Ferdinand Cesarano

I am happy to have contributed to your education. (All of the hockey players shown in this thread are completely unknown to me.)

Tony Meola never played for the Jets in the regular season. But this still counts. Anyway, this thread jumped the shark long ago, as the recent mention of Shaq in Orlando conclusively proves. I should flog myself for continuing to contribute to it! The standard should be Namath with the Rams or Killebrew with the Royals -- teams that no one would associate with the player without the pictorial reminder. There are only a handful of such cases. And, by that standard, Meola would qualify, but Jordan would not, because everybody remembers Jordan in a Sox uniform that spring, especially his hit against the Cubs at Wrigley.

I guess this counts as an unpopular opinion, but I'd say that aesthetics are pretty severly compromised here. I've always considered Maryland's flag to be a big mess, with the shoving together of two disparate elements, and the pointless repetition of these elements. The flag of Baltimore is more coherent.

Well, it's evidently not only New Yorkers who conflate "draw" and "drawer". Tonight I was watching the episode of Match Game that aired last Wednesday, February 8, and Vivica A. Fox (from Indianapolis) gave an answer that was meant to be "droopy drawers". Look how she spelt it.

I suppose that they get to play as much as do the midfielders and defenders on the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers.

Yes, I am sure I did see that word, for example in a newspaper ad. But it evidently didn't make much of an impression. So when I finally realised that it was indeed a separate word, my reaction was more along the lines of "oh, yeah, that's right". I am sure that a similar phenomenon took place with my lawyer friend. He surely would have seen and understood the word; but it sort of passed under his radar, and didn't make an impact strong enough to displace the misunderstood sense of "draw".

I have to admit that I have never heard of this pronunciation. But that reminds me of an interesting lingusitic phenomenon found here in New York: the conflation of the words "drawer" and "draw". For people outside New York, the difference between the word "drawer" and the word "draw" is the audible R at the end of "drawer". But for us in New York, that difference is minimal, even nonexistent. Our accent makes these words sound so similar that there are many people who aren't even aware that the word "drawer" exists. They think that the noun for the compartment in a cabinet is "draw" -- it's something that you draw, so it's a draw! I recently talked to a highly educated, highly literate lawyer in my office who thought that; and I admit that I thought that until late high school or perhaps early college. I would have written "chest of draws". This confusion is further encouraged by the existence of the noun "draw" in the context of cards, and in the phrase "luck of the draw". (NOTE: I am aware that this diversion has nothing to do with the ostensible topic of this thread. But, if I am going to be honest, I would say that this thread has lost all its value and can only benefit from any sort of diversion. In all of sports history there are about a dozen players who would qualify as really being odd to see in a uniform other than the one with which they are primarily associated; and all of them were mentioned in the first couple of pages of this thread -- ten years ago! This thread has long since degraded into a place to list any player who has ever changed teams, and then it was further devalued by the listing of players in uniform styles different from their main ones. Oy! So if any place is ripe for a little language-related derailing, it's this thread. Only on account of this will a reader find something worthwhile here.)

While the 1625 date is not precisely correct, it is not meaningless or arbitrary. A better date would be 1624, which is when the Dutch started placing settlers in New Amsterdam; ideally, this is what the flag should say. The most notable thing that happened in 1625 was that New Amsterdam became the capital of the entire New Netherland colony (which extended up the Hudson River to Albany, and also included all of today's New Jersey). But 1664 was always wrong. The date in the seal was changed from 1664 partly out of hostility to England on the part of an Irish-born New York politician of the 1970s. But, regardless of the motives of this one politician, the fact is that our City was founded not by the English but by the Dutch; and the seal should reflect that. So, the date of 1625 is a tad off; but it is much better than 1664. And I am happy to report that the City's flag will appear on the jerseys of NYCFC this year. The team has done a good job utilising the New York City flag. Their corner flags are New York City flags with the NYCFC logo in place of the seal (so City flags with the City logo).

I believe they did. The seal had, by the 1960s and 1970s, come to be drawn with very thin lines. The versions of the flag since then (when the date was corrected from 1664 to 1625) have presented the seal in broader strokes that are more easily discerned from a distance.

On account of the fact that "Houndogs" is not a word, I am glad that this team did not materialise. The colours and helmet are reminiscent of the CFL's Memphis Mad Dogs.

