Football Season Starts, Thursday Sept. 5, 2013

This past Thursday marked the official day of Football Season w/the Bronco's vs. the Ravens, which I was lucky enough to witness at Jerome Bettis' Grill 36, across from Heinz Field in the heart of Steelers Country. No trip to Steelers Country would be complete without wearing one of my original football cuffs in Steelers yellow and black, then watching the game on several tv's at local stadium favorite, Grill 36. Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by yellow and black, this area of the country is so sports oriented, right down to the business colors and fans, they truly love their teams, with extreme team spirit, more so then any area I have been too. However I did see two people at the grill wearing Giants Jersey's and Yankee's Caps, which I just love. This was an historic game, where the one and only Peyton Manning tied the record for 7 touchdown throws, and the first one in NFL history with 6 plus touchdown passes in multiple games, he proved his skill and excellence as a quarter back in this opening game, shutting out last years Superbowl Champs. Although I am an extreme Giants fan, my favorite player is Peyton Manning, thus making his team my back up team if the Giants lose, while I hold respect for the Steelers since I love the city of Pittsburgh and their team spirit. Every time I visit Pittsburgh, I'm there during symbolic times, last was when the Penguins were in the Stanley Cup playoffs, now with opening football day. I hope to get back there again to watch the Steelers play live and to enjoy another Hockey game. If you are a Steelers Fan or Football Fan, you can acquire one of my original football sports cuffs in the team colors of your choice at these links: www.sportscuffworld.com http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/MoonfairesWorld http://www.artoperanj.com/category_38/Baseball-Football-Basketball-Tennis-Cuffs.htm Soon you will be able to purchase my cuffs in stores across the country, stay tuned for details. Let the Football season begin. xoxo Lisa

Vintage Baseball Cuffs

About a month ago I was lucky to come upon a huge box of vintage baseballs, many used, many game played, and from various leagues, and time frames such as the 1940s, 50's through to the present, making each of them one of a kind and unique. Nothing beats the time worn appeal of a vintage game used baseball, wondering who held it, pitched it, and hit it in a ball park, something so rustic and nostalgic. These baseballs are slightly thinner then newer ones and have better characteristic quality, plus they hold the rhinestones and embellishments a lot better. The following pictures are of the finished cuffs, one was a custom for Christina and the other a custom for Skylar. Christina's Vintage Bling Cuff: Skylar's Vintage Basic Cuff: When deciding on what kind of cuff to have customized, keep in mind color combos, patterns and ask questions if unsure of what design or pattern to go with. Have an amazing Monday, xoxo Lisa

Volleyball Anyone?

My sports cuffs aren't limited to just baseball, softball and football, I also offer basketball, tennis, derby, nascar, billiard, poker/gamble talisman, sailing, and volleyball, like most of the other cuffs (some exclusions), the volleyball cuffs are made from actual volleyballs, gutted, cut, holed, lined. stitched and embellished. All the volleyball cuffs, like soccer cuffs are created from whatever volleyball styles that are in stock, no two are exactly alike due to the variations of these type of sport balls. So whether you love the sport of volleyball, surfing or the beach, these cuffs are sure to fit your style and love of that scene. The volleyball cuffs come simple stitched, pearl lined stitched and/or blinged out w/a brooch or rhinestone lettering, all are metal lined, unless a clasp is desired. My volleyball cuffs will get you ready for the warm summer season and add to your summer style. xoxo Lisa

College Football Cuffs

It may be just Spring, but football season will be here before you know it, especially college football. As a NJ native, I will always have a special place for NJ colleges and teams, such as Rutgers, and my alumni Caldwell College, but my football heart will always belong to Notre Dame. In the past few years I have done many college football, baseball and basketball cuffs for customers requesting their school colors, many from Texas Am, South Carolina and Rutgers, making the creation more exciting when you have to work with different team colors and football skins. Too get you thinking, and to prepare for college football season, I have created a few more Rutgers style cuffs w/football leather in red and in black which can be customized to your style w/a rhinestone R for Rutgers or stitched patch letter, or enamel/resin logo center, etc. All cuffs come with a metal lined insert or with a clasp, please order accordingly or let me know at check out!

