For all of today’s images, you can click to enlarge
Today we have something very, very special — a 1965 promotional brochure from a company that made uniforms for stadium workers. It involves a lot of reading, but trust me when I say it’s worth it.
The brochure was sent to Denver Broncos assistant GM Paul Manasseh and later acquired by longtime Uni Watch reader Tom Jacobsen, one of the nation’s foremost collectors of Broncos memorabilia, who recently loaned the brochure to me. It was made by a now-defunct New York company called Saxony Clothes, which for many years had specialized in making uniforms for hotel and restaurant workers. Then, in the early 1960s, they decided to expand into stadium apparel. Here’s the cover letter that accompanied the brochure:
The first page of the brochure is a bit cheesy but sets the scene nicely and gives a bit of background on the company:
The next two pages describe how Saxony created uniforms for Shea Stadium, which had opened as the Mets’ new home the year before. Check this out:
The Shea attire was apparently a hit, because the next page in the brochure shows a bunch of newspaper articles referencing the new apparel:
I’m a lifelong Mets fan and was not aware of any of this. Some teams are famous for having had fancy employee uniforms back in the day, but I’d never heard anything like that regarding the Mets.
Let’s take a closer look at those newspaper clippings. Two of them are from The New York Times. Those were easy for me to track down. First there’s this one, from March 15, 1964:
And then there’s this one, from April 18, 1964. It mentions the “fetching usherettes” wearing “blue bowler hats, blazers of orange, white, and blue”:
There’s also a clip from the old Long Island Daily Press, a paper that went out of business in 1977. This clip is from April 15, 1964. Although it has no visuals, it has a bunch of good information about the stadium uniforms, including the name of the Saxony designer who created them:
There’s also a clip — it appears to be the back page — from the Aug. 24, 1964, edition of The New York Daily News. The News, somewhat surprisingly, does not have an online archive, and I haven’t had time to go to the main branch of the New York Public Library to look up the microfilm (anyone want to tackle that one?), but we can see most of the clip as it’s shown in the Saxony brochure. It appears to show Mets then-manager Casey Stengel with a bunch of usherettes wearing the Saxony uniforms:
Finally, there’s a clip from the now-defunct New York Journal-American. No online archive for that either, but here’s the portion of the clip that’s shown in the Saxony brochure:
That’s some serious Mets history right there!
But there’s a lot more in brochure. The next spread features the stadium apparel that Saxony prepared for Shea Stadium’s other tenants, the AFL’s New York Jets:
Unfortunately, the brochure does not show news clippings for the Jets attire (or for any of the other non-Mets designs).
Next up: Yankee Stadium, which was another Saxony client. Check it out:
When this brochure was sent out in 1965, the Angels were preparing to open Anaheim Stadium — the Big A — which would open its doors in 1966. Saxony was working on uniforms for them as well:
Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta was also getting set to open in 1966, and Saxony was working on designs for that too. This is the strangest spread in the brochure, as you can see here:
Obviously, that’s the early, late-1940s version of Chief Wahoo, not the Braves’ whooping Indian. Hard to understand how they got that wrong. (And yes, this version is even more unacceptably racist-looking than the current Wahoo.)
The brochure concludes with two spreads about uniforms for horse racing tracks — Pompano in Florida and Aqueduct
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And that’s it. It’s a pretty remarkable document, and in pristine condition. Doubleplusthanks to Tom Jacobsen for sharing it with me. (Tom has also acquired lots of other interesting Broncos- and NFL-related documents, at least one of which is of major historical importance. I’ll be writing about that shortly for ESPN — stay tuned.)
