SFGiants58

It doesn’t feel wrong to me. I wanted the whole team gone after the reverse-sweep. Trade and release the rotten core, while building towards a new generation. Marleau is a good guy, but he needed to leave to help the franchise reboot. My only regret is that Joe Thornton didn’t sign with another team. I really don’t want his quasi-dirty play on the Sharks anymore.

That works for me as well.

The board was showing me a “banned” message when I was trying to browse with mobile data. I wonder what was up with that.

I like it! Having only orange socks is a good option, especially with the simple pants stripe. The new font fits well with the wordmark. Overall, it's far cleaner than anything the team has worn since the pre-tiger stripe helmet period. Good work.

He made dupes, so he’s not eligible (good). That rule also means that VictoriaGooner, various low-level trolls, and Louie can’t come back. It does mean that guys like McCall, FunkyBunky, and ICS are A-OK. Of course, that all depends on how the mods feel about them.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for answering.

I'm curious, what was the motivation behind adding an appeals system for banned users?

I like this variant a bit more: Still, knock the royal/yellow and BiG all you want, but they are everywhere in Milwaukee. In the two years that I've lived here, I haven't gone a day without seeing the royal/yellow colors and the BiG on some piece of clothing, a house decoration, a car accessory, or some other form of display. It's almost as prevalent as the Packers' logo or the UW-Madison Badger's "Bucky Badger." Anecdotal evidence is usually horse crap, but I do think it counts for something here.

Track #1, last time I checked. I’m just happy we won’t get any of the stupid imagery brought about by that name’s interaction with MiLB/Indy League aesthetics.

Ah, that makes sense. Shouldn’t be hard for a major-league team to do. Of course, it’s probably too late to change it now. Had it been 1969, things might have transpired to allow it to happen. Can’t really throw out roughly a half-century of brand equity (of all the 1969 expansion teams, the Royals have kept the closest to their initial brand).

There’s a key difference. That American Association team was mundane, with a name taken by the St. Louis NHL team. The Monarchs were a long-lasting Negro League team in the founding city of the Negro Leagues. There are no Big Four teams with the “Monarchs” name. Monarchs > Blues, from a historical and branding perspective. “Royals” is an OK compromise, but the Blues really aren’t worthy of that honor. Let them be a footnote compared to the Monarchs’ legacy. Besides, the Blues were a Yankee farm team. I’d think that the baseball fans of Kansas City would want nothing to do with an homage to a “Yankee farm team,” after that toadie Arnold Johnson ran the Kansas City A’s as one. We have enough teams named after old minor league franchises, why not have one squad named after a Negro League club? What better club than the one playing in Kansas City? Also, look at how many games the Royals have played in Monarchs throwbacks vs. the amount in Blues uniforms. It clearly favors the Monarchs.

Is it bad that I can’t really think about lobsters without remembering Homer’s short-lived pet?

I’ve kind of soured on all aspects of the Royals’ identity over the past year or so. The Name: While it’s a fine name, there exists a better alternative - the Kansas City Monarchs. It’s not a direct riff on the livestock show as much as it is slight homage. Monarchs was more importantly the name of the famed Negro League team. With Kansas City being so important to the Negro Leagues (and the site of the Negro League Museum), the name makes sense. However, the Royals started playing in 1969, when no major league owners really cared about the Negro Leagues. The Colors: We’ve all heard about how they’re derivative of the Dodgers and that they should incorporate more gold or powder blue into their identity. However, that’d still leave them a blue team. I’ve long believed that the team should have rocked purple and yellow from day one. It was coming into vogue as a color scheme, looked fantastic (and unique in baseball), and had just as much of a “royal” connotation as blue. Purple has been a color of royalty since Antiquity (in Europe, Asia, and Polynesia), while gold has connotations of wealth. The cap logo: I’ve long preferred the Monarchs/Athletics style of KC logo. It has more “heft” to the design. The scripts and uniform template are decent, but I prefer the style with more prominent trim: Imagine this, but with purple/yellow/purple striping.

Yes. What was wrong with green/red? They one their lone title in those colors, wore them for longer than any other combo (AFAIK). Sure, the recent run in that colorway was messy, but it’s still their classic look.

