Simply Put - "It’s The Pants"

By Clint Cox

For the last two weeks I have written about why some baseball players wear there pants hiked up to their knees, thus showing their stockings, and why do some prefer to wear their pant legs all the way down to their ankles. While I have had a lot of comments and e-mails about the articles, I had no intention of writing a third column on the subject.
But I showed up on Monday night in Sneads to cover the Pirates and the Tigers of Blountstown. I immediately noticed something different about the Pirates. I had just covered them a week ago in Altha and only one Pirate player had his pant legs hiked up to show his stockings. That was the pitcher Pat Jones and by the way he struck out 19 batters with those stockings showing.
On Monday night the Pirates had a look that was reminiscent of the uniforms worn back in the early days of baseball. Call their throwback uniforms a "Field of Dreams" look if you will. Their pant were baggy and the legs were hiked up to their knees. Every single Pirate player and coach was displaying their blue stockings. I’ve got to admit that I liked what I saw.

Some of the players didn’t seem to care for the look as much as I did. A few Pirates accidently, or possibly on purpose, allowed their pants legs to drift back down to their ankles. The Pirate coaches and other players would have nothing of it and the players were told to hike’em up or head to the dugout.

I talked with Head Coach Mark Guerra about my recent articles and his decision to shake up their look. They had thought about doing so on several occasions he said but just had not done it. Monday night’s district game seemed to be the right time. Guerra talked about wearing the throwback uniforms during his days of playing professional ball and how he liked the idea of the throwback uniform look on occasion for his Pirates.

He also let me in on his thoughts about the stockings. With baggy pants the uniforms lend themselves to hiking the legs up to show off the stockings. But most of the uniforms worn by today’s players are much more tight fitting and don’t lend themselves to hiking the legs up as well.

We all know that a uniform really has no impact on performance. But Simply Put, the Pirates won for the first time in a long while in the throwback uniforms. You can bet that Pirate fans and opponents will see more of this "Field of Dreams" look. And who knows "If you wear it, they will come"

From the front porch: Coach said that if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it.