Vintage Baseball Stash

Every time I head to a garage, rummage or tag sale, I always comb for baseballs or sporting goods equipment such as additional sport balls, gloves, bats, hockey sticks or tennis rackets, which can all be incorporated into something I'm making or will make, besides we all know what I'm going to use the sports balls for....cuffs.... Last week was no different, I headed to a large rummage sale and left with a HUGE box of vintage, old, and used baseballs with a few softballs buried in the box. There was a mix of little league, Babe Ruth league, MLB, Rawlings and no name baseballs, some were so grungy and naturally distressed, that I was in pure Heaven, for me locating a huge box of baseballs that have been worn to the core is like locating a treasure chest of gold, these baseballs are what comprise my vintage collection of baseball accessories. My favorite of vintage and used baseballs are the real dark brown ones, that have a chocolate bar look to it, I found a few of these in this batch and will be saving them for one special cuff or to use as a display. If you are ordering vintage cuffs from me, make sure you use the correct cuff listing , vintage baseball cuff, no two vintage baseball skins are alike and some can be extra aged, please let me know in your order. Hope you all are having a great start to the weekend, Cheers, xo Lisa :-)

Brief Re-visit of Baseball Origins

The first published rules of baseball were written in September of 1845 for a New York City "base ball" club called the Knickerbockers., founded volunteer firefighter and bank clerk Alexander  Cartwright, who is also commonly known as "the father of baseball". Cartwright would codify a new set of rules that would form the basis for modern baseball, calling for a diamond-shaped infield, foul lines and the three-strike rule. One important rule, the 13th, stipulated that the player need not be physically hit by the ball to be put out; this permitted the subsequent use of a farther-travelling hard ball. Evolution from the so-called "Knickerbocker Rules" to the current rules is fairly well documented, thus abolishing the dangerous practice of tagging runners by throwing balls at them.
(Alexander Cartwright)

On June 3, 1953, Congress officially credited Cartwright with inventing the modern game of baseball, and he is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. However, the role of Cartwright himself has been disputed. His authorship may have been exaggerated in a modern attempt to identify a single inventor of the game, although Cartwright may have a better claim to the title than any other single American.

Cartwright, a New York bookseller who later caught "gold fever", umpired the first-ever recorded U.S. baseball game with codified rules in Hoboken, New Jersey on June 19, 1846, the Knickerbockers played the first official game of baseball against a team of cricket players, the game ended, and the other team (The New York Nines) won, 22-1. Cartwright also introduced the game in most of the cities where he stopped on his trek west to California to find gold, beginning a new,  American tradition.

In 1851, the game of baseball was already well-established enough that a newspaper report of a game played by a group of teamsters on Christmas Day referred to the game as, "a good old-fashioned game of baseball.

(New_York_Mutual_baseball_player 1857)

In 1857, sixteen clubs from modern New York City sent delegates to a convention that standardized the rules, essentially by agreeing to revise the Knickerbocker rules. In 1858, twenty-five including one from New Jersey founded a going concern but the National Association of Base Ball Players is conventionally dated from 1857. It governed through 1870 but it scheduled and sanctioned no games.
In 1858, clubs from the association played a cross-town, all-star series pitting Brooklyn clubs against clubs from New York and Hoboken.

On July 20, 1858, an estimated crowd of about 4,000 spectators watched New York and Hoboken defeat Brooklyn by a score of 22-18. The New York team included players from the Union, Empire, Eagle, Knickerbocker and Gotham clubs. The Brooklyn team included players from the clubs Excelsior, Eckford, Atlantic and Putnam.

In a return match held August 17, 1858, and played at the Fashion Course in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, a slightly smaller crowd cheered Brooklyn to a win over New York and Hoboken by a score of 29-8.

 New York won a third game in the series, also played at the Fashion Course, on September 10, 1858. It appears that admission fees were charged, as "surplus funds" from the games were to be donated to charity.


By 1862 some NABBP member clubs offered games to the general public in enclosed ballparks with admission fees.During and after the American Civil War, the movements of soldiers and exchanges of prisoners helped spread the game. As of the December 1865 meeting, the year the war ended, there were isolated Association members in Fort Leavenworth, St. Louis, Louisville, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, along with about 90 members north and east of Washington, D.C..

  (Jim_Creighton_Excelsior 1860 to 1862)

(Baseball uniforms 1870s)

In 1869 the first openly professional baseball team formed. Earlier players were nominally amateurs. The Cincinnati Red Stockings recruited nationally and effectively toured nationally, and no one beat them until June 1870.

Already in the 19th century, the "old game" was invoked for special exhibitions such as reunions and anniversaries — and for making moral points. Today hundreds of clubs in the U.S. play "vintage base ball" according to the 1845, 1858, or later rules (up to about 1887), usually in vintage uniforms. Some of them have supporting casts that recreate period dress and manner, especially those associated with living history museums.



