MLB uniform and style buffs, this edition of the newsletter is for you

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We go long on the end of an era for a uniform aficionado, Ken has a note on Yankees pitcher Luis Gil and the Baseball Card of the Week features an interesting facial expression. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal — welcome to The Windup!

Founder of Uni Watch walks away

If sports style is your thing, you may know the name Paul Lukas. He’s made a career out of giving his opinions on everything from uniforms to, as Tyler Kepner put it in his story this week, “things that make you go hmmm in sports.”

After 25 years on the beat, Lukas is moving on. Tyler spoke to him ahead of his retirement — here’s a great quote from the story about the link between sports fandom and brand loyalty:

“… This is what Coke learned with New Coke: that if you change the product, brand loyalty is not enough. But in sports, the quality of the product is changing all the time. Your team can be good one year and bad the next year. Players get hurt, get traded, they retire, they cycle in and out. But you are still loyal to that logo and those colors and that uniform.

“It’s a really irrational, nonsensical form of brand loyalty. I don’t think there’s really anything like it — except maybe patriotism and religion — where it really defies our standard notions of why we’re loyal to something. That’s the power of the uniform. And I think that’s why people are so nuts about uniforms.”

While his website, Uni Watch, will live on (the weekend editor is taking over), Lukas officially retires this weekend. We spoke to Tyler — a uniform aficionado himself — to get the story behind the story.

For any newcomers: What is Uni Watch, and why do we care so much about it?

As its creator Paul Lukas says, Uni Watch is a website dedicated to “the obsessive study of athletic aesthetics.” His alternate slogan is “for people who get it” — that is, not everyone will be interested in the visual presentation of sports. But if you are, you get what he’s doing, which is pointing out, analyzing, and reporting on any and all things related to what we see beyond the physical movements and strategies of the athletes. It’s way more than uniforms and logos, although uniforms, of course, are the most obvious and forward-facing element of sports style.

Everybody has a personal sense of style, an individual idea of what looks good and what doesn’t. Whether or not you’re a sports fan, you can say, “That looks great,” or “that looks weird.” So I think Paul has tapped into a lot of that, which partly explains why Uni Watch has been so enduring.

It seems like it would take a fairly unique person to make this concept work. What’s one thing the world should know about Lukas?

Paul is incredibly curious. Think of anything that’s hiding in plain sight — something you see all the time but probably never paused to think about. The little button on the top of a baseball hat (a “squatchee”), the way some signs say “Beware of Dog” while others say “Beware of The Dog,” the oddly shaped canopy structures by Flushing Bay near Citi Field — Paul takes delight in investigating those types of things. Basically he’s a very, very detail-oriented person who pays close attention to the visual landscape around us — especially the stuff made by humans, as opposed to the natural world.

What was your favorite part of the interview that didn’t quite make the final story?

We were talking about how in the 1970s and ’80s, the traditional sports look seemed to be totally flipped: There were Astroturf fields, pullover jerseys, powder-blue color schemes, sansabelt pants, and so on. Some people fretted about it. Here’s what Paul said:

“Everything just seemed a little more plastic — literally, in the case of the field — and that seemed to mirror what was going on in a lot of other aspects of the world. It sort of seemed like that’s just where baseball was going. But then Astroturf fell out of fashion, Camden Yards was the start of the pushback against the cookie-cutter stadiums, grass came back and then by 1993, every team was back to wearing button-front jerseys and belted pants — no more powder blues. It’s interesting, having covered this for 25 years, the pendulum often does come back. I think that’s always worth keeping in mind.”

More Tyler: His Sliders column this week examines an interesting question: Should umpires be allowed to use PitchCom? Would that lead to better ball and strike calls?

Ken’s Notebook: How Luis Gil became a Yankee

Luis Gil was brilliant again Thursday, allowing one hit in 6 1/3 innings in the Yankees’ 5-0 victory over the Mariners. Here is an item on him from my latest notes column:

When it comes to the acquisition of Luis Gil, the Yankees were both lucky and good. Lucky because they acquired Gil from the Minnesota Twins for outfielder Jake Cave when the right-hander was 19 and still in rookie ball. Good because they saw qualities in Gil that made him a target, then enhanced those qualities through player development.

