Would You Wear It on Your Hat? Would You Wear It While Up at Bat?

Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day, otherwise known as the one uni-notable day of spring training. Here’s what MLB teams wore, in roughly descending order of how much effort they expended (apologies if I missed any teams; spring training games aren’t always wire-photographed or otherwise documented):

• Tigers: Green jerseys and caps, plus their batboy was dressed like a leprechaun. Uni Watch’s highest rating!

• Phillies: Green jerseys and caps, plus the caps had some sort of shamrock logo on the side.

• Mets: Green jerseys and caps, plus they used shamrock-emblazoned bases. (I assume other teams also used special bases, but I didn’t find any photos of them.)

• Dodgers: Green jerseys and caps.

• Cardinals: Green jerseys and caps.

• Red Sox: Green jerseys and caps.

• Padres: Green caps, but they get bonus points because their cap logo was the Swinging Friar in a shamrock.

• Reds: Very sad to see that the team that invented green St. Paddy’s Day uniforms only went with green caps.

• Giants: Green caps, and it’s mildly disappointing that Brian Wilson didn’t dye his beard.

• Cubs: Green caps.

• Nationals: Green caps.

• Mariners: Green caps.

• White Sox: Green caps.

• Braves: Green caps.

• Royals: Green caps.

• Orioles: Green-accented caps. I’m kinda weirded out by this one — it’s like the bird looks nauseous or soemthing.

• Rockies: They didn’t wear any green uniform elements, but starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie wore a green glove.

Of course, wearing green for St. Paddy’s Day isn’t just a baseball thing. Here are some other emerald tributes from around the sports world:

• In the NBA, the Bulls wore green uniforms and sneakers.

• The Knicks wore green uniforms.

• The Celtics wore their gold-trimmed alternate uniforms.

• The Jazz wore their green alts at home.

• In the NHL, the Devils wore green pants.

• The Stars wore Irish-themed NOBs on their warm-up jerseys on Friday (they didn’t have a game on Saturday).

• In minor league hockey, the Lake Erie Monsters wore green-trimmed jerseys and had green face-off circles.

• In major junior hockey, the Erie Otters wore green jerseys and skated on green ice.

• In MLS, the San Jose Earthquakes wore green uni numbers and NOBs.

• In college lacrosse, Hofstra wore green uniforms.

I’m sure there were plenty of other green-isms that I missed. If you know of any, feel free to post them in the comments.

Finally, there’s this: During Saturday’s Cardinals/Tigers game, Dan McBride spotted the ultimate St. Paddy’s Day moment and managed to document it for us:

(My thanks to James Samsel, William Yurasko, Anthony Bales, and Tom Pachuta for their contributions to today’s entry.)