For more info visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_baseball

xoxo
Lisa

History of Yankee Stadium, Legends, & Cuff Season

From February to August, I'm a cuff making machine, this is my busiest time of the year for baseball, with football cuffs making a presence mid July into January, not to mention the in-betweeners like basketball, soccer, tennis, nascar and volleyball, which keeps me on my toes. The latest trend within my sports cuff empire are the vintage, old, game played baseballs, which I have to agree are my favorite to make, nothing beats the nostalgia and worn look of an old used baseball, no two leathers are alike, each has its own character and special meaning. Holding one of these baseball treasures is an experience, makes me want to sit back on my porch, drink some lemonade, and reminisce about the playing legends of the day like Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, what it must have been like to be in the crowd at the old Yankee stadium watching them play. ( Opening day at Yankee Stadium in 1923, John Philip Souza second from the right on the field, from the George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress) Yankee Stadium officially opened on Wednesday, April 18, 1923, with the Yankees' first home game. The venue was constructed for $2.4 million (equal to $32,339,063 today's amount) between 1922–1923 specifically for the Yankees, who had been sharing the Polo Grounds with the New York Giants baseball team for 10 years. Yankee Stadium opened during the 1923 MLB season, and at the time, it was hailed as a one-of-a-kind facility in the country for its size. A digital card collage I created using vintage baseball cards measuring 12 by 12 Up to this point The Yankees had played at the Polo Grounds in northern Manhattan since 1913, sharing the venue with the New York Giants. However, relations between the two teams were rocky, with the Giants harboring resentment towards the Yankees. For the 1920 season, the Yankees acquired star slugger Babe Ruth and in his first year with his new team, the Yankees drew 1.3 million fans to the Polo Grounds, outdrawing the Giants. In 1921, the Yankees won their first American League pennant (but lost the then-best-of-nine 1921 World Series to the Giants in eight games, all played at the Polo Grounds). This exacerbated Giants owner Charles Stoneham's resentment of the Yankees and precipitated his insistence that the Yankees find another place to play their home games. The Giants derisively suggested that the Yankees relocate "to Queens or some other out-of-the-way place. So that is what Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston and Jacob Ruppert, the Yankees' owners since January 1915, decided to due, to proceed with building their team its own stadium. Huston and Ruppert explored many areas for Yankee Stadium, the area they settled on was a 10 acres (4.0 ha) lumberyard in the Bronx within walking distance from, and in sight of, Coogan's Bluff. The Polo Grounds was located on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River, at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue. Huston and Ruppert purchased the lumberyard from William Waldorf Astor for $600,000, equal to $8,229,423 today. Construction began May 5, 1922, and Yankee Stadium opened to the public less than a year later. The stadium's walls were built of "an extremely hard and durable concrete that was developed by Thomas Edison", with total of 20,000 cubic yards (15,000 cubic meters) of concrete used in the original structure.a digital piece I did out of my love for Babe Ruth Upon opening the stadium, Fred Lieb of the New York Evening Telegram dubbed the stadium "The House That Ruth Built". The Yankees also won their first World Series during the Stadium's inaugural season, this paving the way to many more World Series Wins to come. Baseball is apart of our American history and tradition, it creates bonding experiences with families, with friends, it paves the way to new friendships, creates heartfelt tradition and memories for all ages to enjoy, guy or girl, 8 year old or 80 year old, its a way to keep the heart young and feel art of the game. For me baseball has all these factors, but it also has extra meaning, it inspired me to create, to design and play another part of the game. It enabled me to create my sports cuffs out of pure nostalgia of the baseball itself, to preserve it forever and wear as my tribute to my baseball hero's, who are guiding me closer and closer to the game. Each team I work with, every family member or friend I speak with, and fans who heart their team, all want to have that one unique piece of memorabilia which makes them feel more connected at the game. My favorite cuffs beside the vintage baseball cuffs, are the ones that players wives, local team members, and fans sometimes want, using their own special baseball from a game, which allows me to put even more meaning into their cuff design, because its special to them and now to me. Thanks everyone for taking a brief trip down memory lane with me and for all your support of the original sports cuff all these years! Have a great weekend, xo Lisa For more information on the history of Yankee Stadium visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Stadium To purchase your own sports cuffs visit these 3 sites: www.sportscuffworld.com www.artoperanj.com http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/MoonfairesWorld