Rose Bowl ticket seekers (1951)

Click photo to embiggen.

Rose Bowl ticket seekers, in December 1951. The fellows in this photo rock a badass mix of casual and formal (note wingtips with rolled up jeans, righteous pea coats and leather jackets, etc.) The first national television audience for a college football game saw Illinois clobber Stanford 40-7 in the Grandaddy of Them All (TM) (C) (R) etc

etc

Hollywood Stars uniform shorts (1950)

Manager Fred Haney models the correct uniform worn by the Hollywood Stars in 1950. The Pacific Coast League's Hollywood Stars "innovated" the wearing of shorts as part of their on-field uniforms, long before the much maligned experiment of my beloved White Sox in 1976. As both the Stars and Sox discovered, shorts while lighterweight and more comfortable and damn sexy, were not ideally designed to slide into third base in. The shorts for both teams were folded in short order.

Simpsons Sears Catalog (1957)

Snapped from the Simpsons- Sears catalog, 1957, generously shared by Flickr user Wishbook. I really dig the Hawks sweater and I would definitely take advantage of the complete set savings for toque, sweater, and stockings. The lad models were obviously not enforcers- they are far too pretty. I'm tempted to export this into Microsoft Paint to add some Frankenstein facial scars.

Simpsons-Sears also had a great logo in the Fifties, according to Wikipedia.

wrong uniform: Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in football jerseys (1927)

Babe Ruth in a Notre Dame jersey and Lou Gehrig in USC jersey in promo shot for Irish/ Trojans game at Soldier Field in Chicago, 1927.

the varsity jacket: Mergenthaler Vocational- Technical High School (1954)

"Students sitting outside with school jackets on, at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School" from Life Magazine, 1954

The students model three, count 'em, THREE different varsity jackets. I prefer the "Mervo" model.

Ralph Bunche- Air Nobel Peace Prize (1927)

Future Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche models Chucks and shorty shorts in this photograph. The photo says ca. 1931, however Bunche graduated from UCLA in 1927- so this photo is either from then or from his later scholarly pursuits at Harvard. Bunche was an all around athlete at UCLA before moving on to help write the UN charter and broker peace in the Middle East, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. Below, Bunche at far right rocks a cool letterman sweater at Harvard. I'm guessing that C stands for California?

the varsity jacket: John McKay, USC coach (1964)

Wampum High School basketball uniform (1957)

" Wampum High-school team member during "handicap" practice session, wearing weighted smocks, golashes, gloves, glasses which partially obstruct vision, all intended to improve their game." from Life Magazine, December 1957

Dig the striped side piping on those shorty short shorts!

sold on eBay- vintage 1960s US Marine Corps durene football jersey

I love when my eBay items go to people who appreciate them for nostalgic personal reasons!

Winning bidder, Tim, shares this story:

"My dad was the Commissary Officer there in the late 60s/early 70s, and my aunt and uncle worked at the base in the late 50s and 60s. I think the team was just a semi-pro type team that played other bases. There were several Army and Air Force bases within 100 miles. There was a field right by the front gate of the base. You may not have had to actually enter the base to get into the stands. They also had other events there too. I'm almost 53 and most of this happened while I was quite young, but I grew up in Barstow and now that I'm older I've been collecting relics from the past. I had honestly forgotten about all of that until seeing this jersey. I've got a couple of jerseys/warmups from the High School, but had never seen anything from the base like this. I think they also had a basketball team, as I remember playing at the base when I was in Jr High, and there were Marines playing a game after us that had uniforms. Wow... alot of memories!"

*The stencil on the back reads, "Special Services MCSC Barstow"

Award Jackets and Matching Caps from the Sears Catalog (1980)

(click on image to embiggen and begin drooling)

Indian Motorcycles racing jersey (1948)

Floyd Emde models a great Indian motorcycle racing jersey after winning the 200 mile race at Daytona Beach Motorcycle races. (1948)



and an awesome home movie from one year later.

Art Somers, Chicago Black Hawks (1930)

from the Library of Congress's American Memory image collection of the Chicago Daily News' photos.