Baseball typography

[randy_byers]

I went to the Mariners game at Safeco last night with Andy and Carrie. The Mariners are epically awful this season, but it was a lovely night, King Felix was pitching, and hey, they even won the game 2-0 over the Athletics. Woohoo!

However, the reason I really wanted to make it down to Safeco this year was to buy a shirt. The Mariners have an Australian pitcher named Ryan Rowland-Smith. His nickname is The Hyphen, because he's the first Major League Baseball player with a hyphenated name, or so the story goes. So this year they have a shirt that prominently features a hyphen on the front. How many sports shirts do you know of that are a purely typographical design? Just because Rowland-Smith is, like his team, having an epically awful season and has been put on the disabled list just so his battered psyche and statistics don't have to suffer another shelling every five games is no reason not to wear such a shirt with pride. I've been faunching for one ever since I first heard about it on the teevee.

I was planning to have my picture taken at the stadium with the shirt on, but when I got there I discovered that the batteries in the camera were dead. Amazingly, in that huge mall disguised as a stadium there is apparently nowhere to buy batteries. So here's a picture from an online store instead. However, my shirt is actually white with a Mariners-blue hyphen. I like these colors better, dang it, and now I want this shirt instead. Aside from that, I must say that it actually looks more like an em-dash than a hyphen.

Comments

[janetl.livejournal.com]

What font is it?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I think it's called Sans Victory.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Well said, sir. Well said indeed.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

at least it's not in Comic Sans?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Can we be sure?

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

Yes, Comic Sans has hyphens without "corners" -- they are "rounded."

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

*whew*

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

How nice. Now when you're wearing this shirt we can walk up to you and say, "Hi fan!"

And I'm not at all surprised that nobody in the Mariner's present stadium sells batteries. Back in 1996 when I attended a game in their previous stadium I took the opportunity to have a look around and noted that while that huge place had many, many retail outlets, they were the same few minimalistic food stalls repeated over and over again. I can't imagine the new stadium has evolved much past this.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

You're certainly right about that, although the food choices are better. I didn't know you had been to the Kingdome. It eventually got blowed up. A very impressive takedown.

[terryminer.livejournal.com]

best thing we in Portland ever saw out of seattle! snerk! :)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, you can always look forward to the collapse of the Viaduct.

[terryminer.livejournal.com]

never a dull moment! :)
also, i forgot to mention grunge music and the WTO riots- now That was FUN!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

And don't forget muzak, which also comes out of Seattle.

[terryminer.livejournal.com]

no kidding? is it memorialized the the esperience music project? haha

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

I was very keen to attend an indoor sporting event of some sort while in the US because it was an exotic experience for me. Certainly in 1996 Australia had no enclosed stadia and even the new Dockland stadium in Melbourne is designed to be an outdoor venue with a roof that's only closed if the weather turns bad, not quite the same thing if you ask me.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's true of Safeco Field as well: it has a roof that can slide over the stadium if it rains. Nothing like the Kingdome, where the turf and the air were equally artificial.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

Attending a baseball game in the Kingdom certainly was a very different event. The nearest I'll ever getting to visiting Edgar Rice Burrough's Pellucidar I suspect.