Happy Sunday morning everyone. I hope you are enjoying your weekend so far. I had a pretty nice day yesterday, starting early when I got up to watch the men’s volleyball gold medal game between France and my boys from Poland. Unfortunately, it was over quickly as Poland couldn’t overcome an injury to their libero (the backcourt player in the red jersey below).
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France won in straight sets to take gold for the second year in a row. It was a nice university duel and a lesson that V-necks are always better than round necks.
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Switch to V-necks, Poles, and next time the gold will be yours. I guarantee it.
Then I had to go out and mow, which I don’t normally enjoy. The nice weather helped, and after that I practiced pedaling a bit.
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The #StraightOnKicker has been home from his DC trip for almost a week, but he’s still in vacation mode.
I’m wearing the Mark Moseley jersey during the fast practice session on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/etQ13tWxWv— Jim Vilk (@JimVilk) 10 August 2024
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This means I missed the women’s soccer gold medal game, which was a real color palette specialty between the USA and Brazil.
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It’s so nice to see clearly visible numbers, unlike the other American team that won yesterday. I also missed the men’s basketball gold medal game between the USA and France.
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This is possibly my second favorite photo of the Games, after the famous surfing photo from opening week.
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I missed the basketball game because, first, I was visiting Dad. Normally the Pirates are on, but we watched the football preseason instead. And second, even if I could, I just don’t watch games with hidden numbers. France looked much better in my opinion, except on the scoreboard where it counts.
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Anyway, congratulations to both US teams on their victories.
The game Dad and I watched the most was the Raiders at the Vikings. That was a battle of rival commemorative stickers, as the Vikings honored recently retired rookie Khyree Jackson with a KJ sticker on the back of their helmets. They’re also leaving his locker empty and not using his number this season, and they’re paying the remainder of his rookie contract to his estate. Very classy.
The Raiders, who already wore their permanent Al Davis memorial sticker, added a 00 sticker for the recently deceased Jim Otto…one of the very few Raiders I liked.
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The most entertaining part of the game was… you guessed it… the walk-off field goal!
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Reichard wins the @Vikings! pic.twitter.com/eRqhzy9A9I
— NFL (@NFL) 10 August 2024
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As I was getting ready to leave, I turned on the Pirates game for Dad. When I got home, I saw this game.
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Just a reminder that pitchers are athletes too 😲 pic.twitter.com/yMCNpK0Kj0
— MLB (@MLB) 11 August 2024
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I agree. So let them beat, Manfred!
Bargain hunting: Golden nuggets from Montana
Now I hope you’ll join me in welcoming back the one and only Wafflebored! If you follow him on Twitter/X, you know he finds lots of nice sporting goods when he’s shopping. Mostly hockey, but sometimes he has other interests, like today. Let’s see what he found for us.
I don’t do a lot of home improvement projects these days. However, I do spend my time searching for vintage sports treasures at thrift stores, vintage clothing shops, and other places. My personal collection of interesting stuff is constantly growing as the vintage clothing scene here in Vancouver continues to grow and more and more shops are opening all the time.
Every now and then I find something really interesting and noteworthy, and that’s exactly what happened when I came across this spectacular vintage Montana Golden Nuggets basketball-style warm-up top in a store a few blocks from my home.
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I know very little about basketball and had never heard of the team, but the beautiful color scheme of yellow, brown and dark orange immediately caught my attention, as did the stripe design.
JV: I hadn’t *seen* the team before, so that caught my attention too! I. Would. Wear. That. I had heard of the Golden Nuggets, though, because George Karl was their coach before the Richfield… er, Cleveland Cavaliers hired him in 1984.
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A quick Google search revealed that it was the 1980–81 Continental Basketball Association season.
JV: Here is a color photo to give you a rough idea of what the uniform looked like and a program showing the jersey details.
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Fortunately, the velcro name tag on the back is still there, so we know it was worn by Phil Taylor.
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On the inside you can see both the Sand Knit manufacturer’s label and a second label from the local retailer where the team presumably ordered it.
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The top is still in excellent condition as it has obviously not been subjected to much wear and tear.
The question now is how did it end up in a vintage clothing store in Vancouver? While Montana isn’t far from here, the likely reason is that vintage clothing stores buy bundles of used clothing from large wholesalers in the States, and this piece probably got here that way. But where was it all these years before it ended up here? We’ll probably never know.
If you would like to see more of my secondhand sports finds, please leave a comment below as I love to share more of the interesting stuff I find.
JV: I for one would LOVE to see more! Hopefully one day he’ll find a jersey too. The white home jersey is very nice, but what I’d really like to see is the away jersey, which is on one of Phil Taylor’s teammates. And maybe he’ll find a jersey from one of Phil’s other teams: the Maine Lumberjacks, who are very reminiscent of the Sonics.
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I’d like to thank Wafflebored for bringing back memories of the CBA for me. I never watched their games, but I was fascinated by the names of the teams you heard when the NBA used it as a developmental league before creating the D-League. I heard of guys signing 10-day contracts after coming from the Golden Nuggets, Albany Patroons, Bay State Bombardiers, Billings Volcanoes, Wisconsin Flyers, or other exotic-sounding teams. I often wondered what the teams looked like. Hopefully as good as the Golden Nuggets!
And that’s it for today
I hope you have a great rest of your Sunday. If you have time and haven’t read Greyson Roberts’ article on Olympic canoe/kayak uniforms, give it a read. I finally got around to it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Whatever you do, do well and I’ll see you next weekend.