An idea grows in Brooklyn: I got a call the other day from a guy who works for the Brooklyn Cyclones (the Mets’ single-A minor league affiliate). He’s a fan of the site and is interested in partnering with Uni Watch for some sort of promotion — maybe involving DIY jerseys and/or stirrups. But I bet some of you folks have much better promotional ideas than those. If so, please send any such brainstorms this-a-way. All readers are welcome to submit ideas, even if you don’t live in the NYC area and wouldn’t be able to attend a ballgame in Brooklyn. Thanks.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Unique situation in the NHL last night, as linesman Dan Schachte officiated his final game and his fellow officials all wore his uni number. Very cool (from Tim E. O’Brien). … Outmania! That’s Josh Outman, now with the Rockies (big thanks to Jeff Moulden). … Faceguard-o-rama. That’s Buffalo High and Lincoln County High in West Virginia (from Brice Wallace). … Here’s another faceguard-centric softball photo, only this time the two teams are wearing remarkably similar uniforms (from Jonathan Mayer). … “Flyers goalie Ilya Blyzgalov has been on a bit of a tear recently, and he’s also been using a new set of black pads during this period,” writes Kevin Kurz. “That got me wondering how his record correlated with his equipment, so I created this chart.” … Clayton Lust has found another photo showing the piping-trimmed caps worn by the Indians’ coaches in 1974. That shot is from the now-infamous 10-Cent Beer Night game. … Reprinted from Saturday’s comments: Good video compendium of uniform mishaps. … Holy fucking moly, look at these amazing old bus tickets! Magnificent (thanks, Kirsten). … This is kinda gross: an NFL iron-patch for your pizza. And yes, it’s for real (blame Robert Marshall). … Also from Robert: scariest Steinbrenner photo ever. … Andy Cumbee wanted to DIY himself a hockey version of his high school football helmet. So he got himself a white helmet and a blue cage/visor setup, along with some blue striping tape, and presto — very nice! … Wanna DIY yourself a tequila sunrise jersey? Here’s an unlettered jersey to get you started. … Never seen this before: two-in-ones with a black base color, instead of white (from Tim Shay). … Geoff Poole notes that Jamaal Franklin of SDSU has been wearing a long-sleeved undershirt. … Craig Sager was wearing a bracket-patterned necktie the other day. … New kits for the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers (from Paul Mordente). … The Parkway High baseball team in Louisiana wears caps with baseball-style red stitching. Never seen anything like that before (from Chris LaHaye). … Don Montgomery pointed me toward a new (to me) site that makes and sells old-school hockey jerseys. No idea how reputable they are. Anyone have any experience with them? … Tim Lyons was looking at some Fab Five photos from 1993 and noticed something: “In the UNC game, Jimmy King’s block M was sitting higher on his shorts than everyone else’s. I’ve never noticed that detail before.” … Met up on Saturday with Michael Princip, who was passing though town on business. He reports that his Bulwark helmet project, which I wrote about a year ago, is coming along nicely. … Johan Santana’s cap had an odd deformity on Friday. Did he have something under there or what? (Screen shot by Steve Dodell). … In a related item, Princeton lacrosse wore orange facemasks and like green Headstrong chinstraps on Saturday. “The Headstrong chinstraps are the lacrosse community’s contribution to help raise money to find a cure for cancer,” explains Jared Buccola. … and his wife recently found a bunch of 1938 cricketer cards at a DC flea market. “Several things on these cards stand out to me,” says John. “The club crests that look embroidered even on cardboard, the minimal but very effective amounts of color on the proper cricket whites, and the multiple initials. These are a just a great look back in time. The plan is to mount them for her father as a Father’s Day or birthday present (or just because, since he’s the only hardcore cricket fan I’ve ever met).” … MLB prospect to keep an eye on: Braves left-handed Sean Gilmartin, who’s been wearing stirrups. … Also wearing stirrups: Marlins skipper Ozzie Guillen. … “I was working with a video company on a kids’ dance competition last weekend,” says John Gugarty. “These two guys were part of a group that did a number to ‘Centerfield.’” Just in case you missed what just happened, that was John Gugarty contributing an item involving John Fogerty. … Tim Thomas recently changed his backplate design from “Don’t Tread on Me” to a more Revolutionary War-inspired design (from Matt Fedorka). … “The FIBA (International Basketball Federation) has changed the name of its championship tournament from World Championship to World Cup,” reports Jeremy Brahm. “Here’s the new logo for the 2014 World Cup in