The Golden Ghost's Golden Socks?

This photo shows Tony Canadeo, the "Gray Ghost", during his final season.

Tony Canadeo veteran Green Bay Packer halfback, bolts 10 yards for a touchdown in Packers' 42-14 victory over Dallas Texans here, Sunday Dec. 1, 1952, in Green Bay second quarter. Canadeo, honored by fans on his special day, also caught a pass for TD and led both teams in ground gaining. (Associated Press)

Metallic gold helmet, gold jersey, pants, and socks, all with green stripes. Or are they?

The socks are of particular interest to me; photos from the period tend to show green socks with gold stripes.

Is it possible that what we see here is a green sock with two gold stripes, the white sanitaries pulled up to the bottom of the second gold stripe, making it look as though the gold continues underneath?

That's certainly very possible, although it doesn't explain the top of the sock. It sure looks in this photo as though there is light-colored material, presumably gold, above the top green stripe. Perhaps Canadeo is wearing some sort of strap, as Don Hutson is in this photo:

Again, more research is needed.

Sock Hopping in Minnesota

Last night the Green Bay Packers played circles around the Vikings in Minneapolis. The Packers dressed like pros, and the Vikings... well, the less said the better.

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (12) runs toward the end zone in the second half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

Sheesh. Purple is a fine color in moderation, but that's just nasty.

There was one Packer uniform quirk worth noting; several of the Packers wore their white sanitaries pulled up high over their green socks, running back James Stark was among them:

Green Bay Packers running back James Starks (44) runs against Minnesota Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes (29) and defensive end Brian Robison (96) for a touchdown in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

This has been going on for several years. The effect reminds me of the first version of this uniform, from 1959; for one season only, Vince Lombardi's first season in charge, the Packers wore white socks with stripes to match their road jerseys:

I'm not a big fan of the look today. White socks on all players would be one thing, but this homemade customization ruins the "uniform" part of the uniform:

Green Bay Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson (87) and the rest of the team warm up before an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

The Packers look best when they all look the same.

Minnesota Vikings tight end Kyle Rudolph (82) gets tackled by Green Bay Packers' M.D. Jennings (43) and Morgan Burnett (42) after making a reception in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

I've heard that these types of individual aesthetic gestures are against the NFL's uniform rules, and that fines may be handed down. I'm curious if we'll hear anything about these socks from the league.

ESPN's Uniform Power Rankings

This week, Paul Lukas has been running a ranking of all uniforms in the four major sports in his ESPN Uni Watch column. 122 uniforms, from worst to first, all week. Today, he unveiled the top 25.

And, no surprise, the Packers rank pretty high.

#6.  Green Bay Packers

Green and gold is the perfect autumnal color palette for a fall sport, the road design just about holds its own with the home uni, and the Pack's helmet logo still feels vibrant and relevant (unlike, say, the Bears' logo, which is starting to feel dated). Green Bay also has leapfrogged ahead of most NFL teams by not switching to the new Nike collar. Only two quibbles: The TV numbers have gotten intrusively large, and my kingdom for some striped socks.

The crack about the Bears' logo is tempered somewhat by the fact that Lukas ranked them higher; Chicago came in at #2.

As for the TV numbers, I agree that the increasingly-tight uniform cuts have eroded the real estate around them, making them appear ever-larger:

I cannot agree with his insistence on striped socks, only because the uniform is busy enough as-is. Were the Packers to adopt Braisher stripes on their socks, they'd need to consider removing the striped neckline, the last vestige of Forrest Gregg's 1984 redesign.

The Packers would also have to consider how to balance the sleeve stripes and sock stripes. I don't think a single set of Braisher stripes, as they wear on the sleeves, would look good on socks. They could add a second set of stripes to the sleeves, but that would require some creative thinking.

Fix the sleeve stripe problem, remove the neck stripes, and then it's those sock stripes standing between the Packers of 2012 and a truly classic uniform:

And that's certainly worthy of a ranking higher than #6.

Photo Gallery: The Ice Bowl

AP Photo

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith (17), white jersey at center, falls back on top of a Green Bay Packers player as players chase a fumble during the NFL Championship game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., on Dec. 31, 1967.

The 1967 NFL Championship Game, determining the winner of the NFL crown and representative to the second Super Bowl, was held 44 years ago tomorrow, on December 31, 1967.

