Ask Me Anything

The latest installment in an occasional Uni Watch series.

Editor’s Note: Uni Watch’s time on Substack will come to a close at the end of May. After that, I’ll be taking a break for at least a month, and then my Substack will return in the summer with a new name and a new subject focus. To learn more about all of this, including what it means for those of you with paid subscriptions, look here. — Paul

Hello! It’s time for the latest quarterly edition of “Ask Me Anything,” where Uni Watch readers submit questions and I do my best to respond to them.

If you want to catch up on previous AMA installments, look here. There are 11 additional editions, dating back several years (when I was calling it “Question Time” instead of AMA), here.

Without further ado, here we go:

How many backup jerseys do teams typically have for each player’s jersey?

It depends on the sport and the league. Generally speaking, though, there’s at least two of everything for the top-tier pro teams.

How do you feel about car dealership license plate frames? Since the vehicle already has a maker's mark, a dealer plate is basically a middleman mark. It’s akin to Dick’s Sporting Goods slapping a decal on the back of every pair of sneakers they sell. I always remove them as soon as we get a car home, and I’m stunned by how many people leave them on the entire time they own the vehicle.

I generally agree with you. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a car with dealer plate frames, so I’ve never had to think about whether to remove them.

If I found myself in that situation, would I swap out the frames? Maybe. I know some people feel strongly about cars as a form of personal expression, but to me a car is just a utilitarian object to get me from Point A to Point B. So the dealer’s name on my car would bother me a lot less than the New Era logo on the side of my favorite team’s cap. The dealer frame is still an unnecessary form of advertising that I’d rather not be part of, so I’d probably remove it, but it doesn’t make my blood boil the way a maker’s mark on a uniform does.

As a reader, I sometimes feel like it’s voyeuristic to read about things going on in your everyday life, especially when things aren't going well, like when you experience a break-up or the death of a beloved pet. But at the same time, maybe that's the kind of thing that helps make Uni Watch feel more like a comm-uni-ty. Do you ever feel weird or think it’s strange to share personal information about your life with your readers? Are you usually comfortable to share or do you sometimes feel like you just have to update us?

I think a lot about the lines between public and private, between sharing and oversharing, between forging connections and TMI. I think we all draw those lines in different places because we all have different comfort zones. In my case, I’m probably more comfortable than most people when it comes to sharing certain things about myself. I assure you that I don’t do it out of a sense of obligation; I do it because it feels like the natural way for me to communicate with my audience. (My hope is that it comes across as enthusiastic, not narcissistic, but that’s another dividing line I often think about.)

I do think this approach has created a sense of personal interrelatedness, or maybe even a form of intimacy, between myself and the Uni Watch readership, and also between some of the readers themselves. That’s a pretty special thing, and I’m very happy about it.

We often critique Nike for hideous uniforms, but, in each case, isn’t there someone at the team administration level who approves these atrocities? Shouldn’t we be blaming them? Or do they just give Nike free rein?

Yes, the client has the final say, so anything we see on the field was approved by the team. Generally speaking, though, teams or leagues that partner with Nike do so because they want what Nike does.

My recent interview with former Nike art director Tom Andrich, who created the NFL’s Color Rush program, was instructive in this regard. Several team owners rejected his initial Color Rush proposals, and several more wanted nothing to do with the Color Rush program. But their fellow owners had voted to approve the program, so every team had to go along with it in some manner (even if several of them sort of found a loophole by wearing solid-white).

Also, keep in mind that there are lots of things that never make it onto the field because teams and owners reject them. I know of several top-level pro teams that rejected radical redesign ideas that were presented to them over the past decade or so. So while owners and other team execs deserve some blame for what we see out there, they also deserve credit for sometimes being a bulwark against something even worse.

I moonlight as an in-seat beer vendor at all of the DC stadiums, and there is quite the heated debate in the vending community about whether one should use a strap while carrying a beer tub. From a stadium aesthetic point of view, would you prefer seeing a beer vendor (1) carry the tub with a strap around the neck connected to the tub; (2) holding the tub at chest or waist level without a strap; or (3) carrying the tub on his/her head (assuming it is not blocking anyone's vision to the field of play)?

I vote for the strap. Straps have a nice “gear factor,” and I figure they make the job easier besides.