As The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner wrote Thursday in his detailed look at Gil’s ascent, the Yankees first became aware of the pitcher in 2017. Travis Chapman, the team’s current first-base coach, was then the manager of the team’s Dominican Summer League affiliate. General manager Brian Cashman said Chapman, after watching Gil pitch against the DSL Yankees, advised club officials to put him on their radar. The Yankees, using their technology in the Dominican, began tracking Gil through data and video.

The designation of Cave for assignment on March 12, 2018, in Cashman’s words, prompted, “a lot of action.” Teams were willing to give up a player for Cave rather than risk him going through the waiver process. The Twins balked at several players the Yankees requested before finally agreeing to part with Gil, Cashman said.

The Yankees plugged Gil into senior director of pitching Sam Briend’s development program. The pitcher made his major-league debut in 2021, producing a 3.07 ERA in six starts, but his progress stalled when he underwent Tommy John surgery on May 21, 2022. His return this season has been nothing short of spectacular. Gil, 26, has a 2.11 ERA in 10 starts, and last Saturday against the White Sox, set a Yankees rookie record with 14 strikeouts.

“Great work by Cash and his staff there to identify some interesting stuff but also to bring him along developmentally,” Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey said. “He was a DSL guy at the time who had a really good arm with some command issues and dealt with some elbow trouble.

“We actually liked Jake for our team a lot at the time and he had a really nice start here in that 2018 season. He battled some injuries after that and has still carved out some good roles along the way. But we certainly felt Gil was one where the Yankees had identified some upside skills there and then developed him well.”

Baseball Card of the Week

Before he retired, Ken “Hawk” Harrelson spent 33 years as a radio broadcaster for the Chicago White Sox, receiving the Ford C. Frick award — the broadcaster’s door into the Hall of Fame — in 2020.

But before that, he was a fairly solid nine-year big-league player, even making one All-Star game (1968, a year in which he finished third in AL MVP voting).

I’m so fascinated by the face he’s making on this 1971 Topps card. It’s expressive, but really undefined. Was he receiving some good-natured ribbing? Telling a story about someone he doesn’t like? Expressing skepticism when hearing about sabermetrics for the first time?

Handshakes and High Fives

You know his name. You know his reputation. Angel Hernandez is the umpire everyone loves to hate. Does he deserve to be maligned as much as he is? Draw your own conclusions — in their story, Sam Blum and Cody Stavenhagen paint an interesting portrait of one of MLB’s biggest villains.

Is it ever too early for trade deadline talk? (No.) Jim Bowden tackled what contenders could do at the deadline in part one of a mailbag, and answered a more varied mix of questions in part two.

The World Baseball Classic gifted us with one of the best (if not the best) baseball moments of 2023, and the tournament will return in 2026. Two new venues have joined the mix — Minute Maid Park in Houston and Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico — along with the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo and loanDepot park in Miami.

Can the White Sox catch a break this year? This game-ending play proves that no, no they cannot.

Commissioner Rob Manfred says MLB is taking its time when it comes to investigating the illegal bookmaking operation that led to the Shohei Ohtani-Ippei Mizuhara saga (and to an investigation into a former Angel).

Manfred also gave an update on where the league is at when it comes to implementing robot umps.

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner doesn’t seem keen on spending over $300 million on payroll again next year. Can the team pursue Juan Soto and spend less money? Chris Kirschner looks into it.

Earlier this week we told you about the college baseball team playing for a school that soon will no longer exist. Here’s a full story on the Birmingham-Southern College Panthers, who — reminder — would clinch a spot at the DIII baseball championship with two wins this weekend.

You can buy tickets to every MLB game here.

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(Top photo of Zack Greinke in 2016, wearing a Diamondbacks jersey Paul Lukas did not like: Norm Hall / Getty Images)