Purists say longer baseball pants is a sock in the eye

Q. Why do some Major League baseball players wear their pants so high above their socks?

A. Because whether they mean to or not, a few players are preserving a proud, 150-year tradition, a tradition that many lament is dying as baseball fashion has come full circle in the past three decades. Yes, just as some investors historically have studied women’s hemlines to predict how the stock market will fare, baseball purists have kept a close eye on a recent hosiery trend that they say is totally lacking in socks appeal.

Ironically, the pairing of short pants and high socks likely caused as much of a stir when the they were first worn as they apparently do now for people like you. Baseball historians say that when the sport began in earnest in the 1830s and ’40s, all players wore long pants just as most have gone back to now since the 1990s. After all, it was only natural to want to protect your legs if you were sliding into home plate or flinging yourself at a hot grounder rocketing up the middle.

But after forming his team in June 1866, Cincinnati owner George Ellard decided to sock it to the fans, official Major League historian John Thorn once told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Since Ellard and many of his players were cricket veterans, he designed a uniform that combined the knickerbocker-style pants that stopped just below the knee with a high, red sock. Although tame by today’s standards, Ellard apparently thought it would be as much an attendance draw as a fashion statement.

“High socks displayed manly calves, which the ladies liked,” Thorn said.

The result was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, and the new fashion seemed to catch fire. In 1870, the Chicago White Stockings joined the National Association of Base Ball Players. After the 1907 season, John Taylor finally christened his American League team in Boston as the Red Sox (by 1890, Cincinnati had become simply “the Reds.”)

Just one small problem. In the early 20th century, Nap Lajoie, the namesake player of the then-Cleveland Naps, once was spiked and nearly died. The reason? Some speculated that because socks were not colorfast in those days, the dye from the sock had entered his bloodstream and poisoned him.

This led to a second revolution in baseball hose in about 1910. Instead of a high, colored sock, players began wearing long, colored stirrups over plain white socks, which were called “sanis” because they provided a sanitary layer between the skin and the potentially lethal dye-colored stirrup.

At first, the colorful stirrup ruled the day, and very little of the sani was seen. In fact, the bottom of the stirrup was often white to both blend with and hide the bit of white sani peeking out. But in the 1940s, the fetish over foot fashion began to change again as more sani began to show while the white-bottom stirrup fell out of favor. And with the advent of colorfast dyes, the mix of vibrantly colored stirrups with a sizable section of the white sani became one of baseball’s signature looks.

But the only constant in life is change and so the evolution continued in baseball uniforms. By the 1960s, pants legs had begun to drop while players like Frank Robinson were turning the stirrup into little more than a thin stripe of color on a sea of white. In “Ball Four,” the 1969 baseball classic, Jim Bouton wrote that some players were slicing the bottoms off their stirrups and sewing in extra material so that they could be stretched even higher to expose as much white as possible. That way, he wrote, “your legs look long and cool instead of dumpy and hot.”

Some fought hard to preserve this legacy. In 1992, for example, Philadelphia clubhouse manager Frank Coppenbarger suggested that a blue Liberty Bell be added to the bottom of the team’s red stirrup. But the stirrup eventually gave way to the pseudostirrup — white socks with the colored stripes woven into them. Then, even though baseball rules require that “all players on a team shall wear uniforms identical in color, trim and style,” many complain that baseball fashion from the knee down has devolved into an ugly melange of looks.

Some, like San Francisco’s Hunter Pence, say they are glad their Little League coaches forced them to wear their pants short as youngsters. He loved the comfort and, as a pro, he has continued to cuff his pants higher than almost any other player.

“I guess it’s a dying tradition,” he once told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I’m glad they still let us, though.”

But many now wear their pants down to their shoetop, a look that some say disgraces the game. So what should be done? I’ll leave you to ponder these thoughts from Paul Lukas, who writes the UniWatch blog for ESPN.com:

“For starters, the low-pants look has got to go,” says Lukas, who wants the baseball commissioner to mandate a uniform uniform throughout baseball. “This style not only makes players appear as if they're wearing footie pajamas, it also dishonors baseball's hosiery heritage.

“Legwear is an integral part of a team's color scheme, which is why we have franchises called the White Sox and Red Sox. So let's begin by bringing pant legs back up to mid- or upper-shin. And what should be exposed by this move? Solid-color socks? Stirrups? UniWatch votes for stirrups, circa 1962 or so. ... But really, any consistent approach would be preferable to the hodgepodge currently polluting our diamonds.”

Today’s trivia

When did Australia finally adopt a national anthem — and what is it?

Answer to Saturday’s trivia: If you’ve ever popped the top on a Kirin, you’ve enjoyed a beer whose name goes back at least 2,500 years. As early as the fifth century B.C., Chinese writers described the kirin (or quilin) as a chimerical creature with a dragonlike face, deer’s body (with scales), horse’s hooves and ox’s tail. Sometimes it is depicted as a unicorn, but often has two antlers. It is thought to be a symbol of good fortune, heralding a period of prosperity or serenity. Many claim it attended the birth of Confucius. In 1888, the Japan Brewery (now Kirin Brewery Co.) appropriated the figure for a new beer called Kirin Lager, which is now one of Japan’s most popular brews.

This story was originally published July 18, 2015 at 9:20 AM with the headline "Purists say longer baseball pants is a sock in the eye."