Browns sign former Pettine player in Isaiah Trufant
March 12, 2014Pic: Haden, Gordon and Sheard welcome Dansby and Whitner to team in style
March 12, 2014Uni-Watch creator Paul Lukas talks about the pendulum of uniform changes. Is change really inevitable? If so does that mean design will always push against tradition?
The Browns will reveal new uniforms sometime around the 2015 draft. While I usually hate change for the sake of just changing, I don’t think this is the apocalypse of Cleveland sports. Lukas says that fans usually fall into two camps, the newer is always better and the get off my lawn groups. I don’t think that has to be the case. Take us through the process. Explain things to us. Give me a reason to jump on board. When the Seahawks incorporated the 12th man (the fans) in their design? I was jealous. It doesn’t have to be a gimmick. [Lukas/Uniwatch]
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Former Tribe pitcher and now broadcaster Jensen Lewis talked with FanGraphs about pitchers coming to spring training and trying new pitches. We already reported that Zach McAllister is working on a slider. In the interview Lewis discusses why pitchers resort to these new pitches. Some, like former Indian CC Sabathia have to do something to make up for diminishing velocity. Most simply don’t have overpowering stuff and have to constantly tweak being deceptive. It’s a good read. [Collette/FanGraphs]
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The Akron RubberDucks are holding a name the mascot contest. You can’t see the new mascot yet, as they aren’t unveiling him until opening day. Winner gets season tickets. Make your jokes about winning season tickets to a AA baseball team, but Akron does a good job.
I had the chance to sit and talk with owner Ken Babby last fall. I came away from the interview impressed. He doesn’t strike me as a guy out to prove he’s the smartest guy in the room. He’s a dad first, and knows how to surround himself with good people.
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Since we’re showing personal flavor in WWW now, I thought I’d chime in with the occasional board game banter. A while back I wrote about the other hobby of mine and had a decent response to the piece. So this week I’m presenting a newer game that my family really loves.
The game is called SteamPark. The object is to have the most profitable theme park. It has a steam punk setting, and the artwork is just fantastic. All of the components are quality, and there are plenty of them. The game involves several mechanics, but the primary one is a dice race. Each player has a set of dice with action symbols on them. Players simultaneously roll their dice in a race to see who can get the actions they want and claim the earliest turn cards. These cards determine order of play and have special bonuses or penalties. It is a really cool twist on typical dice rolling.
Players can build rides, attract visitors (which may or may not stay in your park), install stands such as concessions or bathrooms, clean your park, expand your grounds or apply bonus cards. There are multiple ways to make your park profitable, but be careful not to ignore your growing dirt problem. At the end of the six rounds that dirt can have a serious penalty.
The game plays 2-4, and with the six turn limit really shouldn’t take more than 45 minutes after you learn it. It says 10+ on the box, but my nine year old loves it and does just fine without any concessions given. You will likely have to get this one online or at a local comics/games shop. No Target, WalMart or Toys R Us deals yet.
12 Comments
I’m intrigued by Steam Park. Sounds pretty cool.
About uniforms, Lukas writes, “Meanwhile, more and more teams are seeming to accept the notion that getting attention for anything, no matter how ridiculous, is a self-validating media strategy. All of this points to a greater incentive for outrageous uniforms rather than sedate ones.”
Isn’t that kind of pathetic?
The problem with so many of the recent uniform changes is that their sole purpose is to be so garish as to draw lots of attention to how bad they are. I guess that’s a lot easier than designing a uni that draws attention because it is so beautiful.
There should be a point to uniform changes. They should be designed with an intelligent reason in mind. What is the purpose of the Buccaneers’ digital alarm clock numbers? How does this convey anything about the team or the city? They’re just a stupid gimmick, and the NFL should be embarrassed about this.
Let’s hope that Lukas is right in believing that uniforms can be changed for the better, not for the shock value.
TB’s digital numbers are just a failed concept design. They are supposed to represent knife slash marks from Buccaneers creating the numbers.
I take it you’re kidding.
Jeez, even Comic Sans would have been better.
Arena League teams would embarrassed to wear those uni’s, they are simply the worst.
strange, disqus seems to be eating comments today, but someone posted a link to the Bucs official site that showed I was, in fact, not joking here.
Yeah, I got an email message that “biggdbo” posted the following reply:
“From the Bucs’ website:
“Custom name and number fonts feature beveled edges inspired by historical Buccaneer blade carvings, echoing the modern industrial design inspiration.”
http://www.buccaneers.com/news/article-1/New-Uniform-Design-Unveiled/b8944519-d276-482a-a9e7-d800fabb9401%29
His comment was there for a minute and then it disappeared. I thought maybe he changed his mind for some reason.
Disqus was acting weird yesterday, and some of my comments as well as replies to my comments were not showing up. I have my comment section arranged from oldest to newest. So I switched from newest to oldest and then back again, and then the missing comments magically appeared.
Anyway, mg, you weren’t kidding. That certainly is a failed concept. Look at that font. (I can’t figure out how to make it bigger or why there are two of them.) How on earth could anyone think that this represents a sword slash. Seriously, this is a terrible design job and some designer made a lot of money conning the NFL into believing that it’s “cutting edge,” so to speak. The NFL is in denial; the emperor has bad clothes.
Well, the pix are bigger and now there are five of them for some reason. Oh well.
5x the hideousness. yes, I don’t get why anyone bought those as sword slashes. you would think they wouldn’t fit together so nicely on the edges if that is what they were going for and that each slash would look the same (how does the middle of the 2 slash like that?).
anyways, completely agree on the “emperor has no clothes” comment for NFL uniform design here.
Um, the Bengals uniforms are holding on line two for you…
Yeah, not sure what’s going on with Disqus, but we’ve been having comments disappear and reappear at random for a couple days now.
I don’t think the actual uniforms are bad as a whole, it’s the number (and likely name as well) font that is hideous, and the pant stripe should go up and down the entire pant leg, not just a portion.