Is Nothing Sacred? Baseball Says Goodbye to the Stirrup

Jason Thornbury

The noble contribution to baseball by an ingenious man -- his name long misplaced -- has been victim of an Oliver Stone sized cover-up for the better part of the last decade.

The grand old game has benefited from, and suffered through, dramatic changes in the last 10 years. From two expansions and the inevitable dilution of pitching to juiced balls and juiced players to America's pastime held captive by a Canuck champion for three years, baseball endured a high tide of high jinks in the last decade that would make even Charles Finley pause.

The most dreadful change, though, has been the disappearance of the stirrup, that stretchy piece of sock-like material that, like the cap for the head, gives the shin its identity.

The creative and nifty mind behind the stirrup is unknown to the pages of baseball history. Perhaps it was a guy responsible for washing jerseys. Or maybe it was the last guy on some bench who had more in common with Ralph Lauren than Ralph Branca. Either way, the stirrup -- once a functional piece of uniform that later became an ornament adored by many -- has, like the mighty Casey, whiffed.

The stirrup is no longer hip. It's no longer shin or ankle, either -- it is simply nowhere to be found.

The stirrup made its way to the diamond in the early 20th century. Some pinpoint the year as 1910, but in Ken Burns and Geoffrey C. Ward's book, Baseball, photos from as early as 1905 show players sporting it. And its original task also depends upon the historian telling the story. Because clothing dye was not colorfast, colored socks bled onto a player's legs and feet when mixed with his inescapable sweat seeping from his skin.

According to one history reading, this was particularly dangerous because a player could get blood poisoning if the bleeding dye infected the bleeding wound of a freshly spiked shin. The less-dangerous reason is that players didn't especially enjoy their feet turning various shades of the rainbow, thus the need for a solution. And that brings us to our unknown stirrup mastermind, who first donned a simple white under sock (known as a sanitary sock) before pulling over it a colored sock with the heel and toe cut out. The stirrup was born.

Players could wear colored socks without the messy bleeding, not to mention the fear of death should they see Ty Cobb's spikes screaming toward their shins. Like any good child in the early 20th Century, the stirrup was seen but not heard -- that is, players wore it like a regular sock, keeping the "stirrup" part as low as possible, hiding the white of the sanitary sock.

The sock component of the stirrup was seen from the ankle to the knee, but what made the stirrup special -- the stirrup itself -- was really not heard from. By the time the stirrup reached puberty in the late '40s, it had also finally hit its growth spurt. Slowly the stirrup made its way up the leg, revealing more and more of the sanitary through the '50s. By its adult years, the '60s and '70s, the stirrup was its own man, rising high on the leg with most of the sock portion covered underneath the pants, leaving only a colored vertical stripe highlighting each side of a player's sanitary white shin.

As a senior citizen, the stirrup was all but laid to rest. As pants went from knee-high to shin-high to ankle-low by the early '90s -- and to actually over the shoe top by the late '90s -- the stirrup disappeared underneath the pant leg. Pajamas for baseball pants became GQ (see Derek Bell), and as the 21st Century dawned, the sun set on the stirrup.

What's worse, sock manufactures now blend socks and stirrups into some sort of sock/stirrup hybrid with a colored stripe running up the sides of the white sock. Two socks in one. Look for a picture of this in Webster's under "not leaving well enough alone."

In his 1969 tell-all book, Ball Four, Jim Bouton credits Frank Robinson with the full-length stirrup. He says Robinson, who played from '56-'76, made it cool to stretch the stirrup up the leg. Well, Robinson is now the MLB's Vice President of On-Field Operations. He should undertake an operation to make the stirrup cool again. Or at least encourage the stirrup's return.

Before every game, the NFL has a fashion cop warn players of possible fashion fines if they don't follow the league's intricate dress code. Why not a Major League Baseball fashion czar to enforce the stirrup? Of course, it would be more reassuring, not to mention less Gestapo, if players displayed the stirrup on their own, out of respect for tradition if nothing else.

But players today don't know Richie Ashburn from Richie Cunningham. Nostalgia to today's player is Morgana the Kissing Bandit. (Speaking of Morgana, notice when she ceased her surprise smooches? Yep, just as the stirrup disappeared, so too did the lip lessons.)

The stirrup is unique. It is classy. It is beautifully unnecessary today. But it is baseball. No other sport has such an inimitably superfluous piece of uniform, unless you count the late Payne Stewart's knickers. And no other sport has a piece of uniform that is its sole province. Many wear some form of helmet or jersey or shoe. No one else wears the stirrup. (Note to all wise guys out there: a jockey does not wear a stirrup.)

I am probably not the first to lament the stirrup cover-up, but as I watched my 1988 World Series tape the other day, I realized the most obvious dissimilarity between then and now wasn't a skinny, boyish, andro-free Mark McGwire or Stan Javier's afro and push-broom mustache. The most striking difference was the stirrups. Everyone wore them openly, as it should be. It was a glorious reminder of baseball's past. Kirk Gibson's stirrups gave him the look of a gamer just as much as his snarl, his wobbly knees and his unforgettable fist-pumping celebration rounding second base. For 80 years or so, stirrups were a part of the game, from the big leagues to Little League.

The stirrup is like your grandfather. He might have outlived his usefulness per se, but his patriarchal stature that inspires, his craggy, grizzled features that testify hard living and his old, embellished stories that edify our character connect us to an unfamiliar lineage, which is all too easily relegated to our subconscious were it not for the old man and his bottle of Wild Turkey.

Some will wonder, "All this for a sock?" Well, no. And that's precisely the point. Like Lambchop, it's not just a sock. It's a stirrup. And it belongs in baseball.

Just as most pop culture is cyclical, so too is fashion. The mini-skirt came and went and is back (may it ever be thus). Platform shoes made something of a comeback, as have wide ties and those goofy '70s-like sunglasses all the cool kids are wearing these days. So, there's always hope for the stirrup. When the stirrup is fashionable again, let's hope it stays.

The mini-skirt, too.