• The Bergermeister’s Michigan Letterman Sweater (1936)

    April 11, 2011 /

    A fine piece of Michigan baseball history popped up on eBay recently, check out this gem: The auction description noted the sweater was size 42, in good condition and noted that the name of the letter winner could be found inside (but didn’t mention who it was).  You have to be careful with these items that are being presented at Michigan memorabilia just because there’s a maize or blue ‘M’ somewhere on the item.   But this looked pretty authentic & the seller told me the name inside the sweater was a gent named Berger Larson. Larson was a team captain and a fine pitcher for the Wolverine baseballers in the mid-1930s.  He was named conference MVP for Ray Fisher’s league championship squad of 1935-36.  Here’s a look at him: Larson finished the year 7-2 with 83 strikeouts in his 72 innings of work including a five-hitter against Iowa in the season finale, enough to clinch the league title. After Michigan, Larson tried a shot at the bigs, starting out with the Class A Davenport Blue Sox in the Brooklyn Dodgers system.  He got off to a nice start, going 6-5 with a 2.94 ERA but never got much going after that. The auction for the sweater closed recently, going for $52–a pretty good value for the buyer.

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  • Lion vs. Tiger (and other Round One thoughts)

    April 8, 2011 /

    “Major” props to Michigan’s Lion Kim for hanging with the big boys in the opening round on Thursday.  Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of his epic blue, maize and white custom Footjoys with “LION” on the side—but I’m sure a pic will surface.   Kim shot a respectable 76 (+4) on the day and is tied for 87th heading into Friday.  He’s got a little work to do to make the cut, but it’s certainly within reach if he can shoot near or just under par. Consider how fine that line is.  Here’s how Kim stood up statistically against the leaders and Tiger: Player Driving Accuracy (Fairways) Greens in Regulation Lion Kim (+4) 10 of 14 12 of 18 Rory McIlroy (-7) 10 of 14 14 of 18 Alvaro Quiros (-7) 7 of 14 10 of 14 Tiger Woods (-1) 9 of 14 14 of 18 Kim’s average driving distance was 272 yards, just over eight yards behind Tiger (280.5). Other sights and sounds from Thursday: Kim teed off at 12:31 and hit a beautiful drive, up the middle just short of the bunker up the hill.  (Former champion JM Olazabal and PGA vet Davis Love III put it to the right & in trouble.   Lion made birdie—what a start. On #9, Lion hit a low stinger from around 190…

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  • Wanted: Fans with 98% Enthusiasm, 2% Husky Fatima Drenched Vocal Chords (1911)

    April 4, 2011 /

    From the 1911 Michigan Daily, love this.  In just about every issue the ‘Night Editor’ submitted a short column with a pointed message or opinion, and in the fall of ‘11 it was often related to the football team and fandom.  Check out this piece delivered by night editor Loren Robinson, the week of the game in East Lansing against M.A.C.: Michigan scored 15 unanswered points in the second half to take down the Farmers 15-3.  It’s assumed the Wolverine fans enjoyed a few of these on the two hour train ride back to Ann Arbor that evening:

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  • The Uniform Changes Since Bo Era

    April 4, 2011 /

     The “All Whites” bring good luck as you can see (via Sports Illustrated) [Ed. See the full Uniform Timeline for more detail.  This post inspired the idea.] A little history on the the subtle (and a few not-so-subtle) tweaks to the Michigan uniform in the past four decades via historian and Wolverine uniform expert Steve Sapardanis.  This was basically off the top of his head (!) – so feel free to review and comment: 1969 – Bo removes the numbers from the SIDES of the helmets and adds award stickers (solid yellow football-shaped decals) 1974-1975 – White pants for road games.  Road unis changed to all white with thin blue and yellow stripes on the end of the jersey sleeves, and matched in same stripes down the outsides of the pants.  (Check out all whites in action in the ‘76 Orange Bowl). 1975 – UM changes the facemask color from gray to blue.  Decals get a little facelift – a snarling Wolverine head with laces is added 1976 – UM goes with YELLOW pants for both home AND away games.  M switches to BIKE helmets for the entire team (90% of the players make the switch – a few still wear MacGregor, Rawlings, or Riddell helmets).   A slight change to the helmet design – the middle-strip “tail” is removed and…

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  • BCS Bracketology (We Still Lose)

    April 3, 2011 /

    Darren “My Main Man” Everson dropped another interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this weekend.   He took the top 64 college football teams ranked via the BCS formula (I’m assuming you can get the data extended out to 64 teams?) and dropped them into an NCAA tournament field.  (BCS #1 Auburn was dropped in the slot held by NCAA top seed Ohio State, and so on).  Then they played out the tournament seed by seed as it’s gone thus far.  Check it out: Even in hypothetical exercises crossing sports we can’t win.   Rich Rod’s 2010 team collides in an improbable match-up with, umm, Mississippi State.  We lost again.  Everson’s a Michigan grad so I’m guessing he chuckled at this one:  

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