But I was curious about the “heated debate” that the questioner referred to, so I asked him for more info on that. Here’s his response:

Some of this comes from musings on a vendor-only private Facebook group, some from idle chitchat I’ve had with other vendors over the last 15 years, but I think it can best be summarized as follows: 

1. Straps: Some of the older vendors are adamant that using a strap is the only way to avoid back pain if you vend frequently for years. The main knock against strap usage is that it isn’t “manly” enough, almost like using PEDs. I have no medical knowledge of any actual benefits of using a strap. In the DC area, it is pretty rare to see a vendor with a strap — you pretty much need to bring your own if you want to go that route, as opposed to the tub that is provided. However, one of the few vendors who do use a strap is pretty consistently one of the highest sellers. 

2. Carrying at chest or waist level: Probably makes the most sense if your tub is packed extra-high with beer and ice, to make sure things don't fall out like they might if it was on your head. But the heavier it is, the more likely you are to sag or slouch as you walk with it. I think some would say that those who carry it like this are only doing it because they can’t carry it on their heads, but that’s just my own conjecture. 

3. Head: The hardest part, especially if it’s heavier, is actually getting it up onto your head. But it’s way easier to move around once it’s up there with the weight distribution. This is the method I use most frequently, but I am always worried about blocking a fan’s view. I’m especially concerned during baseball, since you can't crouch down for every pitch like you can during a big down or drive in a football game. There is one vendor here who is able to balance the tub on his head without his hands, which I still can’t comprehend. I also try very hard to avoid wearing a hat when I use this method, because the squatchee definitely makes it uncomfortable!

Faaaascinating. You never know what you’ll learn during a Uni Watch AMA installment!

Since you announced that you are stepping away from Uni Watch, you’ve had a few posts about non-uni things that you’ve noticed in the world around you. Have you found that happening to you more now that you’ve announced your upcoming decision to leave Uni Watch? If so, has that changed how you feel about your decision?

Honestly, I feel like I’ve always sprinkled goodly amounts of non-uni content into Uni Watch. My obsession with the Brannock device, my pencil sharpener collection, my travelogues, the awesome Baltimore salt boxes, etc., etc. Have I really been doing more of that in the past few months? If so, I haven’t really been aware of it.

Noticing inconspicuous things in the world around me, and then sharing my enthusiasm for those things, is what I do! Just yesterday, in fact, I was walking to the post office and was so amused by this sign that I felt the need to photograph it:

Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn.

If there’s one thing I like, it’s specificity!

During Uni Watch’s period of upheaval, when you moved from ESPN to Sports Illustrated to Bulletin to Substack, did you ever come close to getting hired by The Athletic? And on that note, if you still had a contract with a large media company, do you think you would still be stepping away from Uni Watch now?

After ESPN let me go in 2019, I had discussions with The Athletic and came close to joining them, but the deal didn’t work out.

Obviously, there’s no way to know this with 100% certainty, but if that deal had worked out (or if I were still at SI, or at ESPN, or some similar venue), I don’t think that would change anything about my current plans. I suspect that 25 years of writing about uniforms would still feel like enough, and that I’d be ready to move on to other things.

As we near 25 years of Uni Watch, are there any pieces you’ve written over the years that you wish got more attention?

My 2022 story about the Mets’ Tom Seaver statue having the wrong number font for the “4” was a big deal in Uni Watch circles and got a little bit of media play, but not nearly as much as I hoped or expected. I thought every Mets beat writer would run with it and that it might even be mentioned on the air during a Mets broadcast, but that didn’t happen. The Mets themselves never acknowledged the article’s existence and were clearly hoping to wait things out until any response to the story just went away, which is exactly what happened.

Similarly, amidst all the hubbub regarding the current Nike/MLB fiasco, I seem to be the only writer who’s picked up on the mismatched greys. As the Nike/MLB story has spread throughout the mainstream press, everyone talks about the see-through pants, but nobody else seems to have followed my lead about the mismatched greys, which I find surprising.

Cardinals’ mismatched greys, March 19.

The Philadelphia 76ers’ arena has had four (!) different corporate names since 1996. So if you’re reading something about the Sixers that was written in, say, the early aughts, it will refer to the First Union Center, which can be confusing, because that name hasn’t been used since 2003. I think that really takes something away from the writing. If there were a Uni Watch style guide imposing rules about how to refer to sports stadiums in writing, what would it look like?

