Baseball Stirrups - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Stirrups are uniform

Baseball uniform

A baseball uniform is a type of uniform worn by baseball players. Most baseball uniforms have the names and uniform numbers of players who wear them, usually on the backs of the uniforms to distinguish players from one other. Baseball shirts , pants, shoes, socks, caps, and glove are parts of...

socks commonly worn by baseball

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...

players up until the mid-1990s, when major-league players began wearing their pants down to the ankles, setting a trend soon picked up by players in minor and amateur leagues. Until then, stirrup socks had been an integral part of the traditional baseball uniform

Baseball uniform

, giving them a distinctive look. A high sock was needed because baseball players wore knickerbockers ("knickers"), worn by many boys in the late 19th century and into the 20th century. The stirrup socks served to display team colors, stripes or team logos. For example, for several years the Minnesota Twins

Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...

wore navy-blue stirrups with "TC" on the side, for "Twin Cites". The Houston Astros

Houston Astros

The Houston Astros are a Major League Baseball team located in Houston, Texas. They are a member of the National League Central division. The Astros are expected to join the American League West division in 2013. Since , they have played their home games at Minute Maid Park, known as Enron Field...

wore navy blue stirrup socks with a white star on the side. The stirrup sock colors were also the basis of team names, including the Cincinnati Red Stockings

Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds are a Major League Baseball team based in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are members of the National League Central Division. The club was established in 1882 as a charter member of the American Association and joined the National League in 1890....

, Boston Red Sox

Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox are a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, and a member of Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight charter franchises, the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park since . The "Red Sox"...

, and Chicago White Sox

Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox are a Major League Baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois.The White Sox play in the American League's Central Division. Since , the White Sox have played in U.S. Cellular Field, which was originally called New Comiskey Park and nicknamed The Cell by local fans...

. For these reasons, traditionalists lament the recent "sockless" look in baseball uniforms.

Stirrup socks are worn on top of long socks called "sanitaries," usually white in color. This is because early color dyes in the outer stirrup sock were thought to pose health issues, as well as the fact that the inner, less expensive white sock could be changed more frequently. The stirrup sock lacked a foot, instead having a loop ("stirrup") which fits within the instep of the foot, exposed part of the white undersock underneath. Over the years, the stirrup loop tended to get longer, exposing more of the white undersock, thus creating a look unique to baseball.

However, by the 1980s many players were pulling the loop so high that only the white undersock and the loop itself showed - the rest of the game sock being hidden by their pants. For many years teams had enforced rules so that uniforms were worn "uniformly", including team socks. For example, Leo Durocher

Leo Durocher

Leo Ernest Durocher , nicknamed Leo the Lip, was an American infielder and manager in Major League Baseball. Upon his retirement, he ranked fifth all-time among managers with 2,009 career victories, second only to John McGraw in National League history. Durocher still ranks tenth in career wins by...

, longtime manager of the Chicago Cubs

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs are a professional baseball team located in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the Central Division of Major League Baseball's National League. They are one of two Major League clubs based in Chicago . The Cubs are also one of the two remaining charter members of the National...

, had a measuring stick in the clubhouse. Players were required to match the length of their stirrup loops to this stick at about 4 inches, exposing only a small part of the white sanitary. Increasingly lax regulation of uniform codes by Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

eventually contributed to players ignoring the traditional look.

Although some teams — particularly college teams — continue to wear traditional baseball stirrup socks, another option has been to replace the stirrup/undersock with a "2 in 1" combination sock that mimics the real thing, or simply to wear a single solid knee-high sock with knickers. The trend back to knickers and high socks is particularly evident among youth and high-school teams. A few pro players, such as Casey Janssen

Casey Janssen

Robert Casey Janssen is a right-handed relief pitcher in Major League Baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays.He was selected by the Blue Jays out of UCLA in the fourth round of the draft. When an injury to A.J...

of the Toronto Blue Jays

Toronto Blue Jays

The Toronto Blue Jays are a professional baseball team located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball 's American League ....

, Jamie Moyer

Jamie Moyer

Jamie Moyer is an American professional left handed baseball pitcher who is currently a free agent. At the time of his last game to date , he was the oldest player in the major leagues and had the most wins, losses, and strikeouts of any active Major League pitcher...

of the Philadelphia Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...

and Juan Pierre

Juan Pierre

Juan D'Vaughn Pierre is an outfielder in Major League Baseball who is currently a free agent. He bats and throws left-handed....

of the Chicago White Sox

Chicago White Sox

have been spotted wearing genuine stirrups recently to much fanfare. The minor-league Springfield Cardinals

Springfield Cardinals

The Springfield Cardinals are a minor league baseball team based in Springfield, Missouri. The team, which plays in the Texas League, is the Double-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals major-league club, and is owned by the Cardinals. The club plays at Hammons Field.The Springfield Cardinals...

wear a 2-in-1 version of the traditional St. Louis Cardinals

St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...

' game sock that looks very much like the real thing.

Other sports also use, or have used, stirrup socks, but traditionally wore a white sweat sock over, instead of under, the colored stirrup game sock (eg, basketball, football, hockey). There are still some sock companies manufacturing stirrup socks for baseball and other sports, including Twin City Knitting Company in Conover, North Carolina

Conover, North Carolina

Conover is a city in Catawba County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 8,180 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Hickory–Lenoir–Morganton Metropolitan Statistical Area...

.

Uni Watch, a site that is committed to the "Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics," advocates the use of stirrups in baseball. In fact, Uni Watch's support of the stirrup is so large, a striped stirrup is present in the logo.

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