My posts as of late have been pretty deep, and while I love that depth I am cognizant of the fact that it can be a little heavy for my readers (as well as for the writer). For this post and this post only, this will be a little bit of a lighter entry as it discusses two of my favorite subjects: sports and uniforms.
Maybe I’m looking at this too deeply, but I think you can learn a lot about a community by the uniforms its professional sports teams wears. As much as I hate Pittsburgh for Super Bowl XL and the continued success of the Penguins, the continuity in their uniforms across the board of black and yellow/gold symbolizes the unity present in the blue-collar community.
Conversely, take the large metropolises of the United States and you will see almost no continuity in logos or colors. Take Chicago for example. A few of the teams share red as a main color, and a few of the teams share black, but other than the Bulls and the Blackhawks, there is no continuity. Similar spectrums are found in New York and Los Angeles. In fact, if you take the ten largest cities in the United States and examine their sports teams, almost no continuity would be found outside of Houston (and their different uses of the color red could be classified as marginal continuity at best). The melting pot of colors is accurately representative of the diversity found in large cities.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the city of Seattle. As most who know me can attest, I am quite the Seahawks fan, but my love for the Seahawks is mostly irrelevant to my love of Seattle uniforms. The city has not been afraid to take fashion risks. Sometimes these experiments flop, like the lime Seahawks uniforms they wore in a loss to the Chicago Bears this season. Others, like the current Mariners uniforms and the mid- to late-1990s Sonics uniforms were great because they stood out without being too extreme. I still personally believe those Sonics uniforms were the second greatest NBA uniforms of all time (behind the black pinstriped Bulls alternate uniforms during the same time period).
Finally, uniforms are indicative of the time period. The 1990s in particular was very experimental with its uniforms, creating color combinations and patterns (Vancouver Grizzlies) that were horribly unpleasing to the eyes. The NFL this decade has seen a shift towards sleeker, more intimidating uniforms with trimmed, modern-looking numbers and sectioned jerseys. The best part of sports uniforms is that they immediately alert the viewer to the era from which the event originally occurred (barring the use of any “throwback” uniforms) without having to know anything about the players.
Alright, let’s be honest. I just wanted to have an excuse to post these uniforms. Feast your eyes on some of my favorites.
The great Sonics uniform
These jerseys meant a 35 point victory was imminent
These didn't go over so well.
1 comment:
Still crazy after all these years!
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