Today, the game is much better known by its sobriquet "The Ice Bowl" for the treacherously cold conditions under which it was played. Gametime tempuratures were down as low as -15°F with a wind chill measured at 48 below zero. This was also one of the brief period (1966-69) when because of the AFL/NFL rivalry the NFL title game didn't also decide the "World Championship."

NFL.com has a mavelous photo gallery of the game up now.

We begin with this shot of Coach Lombardi, taken four days before the game as he shows reporters the elaborate $80,000 system of heating coils embedded in the playing surface to ensure that conditions stayed optimal for football.

AP Photo/Paul Shane

Packer Coach Vince Lombardi explains how the Green Bay stadium "electric blanket" is keeping the playing surface soft for Sunday's NFL championship game against Dallas Cowboys on Dec. 28, 1967 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Buried electric heating cables provide the heat.

Unfortunately for Coach Lombardi, and the players, the system famously failed on the day, resulting in a frozen, rocky surface.

National Football League

Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr in a action in a 21-17 win over the Dallas Cowboys in a NFC Championship game on December 31, 1967 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In many of these photos, you can clearly see the full stirrups under the Packers' low whites.

For the record, and just because its such a common mistake, Mr. Starr is wearing them the correct way; big hole goes in the back.

Here's The Coach himself, prowling the sidelines in his camel-hair coat and cleats. I love the white detailing around the opening of cleats from this period. I wonder if it was merely decorative, or served some sort of purpose?

Of course, no Ice Bowl retrospective would be complete without John Biever's iconic photo of Bart Starr sneaking in for a touchdown at the end of the game.

Another (albeit well-known) facet of the game is that was reportedly the only time this particular style of pennant was sold at Lambeau Field.

MEARS

Because of their provenance, and the Ice Bowl's hold on football fans' imaginations, the pennants draw a pretty good price at auction. This autographed example sold for over $800 at MEARS last January.

The Infante Stripe, 1991

The Green Bay Press-Gazette continues to come through with another great photo archive, this time from the dark days of 1991, as the Packers traveled to Atlanta to take on the Falcons.

The uniforms those Packers are wearing are virtually identical to those worn today, with two significant exceptions: the extra pre-1997 sleeve stripes; and the socks.

From 1988 through 1991 the Packers wore green socks with one gold ring. No matter how a player wore his socks, be it low whites or high white tape, the gold stripe sat almost right at the bottom of the green.

This single gold stripe was added by new head coach Lindy Infante in his first season in Green Bay. Infante, like other coaches before him, put his own stamp on the Pack's uniforms. Infante's stamp was a subtle one, but the sock stripe helps us date photos to his era.

The Press-Gazette also gives us a bonus shot of Infante on the sideline. Nice shirt.

His expression tells the story; the Packers went 4-12, and new General Manager Ron Wolf fired Infante at the end of the season. 1992 would see a series of major changes for the Packers — new head coach Mike Holmgren, new backup quarterback Brett Favre... and solid green socks.

Our Own White Sox

Watching the game against the Falcons on Sunday night, I noticed that Ryan Grant, James Starks and a few other Packers were wearing their white sanitary socks pulled up high, obscuring most of their green uniform socks.

Although these things drive me crazy in a "you shouldn't alter the uniform because it's supposed to be, you know, uniform" kind of way, I'm intrigued by the look, which effectively creates white socks to pair with the white jersey.

There was a time when this white-over-white look was standard; Vince Lombardi's original Packers uniform design in 1959. For that one season only, his first in Green Bay, Lombardi's players wore white socks on the road, with a green/gold/green/gold/green pattern to match that of the road jerseys.

There is a certain logic to this - the home socks were designed to match the home jersey sleeves, so why match the road socks to the road jersey sleeves?

Logic or no, the white road socks were among the first tweaks Lombardi made to his uniforms: starting in 1960, the Packers wore the same striped green socks with both jerseys.

That sock stripe pattern, echoing the sleeve stripes, lasted through the 1980 season. In 1981 the Packers moved to solid green socks which, apart from one brief period, they still wear today.

Except, of course, when players take it upon themselves to show a little high-white.

Green, Gold and the Great White Way

After October 21, 2010, Broadway may never be the same.



As both a theatrical producer and Packer fan, I've been following this production's development with some interest. It sits right there at the intersection of two of my great loves, making me more or less this show's natural audience.

LOMBARDI is written by Steppenwolf Theatre member (and Wisconsin native) Eric Simonson, adaptated from When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss. Simonson previously adapted the Maraniss biography into a different play, called "The Only Thing", for the sadly-defunct Madison Repertory Theatre in 2007.

