Less than 30 minutes after Alec Mills recorded the last out of his No-No for the Cubs, a graphic was already created.
Late Sunday afternoon, Alec Mills, a relatively unknown pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, was a few outs away from something special. He was on the verge of the teams 16th No-Hitter in their storied history, and I was sitting at home in Tampa, a non Cubs fan, watching every pitch.
This is the crazy part of my job at Fanatics...especially with the MLB. When a player is on the brink of special moment; a No Hitter, a Perfect Game, hitting for The Cycle, etc....myself, and my team, are on the job.
Fans want to have that memory, and wear that moment with pride...and thats where we come in. Whenever one of these "micro-moments" happens, I'm talking to the merchandisers, league reps and my designers to make something happen, and happen quick. There is a very short window of opportunity to turn one of these graphics and sell it to the masses. We need to jump through many a hoop to work out all the back end mumbo jumbo with legal, licensing and just the league in general to get a graphic available on a tee within 18 hours...MAX! If it goes too far beyond that, the fanfare usually dies down, and the window closes...hence the rush on a Sunday evening.
Typically these graphics are basics...text driven, and to the point, classic layouts, team marks and colors...Done. I happened to have a similar graphic hanging around from our last season of development that just popped into my head. Flipped some text, swapped logos, and we were good to go in under 30 minutes. Before noon today, the day after the game, the graphic was already live on the Fanatics site.
It truly takes a village, and a lot goes into such a simple task...still, it's pretty fun to work on this kind of stuff...just need to get one going for the Mets one of these days.
Check out the shirt here on Fanatics.com ...tell all your North Sider friends!
-L