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5 Ways to Better Baseball’s Style Game

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Football’s lockout drags on.  After an immensely successful season, the NBA might be in a coma until January.  Yet Major League Baseball is experiencing rare labor peace and a surge in attendance.  While the #1 with a bullet NFL and the well dressed NBA sit on the shelf, now’s as good a time as ever for Baseball to try and regain some of its lost style & charisma.   Y’know, that stuff that was on display during innings 1-8 in Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns.

Above Photo Credit – Andrew Malone

1. Encourage Managers to lose the uniforms

The Marlins recently brought 80-year-old Jack McKeon back as their skip.  The man is not going to pinch hit.  Let him wear a suit.  Baseball managers have been stuck wearing the same getup as their athletes ever since coat and tie favoring Connie Mack (who started managing in the 19th century) finally hung up his oxfords.  Let the managers wear business attire like their NHL and NBA counterparts.  Besides, who wouldn’t want to see what linen blend two-piece Joe Maddon wears with his specs?  (Suggestion:  Swap out the heavy black frames for horn rimmed.)

2. Make the stadiums look more nostalgic and less like amusement parks.

For all the bright plastic, bounce houses, and ever present souvenir stands, kids just aren’t taking to baseball like they used to.  One of the few things baseball has is its ties to a time when things were classic and rarely trend driven or disposable.  Ball parks should look like brick and mortar shrines.  Not like a Chuck-E-Cheese.

3. Embrace the Throwbacks.  Eliminate the solid color alternate jersey

Baseball went through a period in the 90s – early 2000s where half the teams looked like their uniforms were designed by No Fear.  Less is more.  Mute the colors (unless they’re awesomely bright throwbacks), look to the early 20th century for inspiration.  Ditch those blocky contrast solid color jerseys as a team’s alternate.

4. Turn Back the Clock Night = Dress the part

Fans who shows up on turn-back-the-clock-night dressed at the same level of how fans used to dress when going to the park should get to enjoy similar period pricing on food and beer.  Flying used to be glamorous.  So did going to the ballpark.  Don’t wear a costume, but it’s not a bad excuse to get your date in a set of pearls and you in a jacket.

5. Get Bud a Stylist

It’s no shocker that Commissioner Selig was at one time a used car salesman whose team played in a corrugated aluminum stadium.  It’s never too late Bud.  Lose the pleats, go down (at least) one size in the jackets, and drop the waist on those trousers below your navel.  Maybe stop sharing a barber with Bill Gates.  If Bud wants to embrace the aged look?  Get that man a couple of bow ties.

Any other suggestions for how America’s Pastime can step up their style game?  Leave those below…

Comments

  1. I agree with most of your ideas, especially the managers uniform and turn back the clock night. As for the throw back jerseys do you really want to see the old Astros and Padres uniforms more than once a year?

  3. Definitely agree on taking managers out of the team uniforms. I’m a former baseball fan and now a huge soccer fan. One of the things that impresses me the most is how almost all of the managers in soccer wear a suit to the sidelines. And this isnt style related, but baseball should try to speed things up. I was watching a game with my dad the other day and it took forever for the pitcher to throw five pitches. I was sitting there waiting, thinking “wow, if this was soccer, the ball would have be passed at least ten or so times by now and something interesting would have happened.”

  4. Sorry joe I love this blog but why do you have to go and write this piece? make me feel like a woman more…

  5. I find it interesting that many of your suggestion lean towards a bygone era (nostalgic stadiums, embrace throwbacks, turn back the clock night), but you trash one of the most unique traditions of the MLB. The idea of Managers wearing the teams uniform dates back to when players actually managed the team.  Also, most coaches in baseball get directly involved in the game, such as participating in pregame warmup, which would be pretty hard to do in a suit. As a Sox fan, I couldn’t imagine Ozzie Guillen running out to argue a call from Joe West wearing a $5,000 suit.

  6. I disagree categorically with this article.  The ballpark is where I want to go to dress way down, eat peanuts and pour vodka out of a flask into my lemonade and yell at the players who can’t hear me.  Honestly, if I owned cargo shorts, I would consider wearing them to the ballpark.  None of your suggestions encourage this type of behavior – despicable.  Go Nats!

  7. All that being said, horseracing already has all of these things; suits, pretty dresses, nostalgia.  If readers are supportive of the above suggestions, but maybe like baseball the way it is, I suggest a trip to a nearby racetrack.  Most tracks have at least one big race per year where everyone dresses up for a day at the races.