The show stars Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years) and Judith Light (who was magnificent in Wit Off-Broadway, but is best known for her television work on Who's the Boss) as Vince and Marie Lombardi. It is produced by Tony Ponturo and Fran Kirmser, in partnership with the NFL, and directed by Thomas Kail. Rounding out the creating team is David Korins (Scenic Design), Paul Tazewell (Costume Design), Howell Binkley (Lighting Design), Acme Sound Partners and Nevin Steinberg (Sound Design), and Zachary Borovay (Projection Design).

Previews begin September 23, and it opens on October 21. It will run at the Circle in the Square Theatre in midtown Manhattan.

Set in 1965, the narrative concerns a reporter (played by Keith Nobbs) who has come to Green Bay to do a story on Lombardi. From one of the show's television commercials:

My name's Michael McCormick. I'm a sports reporter for Look magazine. My next story is on Vince Lombardi, coach of the World Champion Green Bay Packers. He wins practically all the time, and no one knows exactly why or how. It's my job to find out, and it's Coach Lombardi's job to keep me from finding out. Everything's a contest with him. Same for me. May the best man win.

This is a classic dramatic conceit: the outsider introduced into an existing world. He serves as the audience surrogate, an excuse to introduce all the expository material that we'll need to understand the world of the play. He has a second function in this case; by inserting a fictional character among real people the playwright has a free hand to explore motivations and an emotional journey that those real people might prefer not be attached to their names.

I'm curious to see how they make the narrative work, if this conflict they've created can be sustained over 90 minutes, and if they try to assign some type of character arc to Lombardi himself or keep it within the fictional creation McCormick.

Of course, I'm also curious as to how the production will treat one of Lombardi's most enduring legacies, his classic Packer uniform. You knew that it had to make an appearance, right? The show can't all be serious speeches in suits and narrow ties. These production photos were taken during the show's out-of-town tryout in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and should give us a pretty good idea of what the Broadway production will look like, starting with the entire cast:

left to right: Dave Robinson (Robert Christopher Riley), Paul Hornung (Bill Dawes), Jim Taylor (Chris Sullivan), Vince Lombardi (Dan Lauria), Michael McCormick (Keith Nobbs) and Marie Lombardi (Judith Light)

The uniforms look accurate enough at first glance. Although Lombardi's design underwent a series of changes in its first several seasons, by 1965 all the elements that today we associate with the uniform were in place; the particular block number font had been added the season before and the green/white/green pants stripes (matching the helmet) were in their third season.

I do have one nitpick, and it's that the three gentlemen are wearing their socks like baseball players. Note to Mr. Tazewell: football players never let their stirrup straps show. Going back to the earliest days of the pro game they have always worn low whites over the colored stirrups. Those whites have been pulled up to various degrees, in the case of Lombardi's Packers covering not only the straps but frequently the team's distinctive stripes as well:

A minor detail, but hey. They're so close in other respects.

Of course, Vince Lombardi had a uniform of his own, and Lauria wears it well:

Dan Lauria

That's the classic Lombardi game day sideline look - fedora and camel hair coat over the pullover team jacket. We also get a view of Lauria in Lombardi's practice regalia:

Keith Nobbs and Dan Lauria

Ah, my favorite Packers logo of all, the interlocking GB. Introduced by Lombardi, it was worn on practice caps through his tenure and on into the Phil Bengston and Dan Devine eras.

On the non-uniform front, we have these photos to give us a general sense of the production. Circle in the Square is an inspired choice - an intimate house with a thrust stage to highlight the small two-character scenes, perfect for this kind of show.

Dan Lauria

Judith Light and Dan Lauria

Dan Lauria

Dan Lauria and Judith Light

Sports movies are tough enough to make work, but a play set in the world of sports is a unique animal. A play can't fall back on the manufactured drama of The Big Game in the third act. A play can't offer up endless montages of game action to cover structural weaknesses. A play is actors, audience, no place to hide. Emotions carried through the air by the playwright's words.

Now, I can see this going one of two ways: the producers will either make us care about the Lombardi character as a human being, or they will be content to collect our money and feed us our own edited nostalgia, a "greatest hits" clip show of Lombardi's pithy quotes, inspirational speeches and sideline rants.

I'm curious to see if the story can really stand on its own, if it has the emotional weight to justify the $150 (and up) ticket, or if it's just a jukebox musical for sports geeks. I have tickets for the first week. Should be interesting.

