Hi…straying big time into Uni Watch territory here but Steve did some research and came up with the following which may or not be accurate but I thought worth a discussion. LI Phil has been hanging around MP lately and Paul Lukas reads the site so perhaps they can educate us further or steer us to some links. Anyways, here’s Steve’s take on the subject.
I love precise detail, so I went back through every yearbook for the last 20 years or so…here is what I found:
1) The problems started, as you might expect, when the stupid, idiotic underline debuted in 1993. That made the existing wordmark obsolete and the skyline logo very inconsistent with the jersey.
2) Sanity prevailed 2 years later…in 1995, the underline was gone forever. The Mets were so proud that the jersey was restored, they decided to make the wordmark look slanted, like it does on the jersey, maybe as a subliminal message to get people to buy jerseys. That effort produced the dreaded Wilpon Script…it is clearly seen on the bottom of almost every page in the 1995 yearbook. It has nothing to do with making room for black dropshadows. It has been lurking for over 15 years already.
3) In 1998, the Mets decided to add the black…”Believe in Black” the yearbook says. (Shannon here – wow did they really do that? I got married that summer and wasn’t paying attention much. I also refused to give Cablevision an extra $10 (especially for Fran Healy) and mostly listened to Murph.)
4) In 1999, they decided that the skyline logo needed a midnight version and at that time they decided to drop the little NY…it was too hard to do on the midnight version I guess.
I believe the The Wilpon Script on jerseys does not seem to be too prominent until 2003, when it became very obvious.
Speaking of Uni Watch you should visit that site every day. It rocks and there’s almost always something about the Mets – today it’s a Lady Met doll.
I still don’t see a significant difference between the “Wilpon Script” and the 1974 road jersey.
Graf,
From my research, I believe the Wilpon Script was an attempt to make the wordmark look like the Mets uniform script. Many of us have observed that it just doesn’t look right. Uniwatch’s analysis shows why…if you lay it horizontally, the M is very crooked. Writing script in a slant should not result in that. The crookedness is probably a way to simulate the separate parts of a button down jersey. From 1978-1990, the Mets wore pullovers and the script looked fine. Prior to and after the pullovers, you could probably sometimes see a bit of a Wilpon Script effect due to the break in the jersey…but most pics I have seen look fine. I checked every yearbook since 1995 and again IMO since 2003 it has become so pronounced on the jerseys it looks stupid.
The Wlpon Script also has corrupted the sleeve patch and appears in most print graphics and in places at the stadium. My problem with it is simple…it looks stupid.
OK, so let me see if I understand this … the complaint about the “Wilpon Script” is that it’s an attempt to create a wordmark to use on signage and other graphics that resembles the script on the button-down jersey, which is stretched out to get the “M-e” juncture across the placket, when there is no need for such a thing to be used or seen anywhere other than on the uniform front.
Have I got that right?
Because as I said, I can’t see the difference shape-wise between the current button-down jersey script and the button-down jersey scripts worn previously, aside from the 1993-94 underline script, in terms of how it actually appears on the jersey. Maybe I’m missing something. Or just haven’t seen enough pictures lately of the pre-drop shadow script.
The bigger complaint is the drunken M, which is falling into the other letters. It’s harder to spot on a jersey, I’m guessing since it’s not necessarily a flat surface and often moving.
Go to this page on UniWatch:
http://www.uniwatchblog.com/2010/05/06/consistently-inconsistent-2/
and click on the links in the 6th paragraph. The Gooden/Santana jersey comparison shows it pretty well. The “ets” are situated identically, but the “M” is rotated clockwise on the Santana.
It’s kinda like one of those “do you see this or that?” optical illusion drawings. You can look and look and never see it, but once you DO see it, you can’t stop.
OK, I see what you’re getting at. But compare the Gooden jersey and the Wright jersey. For that matter, compare the Santana jersey and the Wright jersey. Or the Santana jersey and the Leiter jersey. Then compare the Gooden jersey and the Hernandez jersey. I think it’s just the way the fabric hangs off the body (or, in this case, the mannequin), where the right flap is (or appears to be) at a different angle than the left flap. Or it could be the way it’s sewn on.
No…the complaint is this logo looked fine and the bottom one in this pic looks all crooked and I can’t even buy a freakin t-shirt anymore that has a nice logo on it.
All the rest of my argument is trying to figure out why this logo even exists and when it came about.
Per Steve’s 2003 threshold, the only two in that display that should be showing it are the Santana and Wright jerseys. The Santana one is almost ridiculous even you account for the way it’s buttoned. I have no answer for Wright’s.
Here’s a typical modern Met T=shirt.
It is not sewn on and has no buttons…yet there it is…the Wilpon Script. Maddening. I apologize to anyone who thinks this looks right for my ranting.