  8. You make a good point, though I do prefer to see the managers in suits in the NHL, NBA, etc.

  9. NFL should embrace the suits once again. If youre not gonna wear the full uniform, wear a suit!

  11. Gotta say, I think that managers wearing the players’ uniform is one of the coolest traditions in baseball. I can’t imagine a dude sitting in the dugout in a suit. And what about the first base and third base coaches. They’re on the field the whole game and I think the uniform is appropriate for them. The manager could always fill those roles as well, so there are practical reasons for the uniforms as well.

    Football coaches are the ones who need to up their style game. Head coaches, at least, should wear a coat and tie on the sidelines, just like my hero Tom Landry.

    I think baseball should mandate that the pants not go down past the calves. I think that the full length pants so many players wear these days are uncool.

  12. Amen on the full-length pants.  More Johnny Venters, less Ryan Howard…and that’s not just because I’m a Braves fan

  13. I’ve always found that managers wearing the uniform look so ridiculously stupid. I’m not saying they need to be like NBA or soccer coaches wearing their sharp suits. It’s summer, it’s hot, let them dress up accordingly. Perhaps button downs and dress pants/chinos? NFL coaches used to wear suits, now they look/dress like sh*t too. 

  14. Looks like you hit two points with my Oakland A’s: The stadium (Joe says I can refer to it as nostalgic, now!) and the uniform (Why aren’t more people wearing bright gold jerseys with white pants and matching cleats?)

    Thanks Joe! 😉

  16. Ah, here is the rub, even though my beloved Pac Bell (or AT&T if you wish) is much newer than Oakland Coliseum (or whatever the hell you are forced to call it), the style of Pac Bell is more “classic” and “nostalgic” while the Coliseum is “modern” and looks like a “crap hole”

    You guys are pretty much screwed until you get a new stadium or everything gets moved down to the South Bay.

  17. True. But until they get a new one, you don’t have to take out a 2nd mortgage for tickets like with AT&T.

  19. I like that this article raises some points about the style of the game. Though, I’ve always thought aging coaches looked slightly ridiculous dressed like the players that are half their age, tradition (depending on how far back you go) dictates their attire. Plus, I think there is a rule (written or unwritten) about stepping onto the field during play that requires a team uniform.

    I do agree with some of the other commenters about ditching the pajama pants and going back to the knickers and socks. I respect any player that chooses to sport the tall socks. Also, I like the part about keeping the stadiums traditional. If all parks had scoreboard like Wrigley Field, I think it would only add to the experience. I’m tired of seeing animated character and annoying videos at the end of the field. Keep it simple, let the fans focus on the game.

  20. Its good to see people sticking up for the managers wearing team uni’s.  It doesnt matter who’s wearing it, but a suit on a baseball diamond is just ridiculous. 

    The only thing I think that NEEDS to happen to baseball is to start screening those people chosen to throw out the first pitch.  It kills me to see grown MEN unable to throw a baseball.  If it were the caveman days, the men that didnt know how to throw would be dead or picking fruit and leaving animal hunts to the real men.  Hows that for nostalgia? ha ha

  22. Lose the pajama style pants and go high cuffed, stirrups stirrups and more stirrups!!

  23. Baseball is the only game where the manager, and the coaches, have to come onto the field of play to make changes, decisons. by rule, people who are on the field have to be in uniform. If you want to talk about ways to make things look better, then stop allowing players to wear their pants like they are pajamas

  24. Padres fan here – I speak for a good many of us when I say “absolutely.”  We’re sick of looking like the Brewers – at least those old unis had a distinctive identity.

  25. Can the union and MLB agree in this: Get rid of the baggy pajama pants. Seriously, stop it, they look horrible. They don’t look like a sports uniform. Make high socks the rule. Important detail here: allow baggy pants with those high socks (that was the standard until the 1970’s anyways) so players can still feel free enough in their pants if they need to. I don’t see this happening though as players (especially those from suburban towns) need to remind us all how gangsta they are.

  27. They’re just wearing the same (ugly) pants that average-American-dude wears every day, with no fit and enough fabric at the cuffs to swallow your shoe. It’s not a gangsta thing, just a consistency thing.

    I’m surprised no uniforms have Ed Hardy designs on them–yet.

  29. While I like the idea of the suit ala Connie Mack, it is really hard to throw bases when arguing with an ump in a suit.  I agree with the throwbacks to an extent.  There have been some horribly ugly uniforms in team history.  But I also love several of the alternate unis.

  30. I second this comment especially because, given my baseball history books that I like to read, there is a little known fact that managers don’t actually have to wear uniforms to manage the game. They can wear business attire if they like, however, there is a rule on the books that states that no person shall be allowed on the field not in uniform. The manager thereby forfeits his rights to visit the mound or injured players on the field during play.