather: The Flannel Years
By Stephen Turk
Uniforms are pretty subjective. I think most people, sports fans and non-sports fans alike, can agree on a handful of basic generalities when it comes to what is nice, what looks good, and what works when it comes to uniforms. But those little details, the nitty-gritty things can really draw some deep division lines.
And so the discussion on the recently revamped Orioles uniforms inspires a good bit of healthy discussion amongst fans. Everyone has a perfect uniform in their head, that dream look that goes woefully unfulfilled. Indeed, I’ve spent many a worrisome hour thinking “why can’t the team just know what I want and do it?”
My perfect idea is a combination of some older designs and some things pulled from other places. I think most people have a similar situation, never feeling like any one set was ever absolutely perfect.
So here is a brief uniform history of the Baltimore Orioles. Oddly enough, though they’ve changed uniforms a good number of times, their basic design has yet in the 54, going on 55, year history of the team to really change drastically. › Continue reading
Fun with Money: Part II
By Stephen Turk
Curt Flood reintroduced the argument for free-agency to baseball, but was ultimately denied. Two years later, in 1974, Catfish Hunter would become the first free-agent due to a unique situation and a contract dispute. Hunter was prolific with the Oakland A’s, but owner Charlie Finley failed to make a payment. Hunter’s contract was deemed void and with no reserve clause to keep him, he was the first major league ball player on the open market, free to go wherever he pleased.
A bidding war ensued, reaching offers as high as five years, $4.5 million. Hunter took a deal with the Yankees, five years at $3.5 million with incentives. The nightmare scenario that Bouton talked about in Ball Four had happened, players knew how much they were worth. If a great pitcher could get that money, then other great pitchers should be getting it. And if that was the case then great position players and hitters should make comparable amounts, if not more for their everyday play. And if that was to be the going rate for great players, then certainly the pay gap between great players and good players should be smaller. But perhaps the greatest new feature going on here was the fact that this was a multi-year deal. That meant guaranteed money, that meant stability and wealth that ball players had never experienced and were quick to welcome. › Continue reading
Fun with Money: Part I
As a fan, I have no problem extolling the importance of the fan in sports. It is the most important role. The fan is the heralder, the bookkeeper, the archivist, and the backbone to the whole system. But in today’s world of sports, with huge contracts, expensive tickets and merchandise, and greed all around, there is much talk about the average fan being priced out of their pastime.
So let’s look at the institution of free-agency in baseball, arguably a big piece of the inflating contracts bubble. › Continue reading
What’s in a Name?
By Stephen Turk
As the baseball playoffs go on, it’s got me thinking about the names of the team s involved. We have the Boston Red Sox, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers, Red Sox, and Phillies have all been around for a long time, and as such their team names came about in different ways than teams that came about later. The Rays, of course, are one of these later teams, and looking at the stories behind the names, yields some interesting stories, as well as tracks some of the changes that have occurred in sports.
Let’s look at the three old time teams first. When pro baseball started up, there weren’t official team names for many of them. They would be the baseball club from Hyannisport or wherever. Nicknames often came about from sportswriters making an alliteration of the coaches name, relating them to a popular trend, or merely pointing out a common element of their play or uniform detail. › Continue reading
Thermodynamic Spectating
I remember in elementary school the many motivational posters that hung on the wall. One inf
ormed the class that math was not a spectator sport. While the poster didn’t make me any more enthusiastic about math, it did teach me what a spectator was. However, somewhere between reading sports blogs, posting on sports blogs, jumping up and down at games, buying merchandise, and generally getting way too into something that I have no real impact on, I realised that indeed spectating was not a spectator sport.
As a result, I often wonder why. I frequently wonder, “what is that thing that makes sports so engaging?” To this end, one of my more recent interests in sports, and indeed the focus of this blog, is sports history. By nature of statistics and records, history is always relevant. So when a game has occurred, when it is all said in done, there are endless comparisons (justified or not) that can be made. After the fact, you can look back and pick out all the moments which proved pivotal in the game.
Draft Ty Cobb On Your Fantasy Team Part II
By Stephen Turk
When I think of fundamental baseball, I think of the old style of play. And when I think of the old style of play, I think about hard nosed grinding. I think of going out there and getting it done any way possible, stealing bases, railroading guys in the base paths, getting whatever foreign substance on the ball that can be gotten away with. I certainly don’t think about hitting the ball over the fence and keeping the uniform clean. Down and dirty was the way Ty Cobb played the game, and he was the best.
Draft Ty Cobb On Your Fantasy Team Part I
By Stephen Turk
Here at the end of the regular season for baseball, we get to see all the season stats! I’m not much of a stat head. Indeed, the longer I follow sports, the more I learn and see, the less I can really be absolutely sure about. So when an interesting stat comes about, like how a recent AP article ( http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/09/29/leaders.season.ap/index.html) reports that home runs are down at a 15 year low, my mind goes in about a million different directions to try to explain it. The article quotes a couple of big leaguers blaming everything 
from steroids, bigger stadiums, and squishy baseballs.
First and foremost, it could be an aberration. There definitely needs to be a few more years of lower home runs to think of it as a trend, but as with anything in sports, it’s fun to speculate. Steroids of course are mentioned, but my favorite quote comes from Torii Hunter mentioning that the game is being played in the old style (he says as a result of the ballparks, but I’m not so sure about that).
As someone with an interest in sports history, I really like that idea, but looking at the stats, which anyone can do at www.baseballreference.com and likely understand more than me, this season has shown that hitting in general is down. Does this mean that pitching is better? That steroid testing is taking effect? That guys are trying to do different things at the plate? Are the minors different? Is coaching different?
Sports Games: Stickball
While legions of people occupy their virtual sports time with video games, it’s interesting to look at just how far the simulation of sports has come. For nearly as long as professional sports have been popular, people have found ways to shrink them down in to related, yet entirely different, games and simulations.
So starts a series in which I will look back at what we can call “sports games.” While clearly a redundant title, a sports game, simply put, is a game based off of an organized sport.
Chronologically speaking, the first thing I could think of was stickball. Now, you may be thinking “hold on, that isn’t a simulation, that’s a sport,” but I include it here because while it may be closer to an actual sport than say a sports toy, the game is an adaptation. The important thing is that it embraces the imagination, which is the entire basis of a sports game.
I missed the stickball era, and as a suburban kid, I had little league and grassy fields to play around in. As such I’m even more fascinated with all the ins and outs and the shear inguinity and resilance of the game. I mean check out that photo, there’s that intangible charm that comes from legions of babies playing on cobbled roads. That wagon is no slouch either.