Cecil Isbell, True Blue in 1940

This rare color photo of Green Bay passer Cecil Isbell was published in the New York Sunday News on September 29, 1940, as part of a photo essay entitled "Pro Grid Aces Who Star Among Stars".

This 23-year-old Houston, Tex., wizard is the football players' football player and rated as one of the most polished performers in the business. He does everything well, but his forward passing is something the fans rave about—and so do his appreciative teammates on the champion Green Bay Packers. In fact this six-foot-one, 190-pound, former Purdue star blazed into fame when he paced an all-star college team and out-passed the famed Slingin' Sammy Baugh of the crack Washington Redskins in 1938. Last year, his second with the Packers, Isbell whipped 73 successful passes—eight for touchdowns—for a gain of 749 yards in 103 tries.

It seems strange to see a quarterback wearing #66, but this picture was obviously taken in the pre-season, when players seemingly wore whatever jersey the equipment manager had handy. Isbell wore #17 throughout his career in blue, as seen in this photo of Isbell and Hutson taken at the All-Star Game on August 29, 1940:

This is Curly Lambeau's classic blue and gold uniform, introduced in 1937. The sock stripes were removed after a few seasons, although it's hard to establish exactly when, as many players of the late 1930s/early 1940s seemed to have eschewed the full socks altogether (at least in the warmer months). In this photo from Wrigley Field, we have one Packer wearing striped socks and Isbell (with the ball) wearing no blue socks at all, only the low whites:

The bare-leg fashion seems to have passed by the mid-1940s, and when socks returned as a permanent part of the uniform they were solid navy, as seen in this 1947 photo:

The stripes would make an appearance on the 1994 throwbacks:

Isbell himself is an underappreciated part of Packers history. Drafted out of Purdue in 1938, he took the league by storm. As the caption notes, he led his team to a surprise win over the Redskins in the 1938 College All-Star Game (which at the time featured the best college athletes against the reigning NFL champions).

Isbell had just as much success in the pros, gradually taking the passer role over from Arnie Herber. He platooned with Herber for the first three years of his career in the "Notre Dame box" formation. This allowed Lambeau to use him as either a passer or a rusher - he led the Packers in rushing in 1938 and 1939, and the entire NFL in rushing average in 1938. As a passer, he led the league in attempts, completions, passing yards and touchdowns in 1941, and completions, yards and touchdowns in 1942.

The 1942 season was to be his last - Isbell only played five years with the Packers before retiring from pro football at 28. He later explained "I saw Lambeau go around the locker room and tell players like Arnie Herber that they were done. I vowed it would never happen to me." Having left on his own terms, Isbell returned to his alma mater as a coach. He has been selected to the NFL's 1930s All-Decade Team despite only playing his rookie and sophomore seasons in the 30s.

Although Isbell was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame in 1972, his short career has led him to be largely, and unjustly, forgotten by football fans. Had Isbell continued to play in blue and gold, he may well have followed Baugh into Canton.

Week 4: Fox in Socks, Rules & Regs

Following on the heels, if you will, of last week's conversation about cleats, this week's topic is socks.

There's supposedly rules about the way in which NFL players may wear their socks, but you'd never know it from watching the games. 

As recently as last season, this sign was hanging in the Cleveland Browns' locker room:

First reaction - Wow.  That graphic has to be twenty years old - the guy still has sleeves.  But that's a topic for another day.

Couple things to note:

"The exterior stocking must be a one-piece unit solid white from the top of the shoe to the midpoint of the lower leg, with approved team color or colors from that midpoint to the top of the stocking"

"Stockings must meet the uniform pants below the knees"

So let's look at the Packers.  Last week, we had some very unique interpretations of those rules:

Personally, that one's my favorite look.  I love the strong colors, with little to no white at all.  I'd like to see football go baseball's route and wear solid colored socks with no whites.

By my reading, Aaron Rodgers is the only one who actually conforms to the uniform code.  Low whites, big gaps between the pants and socks either because the pants are worn high or the socks or worn low or both, all sorts of violations.

This reminded me of the Denver game last year, in which Charles Woodson and Al Harris decided to wear their whites high, and no green socks at all:

Also "Sleeves must not be torn or cut".  So how the hell does Chris Hovan get out on the field each and every Sunday?

But now we're back to sleeves.  And again, that's a subject for another day.