Old Enough to Remember Baseball Players Wearing Stirrups

Recently one of the players on my college baseball team entered my office with an interesting request. I could tell right away some of his teammates offered him up to be the sacrificial lamb who, after being rejected, would then return to his brethren humiliated and properly put in his place. He explained that some of the guys wanted to wear a particular style of socks as part of our game day outfit. After a nervous rambling about how the players would pay for them, he shoved the catalogue in front of me and anxiously awaited the verdict. The socks looked like something Dr. Suess would wear and I immediately made note of that fact by making some smart aleck comment about they would be perfectly suited for the next time we scheduled a game in a circus tent. But upon further review, I noticed something. At the bottom of these socks was something known in baseball as a stirrup. And my mind raced back to 1972 and my first year of Little League, when I was allowed to wear the beloved red and white striped stirrup socks donned by all the members of my Club Carolina team. “Okay,” I finally said after lecturing him about not wanting to embarrass the program, “Ya’ll pay for them, ya’ll can wear them.” He tried to hide his surprise. What he forgot was the fact that I am now considered old when it comes to sports. I distinctly remember wearing stirrup socks and having to use medicine tape to keep them up around my knees. I also remember using a wooden bat in Little League and the only pitches you had to worry about hitting were a fastball and a curveball. One finger for fastball, two for curve. Nowadays a catcher has to use every digit he’s got and then some to tell a pitcher what to throw. Cut fastball, Running fastball, Two-seamer, Four-seamer, Slider, Change-up, Splitter, etc. They’ve got them all now. When I was a kid, Big League pitchers wore jackets whenever they got on base. And when relievers came in from the bullpen, there was a guy whose only job was to transport them in a golf cart and drop them off at the mound. In the old days the starting pitcher in a game often pitched all nine innings. Relief pitchers were simply known as relievers. Nowadays starting pitchers are expected to throw six innings and turn it over to the “holder”, whose job it is to hold the lead until the “closer”- who stereotypically tends to have an eccentric personality and odd quirks- can arrive and pitch the ninth and final inning. Speaking of holders, baseball isn’t the only sport that’s changed. In ancient times, football field goal kickers moved straight to the ball held by the holder instead of attacking it from the side- “soccer style.” Nowadays they call those old-timers- for lack of a better term- “straight on kickers” and they’re obsolete. At any rate, I have no idea if the Dr. Suess retro-socks will arrive in time for the guys to wear them before the end of the season. But if they don’t go over well, don’t point the finger at me. Blame it all on the kid with the catalog, the eccentric closer.