Spain.” … David Firestone attended Saturday’s Chicago Sun-Times sports show and picked up this swell 1950s flannel uni. “Also, I found this little White Sox logo,” says Dave, “but I’m having trouble finding out when it was used. Please help!” Anyone..? … Clever fan jersey in Denver (from Leo Thornton). … “Never thought I’d see the Arm & Hammer logo on a football helmet,” says Jared Trulear. That’s the Danville High Ironmen, from Pennsylvania. … Custom cleats for Denver lacrosse (from Jared Buccola). … Sonny Sanfilippo and one of his students built a replica SDSU basketball court. “It’s going on a wall in the equipment room here at San Diego State,” he says. “We decided not to include the conference logos, since we are moving to the Big West in a year.” … “Here in St. Pete we have an international baseball tournament that coincides with the spring training,” says Kevin Kleinhans. “MLB teams visit and play the national teams from Netherlands and Canada. On this particular weekend I attended a Netherlands vs. Atlanta Braves game, and the Braves did something I had never seen before: Pitchers wore red tops, coaches white, and position players blue. I wish I had been able to snag a picture of a mound visit to get all three side-by-side.” … Justin Gildner’s kids — ages 7 and 11 — were so inspired by the recent DIY projects on the site that they made themselves an awesome little DIY Gerry Cheevers outfit. Nicely done! … The Chiba Lotte Marines will wear a special uniform for five games to mark the 20th anniversary of the team moving to Chiba (from Jeremy Brahm). … Also from Jeremy: With the Yokohama Bay Stars under new ownership, the team’s old mascots have been retired and replaced by a new mascot, called DB Starman. … Have I mentioned that I love texture? Damn, that’s nice (big thanks to Jason Bernard). … Check out the “SAS” on the nose bumpers in this 1980s Ohio State photo.”I’ve seen that in a lot of OSU photos from that era,” says Mike Knapp. “I don’t think it was a memorial thing. Was it a brand of helmet?” Good question. Anyone..? … “My grandfather, Al Seccombe, played football at UVA in the mid 1930s and he coached for Yale in the early 1940s,” writes Benjamin Smith. “Here are some scans I made from his old game programs. Included are covers, player photos, and a couple of war-related advertisements.” … Saturday was the annual Chicago Shamrock Shuffle (an 8K race), and Mike Braam spotted some great socks among the participants. … Teebz has written an excellent piece on a little-noted piece of hockey equipment: the stick gauge. … Remember when Kirsten Hively taught us all what a volvelle is? She’s just started a blog devoted to that topic. … Best backet ever. … The Texas Brahmas — that’s a minor league hockey team — recently held a contest to pick a beer league jersey that the team would wear for a game. The team that won is called the Alers (as in ale, beer, etc.). “I designed the Alers logo a few years ago for a friend who plays on that team,” says Lauren Melton. “If I had any inkling that a professional team would one day wear it, I might have put a little more time and effort into the design. Still, it looked fine on the ice, and a good time was had by all.” … During last night’s Xavier/Lehigh game, Tu Holloway of Xavier, who normally wears No. 52, got blood on his uniform and had to switch to an NNOB No. 24 jersey (screen shot by Eric Stangel). … Interesting story about the naming of college basketball courts. … “Nexon (a Korean game developer/publisher) agreed to a sponsorship of the Lotte Giants,” reports Dan Kurtz. “They’ve added their logo to the jerseys and created a new Sunday uniform.” … Also from Dan: New logo for the Korea Basball Organization. … “I found these Adidas Draft Day T-shirts on NBA.com,” writes Lyndon Fahey. “On the surface they seem pretty cool, but on closer examination there is so much wrong with them. Scottie Pippen was drafted by Seattle, for example (not Chicago), and Penny Hardaway was drafted by Golden State (not Orlando). I guess those two might be excusable, as both players were subject to Draft Day trades, but this is unforgivable: Kevin Johnson was drafted by Cleveland and played for the Cavs in 1987-88. And I can’t believe they missed this one: Alonzo Mourning played three seasons in Charlotte before arriving in Miami. Everyone knows that! Also, if you zoom in on the left sleeve of the David Robinson shirt you will see the 1989 Draft logo. Most of your readers would know that the Admiral was drafted in 1987 and spent two years in the Navy.” … No photo, but interesting NBA note from Chris Schoenthal: “I attended Sunday night’s Suns/Rockets game. In the third quarter, a Rockets player checked in wearing No. 9 and NNOB. He was not listed in the program as being on the roster. Turns out it was Courtney Fordson, brought up from the D-Leauge to take the roster spot of Derek Fisher, who was bought out.”