Just another sports geek like myself. But, more to the point, I guess I'm writing for somebody who sees these things without really noticing them, which I guess is somebody not like myself. A lot of my work, not just in sports but in the other areas I write about, is about the inconspicuous details that people see without actually noticing they're seeing. The idea is to make a light bulb go on over people's heads, for them to say, "Oh, yeah. I sort of noticed that but I didn't really think about it."

I bring up uniforms a lot, just talking to friends or whatever, and it's one of those things that everybody has an opinion on. When the home team changes its uniforms, everybody either loves it or hates it.

Sure, that's your brand. I'm a big Mets fan, and in the last few years, as the Mets have gone away from blue and gone more toward black, they're not just messing with merchandising. I feel like I've had a fairly intimate relationship with the Mets' brand and the Mets' identity system, for most of my life. And when they change, when they tinker with the brand, it feels like they're tinkering with part of me.

It speaks to that intense brand loyalty that sports affiliations comprise. The content is really irrelevant. I've been a Mets fan when they won the World Series, I've been a Mets fan when they've been a last-place team, and my passion hasn't wavered one little bit. I prefer it when they win the World Series, obviously, but they're still my team no matter how crappy they are. No matter how low the quality of the brand goes, it's still my brand, and when they mess with it, I don't like it.

There's also a cynical side to it. You know they're just messing with it because everybody has the blue gear, so if they throw a bunch of black gear out there, people will go buy it.

And also because they know that people like me, I may piss and moan about it, but I'm such an intense fan, I'm not just going to storm away and say the hell with it, I'm not a Mets fan anymore. I'm going to grit my teeth and stick with it, but they can go trolling for the more casual fan with the "hipper" color scheme. So yeah, it's a little cynical, but that's just the reality of how brands are marketed these days.

I do sort of wonder, though, about teams that change more often. You look at a team like the Texas Rangers, who have changed a lot over the years -- their logo, their colors. The Brewers also. I don't understand how you build up a heritage or a sense of history when you change so frequently.

I grew up in Los Angeles, rooting for the Dodgers, who had the same uniforms since God was a boy, and then the Rams and the Lakers were both pretty constant, too. I notice that the teams that changed uniforms a lot -- the San Diego Padres, or like you said, the Rangers -- tend to be crappy teams. There seems to be a correlation between crappiness and new uniforms, or constant change. It's almost a measure of a good, solid organization that they don't change their uniforms.

Yeah, that's certainly the instinctive feel. I think that's changed a little bit. The Rams changed their uniforms after they won their first Super Bowl, and that's not how it used to work.

Didn't the Denver Broncos do that too? Didn't they get those weird new uniforms after they finally won a Super Bowl?

No, actually, the weird new uniforms finally broke their Super Bowl jinx. But yeah, it used to be that only a franchise that was really in trouble would change. They'd be thinking, "If we can just put some bells and whistles on the uniform, nobody'll pay attention to how lousy our record is."

You bring your opinions into the column and critique the uniforms.

Like any cultural criticism or design critique, you need to have a point of view. I try not to get too persnickety about it. What I try to avoid, and probably don't avoid, is coming off like a grumpy old man who hates any change.

You're definitely a traditionalist.

I'm a traditionalist. I'm a classicist. But it's not like every change is a bad change.

What are some good innovations?

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