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The Ticker
By Alex Hider
Baseball News: Padres fans who want to #BringBackTheBrown will have to wait until 2020 — at the earliest. More on that here (from Phil). … Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson was spotted on the links wearing a cap with “Mr. October” embroidered on the back (from Frank McGuigan). … Antiques Roadshow featured a 1914 Red Sox sweater on a recent episode (from James Gilbert). … We’ve covered this before, but Tim Donovan found this photo of former Indian Joe Charboneau wearing small “Press Star” patches. The Cleveland media would give out the award weekly to players as voted on by readers. … Dakota State University has new tequila sunrise-style jerseys for 2018 (from Paul D. Vold). … New uniforms for Missouri State University (from Austin Schick and Ben Gross). … The Giants Photoshopped recent acquisition Evan Longoria into a Giants jersey with his familiar No. 3. But Longoria won’t be wearing that number, because the Giants have retired it for Bill Terry. The Giants’ roster page currently shows Longoria without a number (from @bdh_photos).
Football News: Not sure if this has been shared before, but apparently the old Metrodome was one yard short of a full-sized NFL field. One end zone was reportedly only nine yards long (from Jeff Flynn). … Yesterday’s Edmonton Sun cover story was about the CFL QB Kevin Glenn, who recently signed with the Edmonton Eskimos, making him the first player in CFL history to be on the roster for every team in the league. The cover featured the jerseys of every CFL team (from Martyn Bailey). … Team USA’s jerseys for International Bowl IX have been unveiled. More on the International Bowl here (from @josh_claywell).
Hockey News: The Blues have added an “MFS” memorial decal in honor of former team chairman Mike Shanahan, who passed away Monday (from @ctrauma). … Blackhawks C Jonathon Toews started a charitable foundation, which also has its own logo (from Marc-Louis Paprzyca). … Apple’s Siri apparently doesn’t recognize the Golden Knights’ logo — maybe she knows something we don’t about the ongoing trademark feud (from Micah Sledge). … The Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League will wear Cranbrook Colts throwback jerseys next season. The Colts operated from 1971 to 1998 (from Jim Wooley). … Former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi once sponsored a German hockey team in the 1980s (from Johnny Garfield).
NBA News: During Monday’s Clippers/Rockets game, Blake Griffin had his tights ripped and torn by a Rockets player (from Paul Deaver). … John Sabol points out that ESPN has taken to using three-letter abbreviations for two-word cities on its scorebug. They used “NOP” for the Pelicans last night, and used “GSW” for the Warriors on Monday. … Alex Steinke found this photo of the Lakers’ James Worthy wearing an NNOB No. 00 jersey in a December 1987 game against the Celtics. Presumably a blood jersey. Anyone know more? … Here’s a piece on how the Bucks and Harley-Davidson are capitalizing on their jersey advertising relationship (from Ray Barrington).
College/High School Hoops News: Notre Dame and Louisville went color-on-black last night (from Andrew Cosentino). … A Toledo player was wearing one yellow shoe and one gray shoe last night against Ohio (from Michael Moamis). … Milnor-North Sargent High School in North Dakota uses the Bobcat construction company logo as its own. According to Greg Enkers, the company has a plant in town.
Soccer News: This drone video gives a good look at Tottenham’s new stadium (from Josh Hinton). … Reading FC changed kits at halftime of its match with Stevenage yesterday because their blue-and-white striped kit clashed too much with Stevenage’s red-and-white kit. Reading’s Jon Dadi Bodvarsson ended up scoring three goals while wearing two different jerseys (from Kevin and The Boot Room). … The Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the USL signed an endorsement deal with Adidas yesterday (from Harrison Hamm).
Grab Bag: Roger Federer wore shoes commemorating his five Australian Open championships the other night (from Chris Perrenot). … Speaking of the Aussie Open, a match between Ash Barty and Aryna Sabalenka caused a bit of a stir because of Sabalenka’s excessive grunting. At one point the crowd was mimicking the grunting, leading to an admonishment from the chair ump. … This golf cart seen at the Bob Hope Classic is outstanding. We need more golf carts shaped like people (from Leslie Blair). … For those who haven’t heard, Formula 1 has a new logo, but the new logo may infringe on a trademark (from James Gilbert). … The New York Times has a good profile on Brian Hanlon, the sculptor of many of the statues of athletes that appear outside of stadiums and arenas. … Need a refresher on the ins and outs of curling before the Olympics? The Washington Post has you covered (from Phil).
