The Jersey Blog Week 14
I’m still doing these? If you want in on the blog, be sure to DM pictures of your favourite jersey to one of the Bench Life Social accounts every Wednesday night.
Jersey of the Week Submissions
Fifth Place
Danica Patrick T-Shirt
I’m not really a Nascar guy… yet. Me and the boys had a Nascar road trip to Kentucky planned for the summer of 2020 until COVID derailed that idea. We’ll get there eventually. But I have to get a chance to immerse in the environment and suss out the situation for myself before I make any definitive statements about the sport. I just want to get sunburnt and drunk at a tailgate. Is that too much to ask for?
Calling this a jersey is a bit of a stretch, but it was a slow week and I thought it was an interesting submission. In terms of Nascar drivers, Danica Patrick is certainly one of the few I can name. Here, off the top of my head I’ll name every Nascar driver I can think of: Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart, Jimmy Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Sr., Dale Earnhardt Jr., Joey Logano, Bubba Wallace, Kyle Busch (after I wrote this Phillip mentioned Denny Hamlin but as a man of principle I will not add him to the list after the fact).
Fourth Place
Newcastle FC Jersey
I don’t know anything about soccer, but I was riveted by all of the Super League talk this week. From what I got out of it, the richest soccer clubs in Europe tried to start their own “Super League” to essentially cut out having to grind to qualify for the Champions League and instead guarantee a spot in a commercially lucrative league.
The best comparison I saw was that it would be like if college football created a “super conference” consisting of powerhouse schools like Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, Ohio State etc. that would play each other for the whole regular season, and the winner of the conference would be named the college football champion. While that would be awesome in terms of being guaranteed a handful of unbelievable games every week, it would completely rob all of the charm that surrounds the NCAA football product. All of the tradition, rivalries, obscure bowl games, quirky mid-major programs, conference championships and “under dogs making a run” would seem completely irrelevant. Well these types of reasons are exactly why European soccer fans revolted against the Super League and were able to kill it within a week of it being announced because of a threat of protest and FIFA’s intervention.
Oh and in terms of the jersey, I had to Google to figure out this was a Newcastle kit. Kind of looks like a referee’s jersey. And that was talking soccer.
The Podium
Bronze Medal Jersey
Paul Pogba France
And looks like I’m talking more soccer! A quick Google search of Paul Pogbo told me that he’s pretty good.
Of the two soccer jerseys submitted I think it’s the best one.
Silver Medal
Peter Forsberg Philadelphia Flyers
I was playing Chel with Adam last night and we were talking about jerseys we wanted and I told him I’d love a Forsberg jersey. “I’d prefer Colorado, but a Flyers jersey would be sick.” I may as well have handed him the playbook. Forsberg was one of my favourite players growing up and we’ve already seen an Avalanche one submitted. Only a matter of time before we see a Nordiques, Predators or a Team Sweden submitted.
It pains me to not have this in the one spot but…
Jersey of the Week
Lawrence Taylor New York Giants
It’s gotta be L.T. The guy is arguably the best defensive football player in NFL history and a the case for best football player of all-time. Taylor is one of the meanest players ever and benefitted for playing in a time when “roughing the passer” calls weren’t a thing. Seriously you can go down youtube rabbit hole spending hours watching him flatten flatten guys. If you’re going to get a New York Giants jersey I think Taylor is probably the top of the list.
Jersey of the Week Standings
Shlok continues to climb up the ladder. Still a long way to go to catch Adam but we’ll see how things shake out.
Jersey News Round-Up
Here’s some athletes wearing other people’s jerseys:
When the expansion San Jose unveiled their jerseys, Mr. Hockey was one of the first people to show off their new look.
Also here’s the long-awaited Bengals new threads.
Kind of a let down considering there isn’t too big of a change. I do think that the new, simpler look is a lot better but nothing much to write home about nonetheless.
These jerseys and patches were pretty cool. The only baseball game I’ve been to at Fenway was during the 2013 “Boston Strong” championship season. Watched a pitchers duel between Patrick Corbin and the Diamondbacks against Jake Peavy in his first start as on the Red Sox. Pretty awesome experience.
Bench Life Sports 