This should be your city's flag:

The tricolour would have been nice if that had been the choice from the beginning. But the seal is clear enough, with figures representing the Dutch and the Lenape. Also, the seal has been sharpened up since the 1970s, and is recognisable even at a distance. So I don't think I'd want to drop it now, notwithstanding the obvious aesthetic appeal of the simple tricolour. I tend to think of our flag as pretty much untouchable. Side note: I wear it on my bike helmet, along with the flags of Philadelphia and Washington, cities to which I have ridden.

In the recent conversation, I don't think the question of "carbon copies" ever came up. (Even though I do admire the teams that take this approach, such as the Paw Sox used to do.) The position that I took up in that debate was that an observer should be able to identify a minor league team's parent organisation at a glance. I further argued that this standard does not prevent a minor league team from having its own identity, supporting this assertion with examples from the histories of the Buffalo Bisons, the Syracuse Chiefs, and the Tidewater Tides. This Memphis Redbirds uniform set provides more support for that viewpoint. Though we should note that the Redbirds' nickname, unlike those of the Bisons, Chiefs, or Tides, is tied to the parent club's identity. (For a while, the team was actually owned by the Cardinals, Braves-style.) In the case of this Memphis team, the separate identity resides entirely in the city name, and the inextricable association that that city has with music. This uniform set gives prominence to the thing that ties the Redbirds to the Cardinals (the bird), while also featuring music-related elements (the notes on the M logo; the neon which is reminicent of a honky-tonk bar). And it does this by means of a beautiful wordmark and cap logo. Excellent.

If we're dealing with Giants-Chargers matchups, then let's go to 1975 at Shea Stadium (the Giants' only year of calling that park home). The Giants wore that beautiful uniform for only one season; so every game they played that year constituted a rare matchup. And I would submit that anyone who fails to recognise that this is the Giants' best look ever is out of his/her bloody mind. All of these shots come from This Week in Pro Football for week 7 of 1975.

I will claim the right to answer briefly the question that was put directly to me: there is no irony but a consistency, a commitment in both instances to the accurate description of reality. I'll note also that my initial comments on the Estionian flag were all design-related, starting with my critical comment about its deviation from vexillological norms, through my comment conceding at the sight of a dramatically stunning photo that this deviation was justified, and going right through to the comment in which I added the hammer and sickle (a symbol which I not only love for its profound meaning, but which I admire for the beauty of its design). My most recent long comment was in response to two question that were put directly to me. I'll not continue the conversations about history and ideology right here; but, because flags are used primarily to express identity and deeply-held principles (as everyone who likes flags knows), we ought not be surprised that a discussion of flags should include such a detour.

Yes. The Soviet Union liberated Estonia and the other Baltic states from the Nazis after Germany had violated the non-aggression pact by invading those countries. (This should be no surprise, as the Soviet Union ultimately saved the entire world by defeating the Nazis.) Even though the Soviet Union descended into autocracy in the late Stalin period, and later further degraded into cronyism, it was on the whole a liberating and civilising force. It was the first state not based on any of the traditional evils of crowns, gods, or property, but on self-government by the workers -- by the people who create all value apart from the natural. In this centennial year of the Soviet Union"s founding, class-conscious proletarians reflect on its proud legacy. This is a legacy which reverberates globally, as the Revolution and the successful decades immediately thereafter inspired workers to unite and to work for our collective interests. Every worker-protection law in the world can ultimately be traced back to social movements that were energised and inspired by the victory of workers in seizing state power in the Soviet Union. The founding of the Soviet Union as the world's first workers' state will forever stand as the high point in human history. This is why I proudly fly the Soviet flag at home and at work. (In both cases next to the Esperanto flag and the flag of New York City.)

That's what happens when one proceeds from such a faulty premise.

Speaking of the Nets, these are so wrong that looking at them makes me stabby: Nah, man! Let me get that pollution out of my mind: Ahhh. That's better.

The absolute nature of this pronouncement of mine might be exaggerated eeeever so slightly. But the principle that a minor-league team should look like its parent -- that an organisation should have a unified look -- is a sound one. If there were a few exceptions to this principle here and there, that wouldn't bother me, and might even be charming. But minor-league teams having their own looks seems now to have become the norm, and that's unfortunate. There really ain't that many "special" minor-league identities! What's more, the uniforms are getting farther from the Major League aesthetic standard, at the same time as the nicknames are becoming ever sillier (Fire Frogs, Yard Goats, Rumble Ponies, Baby Cakes). So I guess I am cranky about it because I almost feel humiliated by proxy for these players who have to wear these awful designs and who will have to come to terms with being a Fire Frog or a Baby Cake. When I see a matchup like the one in the video, in which the players look like grown-up professionals, it gives me a feeling of relief. And then I immediately get annoyed as I understand why I felt that relief -- because the contemporary visual standard in the minor leagues is so terrible.

