1/31/2024 0 Comments White sox play by play 2016“Hell, I’ve got a worse looking knee than any of my players. If it’s 95° out, an athlete should be glad to put on short pants and forget his bony knees”, Veeck told the press at the time. “Players should not worry about their vanity but instead their comfort. ![]() Naturally the shorts stole the show (Can you imagine if SportsLogos.Net existed in 1976? Or even Twitter?) The Hollywood Stars (PCL) wore shorts in 1950. Despite the knees being exposed, players weren’t exactly going to have problems sliding, the high socks worn with the shorts had special rubber sewn in just below the knee to act sort of like a sliding pad, protecting the players legs from any potential burns or cuts. The uniforms offered three different pants styles, the “clamdiggers” which are just your modern-day long pants worn by most MLB players in 2016, the “knickerbockers” which are short pants with high socks - still popular these days but less so than they used to be, and the aforementioned “Hollywood shorts” – named for the short-pant uniforms previously worn by the minor league Hollywood Stars in the ’50s, traditional shorts you’d wear around your backyard on a warm summer day. Fans today seem to love them, despite ace pitcher’s Chris Sale’s thoughts on them. This new look is the one most people now associate with the 1970s White Sox - the giant collars, the team name arched across the front in the “Tuscan” style font, the midnight blue pants. T’was the March of 1976 at the Tremont Hotel in Chicago when Veeck trotted out former Sox stars to model the team’s new uniforms. Bill Veeck (centre, not in uniform) with former Sox players, modelling the new uniforms in March 1976 Long-time Negro League star Satchel Paige, at age 42, was signed the following season, making him the oldest rookie in Major League history.īut we’re going to stay true to the focus of this website and look at Veeck’s tinkering with the baseball uniform while Veeck is also credited with introducing player names to the back of jerseys we’re going to talk specifically about those infamous “Hollywood Shorts”, as he called them. ![]() When three of his players refused to shake Doby’s hand, Veeck kicked them off the team. When the colour barrier finally broke in 1947, Veeck now owner of the Cleveland Indians signed Larry Doby therefore breaking the colour barrier in the American League. There were the silly stunts - signing Eddie Gaedel who stood just 3’7″ and wore uniform number “1/8” (he walked on 4 pitches in his only appearance), or hiring Max Patkin a professional “baseball clown” to be an official bench coach, he buried the Cleveland Indians 1948 AL pennant during their failure to repeat the following season, and even allowed fans to vote on in-game team strategy while with owning the St Louis Browns in the 1950s.Īnd then there was his more historically important maneuvers - he reportedly tried to purchase the Philadelphia Phillies and stock the roster full of Negro League stars a full five years before Jackie Robinson’s debut, subsequently blocked by the National League with the segregationists in charge of the league caught wind of his plan. You see, Bill Veeck liked to challenge the status quo. It was during the U.S. Bi-Centennial in 1976, and it all started within the mind of the unique genius that was Mr. So yes, to answer your question the White Sox did indeed wear shorts. Reggie Jackson hitting three home runs in a World Series game? What are you nuts!? It’s all about the shorts! It seems to be what baseball fans of the appropriate age who don’t care so much about uniform design think about first when forced into a conversation about uniforms.įour decades later these largely, otherwise forgettable baseball games, get brought up more often in my circle far more than anything else from the 1970s. ![]() This conversation has happened multiple times in my life. “Hey, didn’t the White Sox use to wear shorts?”
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