The Future Aint What It Used to Be

Uni We Love:

In honor of the passing of Mr. Yogi Berra, we’re making the Yankee Pinstripes our uniform of the week.

Mr. Berra, known both for his prowess on the diamond and his way with words, was a towering figure not just in the world of sports but in the culture at large. 

Some of our favorite Yogi-isms: "The future aint what it used to be." 

"If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be." 

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." 

Yogi had a penchant for turns of phrase that seemed silly at first glance, but revealed some deep knowledge about the hidden nature of the world upon further reflection. We salute him.

Quick Hits

In this new semi-regular feature at SUS, the fun size entry to our regular king size column, we’ll run down a few items of note each week.

Uni We Love: Though our esteemed colleague Mr. Lukas at Uni-Watch had no love for the 49ers red on black look for their Monday Night Football late show showdown with the Vikings, we beg to differ. Sure maybe it is black for black's sake. And maybe the numbers are hard to read. But they looked fierce!

And they held the esteemed Mr. Peterson to a mere mortal rushing performance. As the old country song says, they "must be doing something right."  Who do you want on your side in the trenches? The purple and white or the red and black? I rest my case.

Logo Big or Go Home

We've got logos on the brain this week at SUS HQ. Over at Grantland, king of the basketball nerds Zach Lowe ranked all thirty NBA teams by their current primary insignia, with a few tangents on favorite secondary looks and blasts from the past.

And the work of graphic artist Mark Avery-Kenny, who mashes up popular professional sports logos with pop culture characters from Han Solo to Bart Simpson to Donkey Kong, came to our attention and reminded us about all the possibilities of what a logo can do, and just how evocative and allusive they can be. We're big fans of his work.

Like anything, what's popular and in style in logo land changes over the years.Take a look at this pair for Cincinnati based teams from the days before cable. The Royals, who would later become Sacramento's Kings, and the Red-legs, 

who would later become simply the Reds, both feature impish smiles plastered over the faces of game balls.These days, as Lowe points out, the default NBA logo is a basketball with the team name inside of it. Some take a straightforward approach. Other get busy with it.

Sleeves Are Falling

 Is that a slight chill in the air we feel? Is that the faint smell of leaves beginning to fall from the trees we smell? Are those incessant fantasy football strategy conversations we hear? 

The autumn is nearly upon us and that means football season is nigh. The collegians are already at it in earnest, and soon the professional gladiators of the grid iron will be too.  

Together they’ll be filling out our Saturday and Sunday viewing schedules with glorious combat.  So what will they be wearing into combat this year? We like to think we know a thing or two about football team uniforms here at S.U.S. Here are some of the things we're noticing.