There are many minor-league team names that are highly recognisable, such as the Toledo Mud Hens, the Indianapolis Indians, and the Buffalo Bisons. The Durham Bulls are another. But this doesn't mean that such teams shouldn't look like their parent clubs. When the Buffalo Bisons were affilliated with the White Sox, they had uniforms that looked like the White Sox. When they were affilliated with the Indians, they had uniforms that looked like the Indians. And that is precisely how it should work. Now that the team is an affilliate of the Blue Jays, they ought to look like the Blue Jays. It's good that they have an alt in the style of the Blue Jays' current uniform (albeit with red letters)... ...and that they have done a Jays-themed throwback. But the Jays-style uniform should be their primary design. This in no way compromises the uniqueness of the name "Buffalo Bisons". And this principle applies likewise to all other minor-league teams with unique nicknames and identities, regardless of level. Another good example of beautifully incorporating the parent club's aesthetic is the uniform of the Tidewater Tides from the late 1980s. There again you have a unique name (which the team has ruined by dropping the locality name "Tidewater", but that's another story), paired with the look of the parent club, the Mets. All these examples show that a minor-league team looking like the parent club does not conflict with having a unique name and identity. So I maintain that, if an observer cannot instantly tell the affilliation of a minor-league team by looking at its uniforms, then something is wrong.

I have spent the past few days listening to and watching broadcasts of baseball games from the 1930s through to the 1980s. While I was looking around on YouTube, I came across this, a telecast of an International League game between Syracuse and Columbus from 1992. Beautiful! This is exactly what a minor-league baseball game should look like -- anyone can see at a glance that it's a Blue Jays affiliate against a Yankees affiliate. (The block numbers on the Columbus uniforms don't look as good as varsity numbers would. But the uniform as a whole clearly succeeds in conveying the look of the Yankees.) And this broadcast further demonstrates that the Syracuse Chiefs of that period were the best-dressed minor-league team of all time. A couple of years later, upon the switch to button-downs and belts, they would achieve perfection. I really cannot praise these Syracuse uniforms enough. Not only are they beautiful in their own right, but they also demonstrate an important design principle, namely, the importance of looking like the organisation that you represent. Finally, uniforms such as these allow players to look like professionals, and to present themselves with dignity.

Whitson (another guy whose career Billy Martin tried to destroy) wore no. 38 with the Yankees. But that's great info about his Padres numbers.

Yes, good observation. As a kid who was so into the 1970s A's, I was annoyed that Reggie didn't wear no. 9 on his return to Oakland. It's something how, in three significant cases, New York gave a player a number that superseded his established number and that stayed with him afterwards. In addition to Reggie, there was Rickey Henderson. Rickey had become known for no. 35 with the A's. When he came to the Yankees, that number was being worn by Phil Neikro, so Rickey took no. 24. Surprisingly, when he went back to the A's four years later, he, like Reggie, kept his Yankee number rather than taking back his original A's number. That Yankee number stayed with Rickey for most of his subsequent career. When Keith Hernandez, who had worn no. 37 with the Cardinals, came to the Mets, he couldn't keep that number because it is retired for Casey Stengel; so Hernandez took no. 17. When he left the Mets and joined Cleveland, he kept no. 17. But this didn't always happen with the Yankees. Ken Griffey had worn no. 30 with the Reds; but that number on the Yankees was Willie Randolph's. Griffey wore nos. 6 and 33 with the Yankees, but went back to no. 30 upon leaving the team. Randy Johnson's no. 51 was being used on the Yankees by Bernie Williams, so Johnson took no. 41. But he resumed wearing no. 51 after he left the Yanks. Jack McDowell had worn no 29 with the White Sox, but changed to no. 19 with the Yankees because of Gerald Williams. (!) He got no. 29 back in his subsequent stop. Other notable players with long-established numbers who had to take temporary detours were Frank Robinson (no. 20, but no. 36 with the Dodgers on account of Don Sutton) and Tommy John (no. 25, but no. 35 with the Angels on account of Don Baylor). Honourable mention: Will Ferrell (no. 19, but no. 20 with the Padres on account of the number being retired for Tony Gwynn).