We actually do have style rules for this type of thing. Generally speaking, we avoid using the advertised names — in part for the reason you mention, and also because Uni Watch is opposed to the selling of sports venue naming rights as a matter of policy. Instead, we’ll refer to “the Sixers’ arena” or “the Patriots’ stadium” or “the Brewers’ ballpark.” Using the full advertised name may occasionally be unavoidable if it’s essential to the story or the point being made, but we try to avoid that as much as possible.

With all the negative media attention the new Nike/MLB jerseys have received, do you think they will at least revert back to larger NOBs for 2025?  I find the NOBs on the spring jerseys are even difficult to read on TV.

I do think they’ll go back to the larger NOBs next season, yes.

Just to be clear, I don’t have any inside info about that. But changing the NOB size is a relatively simple aesthetic fix. It doesn’t involve changing the tailoring pattern or fabric. Moreover, it’s a fix that people can immediately see, so it provides a palpable sense of change — a sense of “Hey, we heard you, we’re responding to your concerns.”

As the Lukas era winds down at Uni Watch, is there a certain Uni Watch promotion or product that is most memorable to you?

Purple Amnesty Day is certainly a unique promotion that began organically (reader Tim Cox suggested it) and then grew into its own phenomenon. I’m also very fond of the membership card program (shout-out to designer/collaborator Scott M.X. Turner), the monthly series of Uni Watch T-Shirt Club designs from 2015 (shout-out to designer/collaborator Bryan Molloy), and the monthly Uni Watch Pin Club designs from 2020 and ’21 (shout-out to designer/collaborator Todd Radom).

But if I had to choose a single product, I’d probably say the seam rippers, which people use to remove the New Era maker’s mark on their caps. Again, this was an organic idea — I began offering the rippers in 2019 after a bunch of people requested them. I haven’t kept track of how many I’ve sold since then, but the number is definitely in the high hundreds, which is way more than I ever would have guessed. A very conceptually satisfying product offering.

If you could transport any superstar athlete to a different era for aesthetic purposes, who would it be? For example, Tony Gwynn wore pretty bad ensembles during his career, but I think he’d look pretty good in the Padres’ current uniforms.

This is a fun question! But here’s the thing: Moving a player into a “better” uniform doesn’t always feel right, because certain players just feel too inextricably tied to the uniforms from the eras in which they played.

Case in point: I’ve never liked the Seahawks’ current uniforms and think the silver/royal design that they recently revived as a throwback is a much better design when viewed in a vacuum. But putting Russell Wilson in that uniform might feel a little weird — sure, he’d be wearing a “better” design, but the thought of him in that uniform just doesn’t compute, at least for me.

What do other people think of this? It could make for an interesting Uni Watch Photoshop project!

As a Sacramento Kings fan, I’m curious if you prefer them to be a blue/red team or a black/purple team. I know you hate purple and BFBS, but those colors fit more with the team name and are more unique in pro sports.

The Kings’ situation is tricky because their franchise history is so muddled. They began as the Rochester Royals (1945-57) and then became the Cincinnati Royals (1957-72), the Kansas City-Omaha Kings (1972-75), the Kansas City Kings (1975-85), and then finally the Sacramento Kings (1985-present). They wore blue and red throughout all of those cities and incarnations until 1994, when they changed to purple and black, both of which were supremely trendy colors at that time, so the chromatic change seemed more fad-driven than something based on the team’s name.

I like it when teams can maintain certain throughlines of franchise continuity, so part of me likes that the Royals/Kings maintained their original color scheme for so many years. If that color scheme were something more unique or unusual (green/orange, say, or brown/gold), I’d say, “Never change it.” But given that (a) the uni-verse already has lots of blue/red teams and (b) purple is indeed the color of royalty and thus a more appropriate fit for the team’s name, I’m okay with them sticking with purple/black.

Yes, I just endorsed purple as the superior color choice for this team. Stop the presses!

Both MLB and MiLB use wooden bats, but NCAA teams use aluminum bats. Why do college teams choose metal over wood? Is it simply a matter of costs?

That’s my understanding, yes. Aluminum bats don’t break, so you don’t have to replace them as often.

What’s the most persistent item you own? Not necessarily a memento or keepsake that you feel sentimental about, but just an object that has somehow been in your possession for a long time for whatever reason. (Example: I bought my alarm clock in eighth grade and still use it. I don’t even really like it but it’s not worth upgrading!)

Sometime while I was in college — probably 1985 or ’86 — I bought a hairbrush. It had plastic bristles and a plastic handle, sort of like this, except the handle was amber-colored. At some point the handle broke off (I no longer remember how), but the brush itself was still fine, so I kept on using it. Despite sustaining a lot of additional chips and dings, it is somehow still with me today.

