The World's Ugliest Umpire Shirt

[piaa_ump]

Scott,
I remember when you were soliciting shirt opinions and to be quite honest I was interested. I believe it was your thoughts on the sleeve length and improving the collars that hit home with me as I have a shirts from different makers and those issues sometimes determine what shirt I wear at what game.

I have a few shirts that I cant wear at the plate since the sleeves are shorter and my undershirt shows out. I can fix that problem by buying a bigger shirt from that manufacturer but then its too baggy in the body. My Honigs shirts are great, but by far have the worst appearing collars with rolling and pilling. So an improvement in those areas are welcome and you are to be congratulated.

As to the design, I am open to change, but am controlled by my sanctioning body....I loved leaving behind the old Ebelco...Remember when DAZZLE CLOTH was the new thing?....It didnt take long before my state issued a formal statement not approving the shirt....like it or not is wasn't approved...

Best of luck with the shirt, but thats the reason I cant add different shirts to my rotation....

Stan

[GarthB]

Originally posted by Tim C
I will make the following observation:

I think some of you don't understand the amount of work that goes in to being creative.

Scott found that many, many umpires did not like the fit and pattern on shirts that are available. Scott had the guts to take on the topic, design and produce samples of a new style shirt.

It really doesn't matter if Scott had one or 10 people look at the samples and give their feelings -- at least he had the guts to try to fix something that many people have complained about.

As a "gear whore" I look at the shirt and understand the design. It really doesn't matter if I like it our not . . .

What does matter that Scott at least "tried" to correct something that he felt needed "fixin'" --

It isn't really important if some of you "like" the shirt or not. As a professional abstract expressionist I recognize that not every one likes my work (shoot, look at PWL's review of my column writing ability as stated in another thread) but I have found that there is still a market for what I do.

We can also see that a "model" can also affect how we view a new product.

Congratulations to Scott for having the drive to produce a new product. In a capitalistic system we will find if there is a market for his product.

Tee

While Tee looks at producing a product from the creative end, my background tends to have me look at it from the "desired results" end. In this case, unlike a painter who can aford to paint for his own amusement, I see the desired results as a sale.

If this is indeed correct, it does matter how many people were consulted. It also matters who they were. A test audience should primarilly be comprised of members of the desired market, in this case people who could/would purchase an umpire shirt. Minor league umpires do not have the flexibility of adding any shirt to their wardrobe. Their uniform is dictated to them and thus they are not part of this group. Also, given the size of the market place, a test group of less than 60 would provide unreliable results.

Tee feels we don't understand the amount of work involved. Actually, we don't need to. The amount of work is meaningless to the consumer. It doesn't matter if it took a week or a year to produce the product. The consumer will not judge the product on that basis. Also, some of the greatest insprirations that resulted in succesfull products took the shortest amount of time. But again, it really isn't a factor.

In the art world, having the guts to produce something is sometimes all it takes. In the commercial clothing/uniform world the market graveyard is littered with the bodies of those who had guts, but no marketable product.

Another difference between "art" and commercial production is that an artist only has to find one customer for a single painting or sculpture. A shirt manufacturer will need to find hundreds, if not thousands of custmers for its shirts to have the same kind of success.

You'll note that artists only make countless silk screen or litho reproductions of their originals after the original has been accepted and sold.

BTW, Tee, the "at least he's doing something" argument is the one Carl makes for Rollie's "product", and even you discount it in that case.

[Edited by GarthB on Dec 21st, 2005 at 01:04 PM]