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kingjammy24
12-29-2005, 02:19 PM
Many of the jerseys recently auctioned off by Steiner have begun to appear on Ebay. Some of the Ebay listings are providing more insight than Steiner's original and woefully lacking descriptions. As such, new details are emerging about some of these jerseys and some of these have me completely puzzled about the Yankees tagging practices. Most notably,
some of these jerseys reveal that the Yankees (at least in the late 80's/early 90's), would send players out wearing jerseys tagged with an incorrect year or even another players name.
Two examples:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8740527564

A "1992 Matt Nokes" described has having the 1997 Jackie Robinson patch removed and worn in the 1997 season by Homer Bush or Scott Pose.
To recap: Nokes used this jersey fairly heavily in 1992. As a catcher, the wear would've been relatively heavy. Nokes left the Yankees in 1994. So the Yankees kept his jersey from 1992 for 5 yrs and then decided to send Bush or Pose out to the field in a well-used jersey without re-tagging it?!

the second example:

A "1988-tagged Claudell Washington". This jersey, recently on Ebay with Steiner certs, was tagged as 1988. However, it had the black "1" on the sleeve worn for Billy Martin in 1990. Washington played for the Yankees in 1988, then for the Angels in 1989 and the first part of 1990, and then returned to the Yankees in 1990. So according to the jersey, the Yankees kept his jersey when he left and upon his return they gave him back his old, used jersey from over a year ago and didn't bother to re-tag it?

Has anyone else seen a major-league team issue a player a worn, 5 yr old jersey with another players name in it?

Possible explanations:
1) the Yankees are incredibly cheap. (Was Dave Justice out there playing in Kevin Maas' old jersey?).
2) the Yankees are incredibly lazy. (Bush..Nokes..what's the difference. 92, 97, same thing).
3) there's something fishy about these jerseys.

Anyone have any insight into why all this seems very odd?

Rudy.

trsent
12-29-2005, 04:29 PM
Possible explanations:
1) the Yankees are incredibly cheap. (Was Dave Justice out there playing in Kevin Maas' old jersey?).
2) the Yankees are incredibly lazy. (Bush..Nokes..what's the difference. 92, 97, same thing).
3) there's something fishy about these jerseys.


Rudy, #1 and #2 are correct. I have spoke with people who were involved with the sale of such jerseys, and unlike you, The Yankees just didn't care.

A jersey could be reused forever as far as they were concerned. I would also now assume since they are in the market of game used equipment that it will not happen, but don't be surprised if it does.

They would keep items and re-issue them to other players because it just didn't matter. Do you really think the stories about the jerseys you question are to try to drive the price up on a jersey?

By the way, what is Kevin Maas doing these days?

kingjammy24
12-29-2005, 06:37 PM
Well...now I know. I haven't seen this occur to this extent with any other A.L. teams. Anyone else know if any other teams re-used jerseys (and kept the old tagging) to the extent the Yankees did?

Did this occur mostly in the 90's or did 80's Yankees jerseys suffer the same fate?

"..Kevin Maas, now 39 years old and making his first post-retirement trip back to the Stadium. Maas has mostly put the game behind him, busy with his financial consulting business and his children, but still takes some pride in the success of the Yankees clubs that came after him. Speaking of the organization's traditional reluctance to embrace its own minor leaguers, Maas said, "I helped to lay the foundations… I think my success, Jimmy Leyritz's success… helped pave the way for some of the other young guys to come up and say, 'Hey, we can play. If we've been successful at Columbus we can succeed up here.'"

Kevin's success as a one-hit wonder helped pave the way. He should've brought up Brien Taylor while he was at it.

Rudy.

G1X
12-30-2005, 12:05 AM
I don't know about baseball as I mainly collect football, but NFL teams have been notorious through the years for "recycling" uniforms. It can drive some collectors crazy!

As far as "retagging" a jersey, I have never seen it on a football jersey, and it wouldn't seem logical to do it any sport as it wouldn't make a lot of sense for an equipment manager to go to that much trouble. I would assume that they couldn't care less about that sort of thing. They are simply trying to get a player into a jersey that fits!

Mark Hayne

island_style
12-30-2005, 02:00 AM
I'm not well-versed on Yankees tops, but I know the Dodgers have done this in the past. In 1999 spring training, I had acquired jerseys that were tagged as as far back as 1997.

BPH32
12-30-2005, 11:02 AM
It is and was a common practice with all teams that I know of and not just with uniforms but most types of equipment to recycle. I can't recall ever seeing a team retag but have seen names removed or marked out so sure a 1992 jersey with Nokes in the collar could have been used by another player in 1997 and it might have been a new or nearly new jersey that was made for Nokes to wear but never worn or worn lightly in 1992 as each player usually has more than one jersey. I could go on and on about the things I have seen in the last 25 years so no I don't think there is anything "fishy" about the jerseys.
Thank you
Kim Stigall
Ball Park Heroes
www.ballparkheroes.net