Eh, I've grown to like kelly green a lot more for the A's. It's just a brighter, "happier" look than the forest green and harkens back to the "Swingin' A's" of the 1970s, a far more successful dynasty than the "Bash Brothers" or the Moneyball period. Such a contrast also sets them off from the "darker" Giants, for those who care about that sort of thing (e.g. royal Mets v. navy Yankees, blue Dodgers v. red Angels, etc.). While forest looks fabulous with the athletic gold, a darker kelly (like what the Dallas Stars use) would be perfect. I even did a mock-up of the A's with the Dallas Stars' green: Again, a happy medium of kelly and forest would be best for them. As for the Jets, I'm fine with either kelly or forest. Just make sure there's no black and that they have a white helmet with a green facemask and black cleats.

I just wish they had redesigned the lighthouse to make it more crest-like, with the "NY-stick with four stripes" as a shoulder patch. Speaking of 1990s logos for classy teams, I wish the A's kept these versions of the elephant logo around. I'd replace the grey with white (John McGraw didn't call the Athletics a grey or a green elephant), but they make for a fantastic modern interpretation of the classic logo. If they needed some whimsy (like the vintage/current crest), I'd suggest using a sun-free version of the Spring Training variant. An elephant wearing sunglasses is both whimsical and cool!

Of all of the potential new names for the Cleveland Indians that get thrown around on social media and on these boards, "Naps"/"Napoleons" is my least favorite. While "Spiders" has the stigma of "worst team ever" (counterbalanced by "Cy Young played for them, and the 'worst team ever' was because their owners owned another NL team) and "Blues" sounds too much like Blue Jays, "Naps" is just a bad name all around. Allow me to explain: 1. The name was an homage to Nap Lajoie, one of the best deadball-era players and a player-manager. However, he has descended into relative obscurity compared to similarly-abled deadball players (e.g., Ty Cobb) and Cleveland baseball players (correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no dedications to him at Progressive Field or in the city at large). I guess the name could be an educational opportunity for some fans, but his overall significance to the franchise has lessened over time. Names like the "Cleveland Fellers" or the "Cleveland Dobys" would be more appropriate. 2. They could always shift the name to a certain French general/monarch. However, that produces problems. There is a standard anglophonic antipathy towards Napoleon Bonaparte, hence the historically-inaccurate idea of the "Napoleon Complex" for short guys and unsympathetic depiction in historical media. Just look at Goya's "The Third of May, 1808" and see why it's a bad idea to name a team after the guy. 3. "Naps" sounds too much like a certain WWII-era slur for the Japanese. When getting away from a "racial" name, don't switch to something that's one vowel away from a racial slur. Names like "Spiders," "Blues (guitar-themed, to not infringe on the St. Louis NHL team)," "Guardians (for those cool statues right by Progressive Field)," and even "Fellers/Dobys" are all better choices than "Naps"/"Napoleons." I'd rather they keep the "Indians" name over bringing back "Naps" or some "Cleveland Baseball Club" moniker.

That’s only unpopular here, where a bunch of people ignore that the team won three Stanley Cups in red/black and that fans prefer it. Heck, you’ve got people saying that red/green are their “true colors” despite all of their success coming in red/black. These people also do the same for the royal/yellow Mariners, which I find silly (but slightly more understandable, given the M’s problems).

I get where you’re coming from on that, but it’s just weird to me. Had the team changed their naming from Paul Brown to Jim Brown (inarguably the best player in team history), that might have resolved the issue. Of course, Jim Brown has had some hefty legal accusations thrown his way over the years, so I doubt that’d fly. To me, that’s like having the Washington Landrys or the Green Bay Hallases. Naming a team after their founder/long-time leader just comes off poorly as time goes on. The key example of this would be the Charlotte Bobcats. While I’m a fan of several teams that did just that and generally support that idea, I still think the Browns should have left their old identity behind when moving. The relocation process was so wrought with pain and was such a PR disaster that the name should have changed. While the Giants/Dodgers relocations may have been just as painful, this was before a modern focus on branding. My best guess is that it took the Colts and North Stars moving for the “change the name” approach to really take off in Big Four sports. It’s not that much more of a chore. All it’d take in today’s world is a quick google search or a glance in a records book. It’s no different from Sen(ational)ors to Twins or Expos to Nationals. That’s the ideal course for any “pained” relocation of a historically-significant team. I’m pretty sure no hockey fans in Atlanta want the Trashers’ franchise history, and I believe I speak for many Sharks fan when I say that we don’t want the Seals’ crummy records/history (“unmerger” notwithstanding).