The photo on the left shows the end where the handle broke off; the other photo shows additional structural damage.

Could I use a new hairbrush? I suppose. But the bristles are still fine, so the brush is still functional, and I don’t fuss very much over my hair. As long as the brush keeps fulfilling its utilitarian mission, I see no need to replace it. Why spend money on something I don’t need?

Also, the brush’s endurance is a reminder that plastic doesn’t degrade, which is another reason not to throw it away as long as it still works.

Like yourself, I am a near-daily biker, and I am almost in need of a new helmet. My bike is orange, and I first had in mind an orange helmet to match. But then I’ve been thinking about football uniforms and wanting to avoid the mono-color look. So with that in mind, should I choose a helmet that matches my bike, or one that complements/contrasts? I’ve attached a picture of my bike and the helmets I’m considering. (I know the orange shades don’t match, and that's okay.) What do you think?

At the risk of turning this entire AMA into a composite essay on utilitarianism, I rarely think about aesthetics when choosing a bike helmet. I usually just want something light, effective, and fairly priced. I almost always end up with basic black.

That said, I admire and salute your thought process regarding your helmet options. Based on the pics you provided, my vote is for navy — not so much from any ideological stance on mono-color vs. contrast, but more because I just like orange and navy as a color combo. In fact, I think the little orange manufacturer’s logo on the helmet does a nice job of tying everything together!

As you prepare to leave Uni Watch after 25 years, what do you think are the best new uniforms that have come out during that time?

Great question! Let’s stick to the Big Four pro leagues, going one league at a time (teams marked with an asterisk basically went back to an earlier design rather than coming up with something truly new):

• MLB: Blue Jays, Padres, Angels.

• NFL: Bills, Chargers, Browns*.

• NHL: Blue Jackets, Wild, Golden Knights, Sabres*, Flames*.

• NBA: Warriors, Bucks, Cavs, 76ers.

What will you do on May 27, the first day of your post-Uni Watch life?

Well, May 27 is Memorial Day, so I’d be taking the day off anyway.

But as to your larger point: Realistically, there’s going to be some residual Uni Watch work that I’ll still have to do after my final day. For example, I’m expecting some last-minute membership card orders, which will take a week or two to fully process. I’ll also be available to assist Phil with any issues that might arise as he takes over the daily blog.

In general, though, I look forward to sleeping later in the morning, working when I choose to instead of because I have to, and, most of all, getting off of Twitter.

I’m sure the change will be a bit jarring at first. Covering a news beat on a 24/7 basis is an exhausting job, and I’m definitely ready to stop, but I also know that that job has shaped and conditioned me in various ways. A lot of Uni Watch muscle memory has built up inside of me over the past 25 years, so going cold turkey will no doubt entail a bit of an adjustment and may even be somewhat challenging at times. I’m prepared for that and am confident that I’ll get through it. The non-uni world is a big, interesting place, and I figure I’ll always have things to write about as long as I find interesting things in my field of vision. That’s my basic post-Uni Watch mindset.

After you stop writing about uniforms and rebrand/relaunch your Substack, what will happen to the archived uni-related Substack posts? Will paid subscribers still have access to that content?

Yes, anyone with a paid subscription to paullukas.substcack.com will retain access to the full archives — uni-related and otherwise.

———

That’ll do it for this round of Ask Me Anything. Big thanks to everyone who submitted questions!

I’m not yet sure if I’ll do another AMA before I leave Uni Watch at the end of May, nor am I sure whether I’ll keep doing AMAs when my Substack takes on its new post-Uni Watch incarnation. If you folks have thoughts about either of those questions, feel free to voice them in the comments. Thanks!

• •  •  •  •

Next Week: The MLB Season Preview!

My annual (and final!) Uni Watch MLB Season Preview will be published next week. I’m not yet sure if it will come out on Tuesday the 26th or Wednesday the 27th. Unlike this AMA post, which is publicly available to all, the MLB Season Preview will be for paid subscribers only, so sign up here if you’re not already on board. See you back here for what is always the biggest and best Uni Watch piece of the year!

Paul Lukas has been writing about uniforms for nearly 25 years. If you like his Substack articles, you’ll probably like his daily Uni Watch Blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook and check out his Uni Watch merchandise. Have a question for Paul? Contact him here.