This has nothing to do with Denver...

Well, it is with great pleasure that I look forward to loading up the car this evening, armed with one bag of clothes, my GF, my dog, a thermos of coffee and a block of Tilamook white cheddar cheese and pointing it east. We'll travel the Columbia Gorge towards Pendleton and once we get there, we'll take a southerly route towards Boise, Idaho. From here, it'll be further east passing by Salt Lake City Utah and then into Wyoming and finally coming to a rest some 20 hours later in Denver, Colorado.

I made a promise to myself when I moved out to Oregon, that I'd get out and truly experience the wonder and the glory of the fabled American West, but driving 20 hours straight to get to Denver doesn't really qualify. Granted, we'll be passing through some pretty areas, but most likely these will all look the same in the dark. Actually, I'm kinda of dreading the long drive, but looking forward to it all at the same time. The trip isn't really about going to Denver, it's about the "trip", it's about spending some quality time with the GF, it's about getting to see some family, and it's about picking up something I've had my eye on for a really long time.

Which... leaves me to this:

For those of you not in the know, the above images are from Cincinnati's Crosley Field, which was home of the Reds from 1912 - 1970. It was constructed during the great era of steel and concrete ballparks like Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. During the years Crosely was in use, it saw many great games and memorable moments in baseball history. For example, during the Great Depression, with baseball attendance at an all time low, Cincinnati installed lights and hosted the Philadelphia Phillies in the first ever professional baseball night game. That date was May 24th 1935 and President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the distinction of pressing a button that lit up Crosley Field for the game.

So you might ask, what does that have to do with Denver?

And my response is... absolutely nothing.

Nothing expect what is waiting there for me.

thank you boys...

Anyone who knows me pretty well knows that I've been a Cincinnati Reds fan since way back.

And when I say waay back, I mean... from the time I knew what baseball was... I listening to Joe Nuxhall and Marty Brennaman call the game on 700 WLW. The sound of their voices became synonymous with the sound of summer. Baseball was summer. Reds baseball was where it was at.

As a small child, I remember being dropped off at my babysitters house in the morning and as she made breakfast for the rest of her family, her husband and I would sit down on the sofa and watch all the game highlights on ESPN. When I started collecting baseball cards, my biggest collection of cards were always from the home town team, the Reds. I grew up wanting to slide into home plate headfirst like Pete Rose and wear glasses just like Chris Sabo. My first actual live major league baseball game was a double header and my parents will happily tell the story that they thought I would be bored out of my mind by the fourth inning of game one, but it turns out I would hardly leave my seat to use the bathroom even once in all 18 innings. I was jealous when my neighbor went to the game in an early September evening in 1985 where Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's all time hits record. I was there on that rainy night when the Red's clinched the Division in their magical Wire to Wire 1990 season. As a 6th grader I won 3rd place in a speed pitching contest at Riverfront and received an actual Starter warm up jacket just like the Reds wore in the dugout. One of the best birthday gifts ever was when the Reds picked up Ken Griffey Jr. from the Mariners in 2000. And probably my all time favorite memory of the Reds was getting to sit in the blue field level seats for the first time, right along the 3rd baseline, first row and at some point in the 3rd inning, Kevin Mitchell handed me a foul ball (they were playing the Phillies). I don't think from that point on I remember anything else about that game... but I still have that ball.

Basically, my history is intertwined with moments from the Reds. Granted, I may have never known the Big Red Machine of the 1970's.... but I was there for the Reds from 1980 on. So, it is with great joy that I congratulate the Reds on their regular season wins and I look forward with eager anticipation to the post season. Regardless of how RED OCTOBER treats the boys of the Nati, I thank them more than they can imagine for giving the people in Cincinnati a reason to be excited.

So thank you boys and good luck.

it's not that i'm picky or anything

I've gotta say, while I'm not a huge Ohio State fan at all, I'm kinda looking forward to this Saturday's game when they take on arch rival Michigan. It's not because I hate Michigan, no... I have a special kinship with the state as much as I do Ohio, it's that "Hey, look at us. We're stuck in the midwest" kind of kinship that neighboring Midwestern states share. No, I'm looking forward to the game because Ohio State is going to unleash a throwback jersey that Nike designed to commemorate the 1954 National Champion Buckeyes.

While I do I love a good uniform redesign (University of Oregon - who had 384 uniform combinations two years ago - withstanding), I love the unchanged classiness that some college teams sport. Some people would say that the classic Penn State navy and white just shows the lack of creativity but to you I show you the classic navy and white pinstripes of the New York Yankees. If you're good, you're good and you don't need gimmicky uniforms to bring people in and sell merch. This classic-ness applies to other college football strongholds such as, Ohio State, yes... Michigan, and the other midwestern powerhouse called Notre Dame.

It's kinda interesting to see how a company like Nike goes in and approaches schools based upon their uniforms, history, and willingness to change looks, styles or fabrics and what that means to recruiting and alumni and money coming in and out of the university. It really is quite a science. Actually, the internet is filled with different blogs and magazine's all sporting their own opinions on what schools have made the best and worst dressed list (Oregon is always on the top of the worst list). This year in fact, several teams have gone in and tweaked some uniform items that didn't really need tweaking. Take for example:

The University of North Carolina went for an all-blueberry look

Tennessee added a black jersey

University of Georgia unleashed some black pants and helmets which didn't help them against the Gators.

And well, it seems as if Oregon has a different kit each week.

I think it's interesting how any school.... regardless of their initial athletic color combo will willy nilly seemingly add black to their uniforms. Maybe it's cause black is always the new black and petty much will go with anything, but sometimes it kinda pisses me off. No other color, well... aside from white, gets as much field time. I remember back in high school when I first noticed this trend (think those old school all black Starter jackets with the team logo stitched in the back), every major team had a coat... regardless of their teams colors, the coat was black. Think the Chicago Bears. Nowhere is black in their color scheme, but... they had a black Starter jacket. Anyways, noticing this, I tried to introduce black as an accent color to my Hillsboro High School soccer jerseys (my mom was a coach and pretty much all years aside from my senior year, I picked the uniforms and their design and we looked goooood. In 1997 we got a new head coach and he figured his fashion skills were better than mine. As a result, we ended up wearing what appeared to be trash bag sized uniforms with sleeves down to our forearm. I hated it.) Anyways, I tried to introduce black but it was met with fierce resistance from the Athletic Director and I was vetoed. However, some years later when I was back at HHS coaching softball, I noticed that all of our men's baseball teams are using black as an accent -very similar to the nearby Cincinnati Reds, another formerly all red and white team that randomly added black. (I know for a while during the Cold War they added in navy blue and black as an accent, but... lets just move on from that moment.) In protest, I have vowed to not buy any Reds gear till they go back to all red and white and it's not a throwback day. Classic, timeless.

Our kits my freshman year of high school, they were a year or two old at this point and I had picked them out for the team as a sixth grader - shhhhhh! I wasn't a huge fan of the massive full front imprint, but hey... I was only a 6th grader.

We wore these my sophomore through junior years. These were my favorite. Some people were not fans of the fleecy lining the uniforms had as they got pretty sweaty (I think these were designed for usage in the PNW)... but I loved the over all classic look and feel. Plus, we had moved from umbro to adidas which I thought was a step in the right direction. I also designed the game day black shirts. I didn't include a photo of the kits my senior year because as I said... they were pretty much the ugliest things ever and I erased them from all photographic history of me. They are pretty much on the same wavelength as these awful uniforms from the Reds.

Please, lets go back to when the Reds did things right. Can we?