Here’s a “garbage” post that’ll get me a lot of flak: I’d love it if the Browns changed their name to something like “Bulldogs.” They aren’t the same team as the old Browns (no matter how much the NFL tries to pretend otherwise), and they’ve sullied the legacy of their namesake team by being mediocre to horrendous for their entire existence (e.g., only one playoff appearance in their history). It’s time to acknowledge the truth about the team, give the records back to the Ravens, and build a new team identity (albeit one with the old Browns’ colors, can’t go too far). Also, the Brown family founded the Bengals and play at Paul Brown Stadium. I don’t like that they’re named after a guy who wound up founding a division rival. I know now that I’ll get heat for that opinion, but I’ve long felt this way. The “Browns” name should rest in the same grave as the Oilers’ identity. Also, Baltimore Ravens > Baltimore Browns. When a local name is that good, you can’t pass it up.

Yeah, the bagginess was pretty bad a lot of the time. Almost nobody could pull off the whole “wearing clothing several sizes too large” schtick. I’d argue that hockey had it the worst (using the Islanders and their classic template as an example): Baggy messed with traditional designs, leaving teams with disproportionally-sized crests and too much jersey material. It’s like the sports equivalent of this outfit: It’s got simple parts, but with overly-loose tailoring and sizing. Also, Bank Gothic was surprisingly popular at the time. I like Bank Gothic as an all-uppercase font. As for baseball’s retro push, I like that the 1990s set up a bunch of classic designs to return, be it wholesale or with modernizations. My only regret is that this period featured too many teams wearing pinstripes. If it were up to me, the Yankees, Mets, Phillies, Cubs, White Sox, and Twins would be the only teams wearing them.

Hey! There was some good fashion that decade. Flannel's comeback was nice, and some of the bagginess was OK (just as a reaction to 1980s tightness - all fashion trends are reactions to the ones that preceded them). However, the bad trends of the decade just wound up looking exceptionally garish in the modern period: A lot of ill-fitting colors, excessive bagginess, and the overuse of graphics really looks nasty in retrospect. Some of it was a reaction to the 1980s or the early-1990s, while some of it was pushing burgeoning graphics software too far. Just because Adobe Illustrator 5 or 6.1 let you use gradients and cool text features doesn't mean that it was a good idea to throw it all together. The same went for uniforms of the time. Some of it turned out well, while some of it was wacky experimentation with new tools. For every tasteful design, you got a terrible one to go with it: Speaking of the above images, unpopular opinion is that I have a soft spot for the 1998-2007 Sharks' uniforms. While I have no illusions about their poor quality or the baggy tailoring, I can't help but love the wacky elements coming together. I know they're garish, but I like them more than anything the Sharks have done post-2007 with those dull colors.

You know, I just love the outlandishness of the design. The big logos, big stripes, and sublimated mesh on their own would be bad, but they look so oddly perfect together. It’s also nice to see red with such prominence in the design, justifying the red facemask. The NASCAR numbers I could do without, but the idea to use drop shadows was an inspired one.

The Barons look pretty good! I like the Ohio State-style stripes, and the top hat is a good touch. My only complaint would be the grey socks on the home uniform and the number font (which doesn’t mesh well with the Old English lettering). Good work.

Yeah, the expanded '04-'11 set really doesn't look good. It introduces problems not present in the released set. These include the crummy "5" in the numbers, that weird "T" on the "Toronto" script, and whatever is going on with that "J." It's like finding out that the Producer's Cut of Halloween 6 was just as bad as the theatrical version, albeit in different ways.