Baseball Stirrups: A Short History June 13 2017, 0 Comments

Baseball has always been one of America’s most beloved sports. The sport has been around for several years and one thing about the game, besides the players, that grabs your attention immediately is the baseball players’ uniform. A lot of emphasis goes into creating and designing the uniform of baseball players.

Their uniforms are unique at best. They wear shirts with buttons and pants with belts. They wear a hat to keep the sun from getting into their eyes. If you think this is unique, let us tell you that we haven’t even arrived at the most unique part of the baseball uniform.

The baseball stirrups, available in different cuts, are by far, the most unique part their uniform. If we have sparked your interested in baseball stirrups, you will probably want to know its history. Even though the history of stirrups is extremely long, we are going to present you a condensed and short history of the origins of baseball stirrups.

The Beginnings of Baseball Stirrup Socks

Baseball stirrup socks date back all the way to 1886 when baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, exposed their socks. Why would they make such a bold and daring fashion choice? According to baseball historians, the team wanted to increase the number of people who attended their baseball games.

A cheeky reason for exposing their socks and pulling their pants up was to display their claves, which the ladies loved. However, those were just regular socks. The stirrups caught people’s attention in 1905 and it was a bad kind of attention.

Name Change — The Grim Beginnings of Stirrups

A baseball player died from blood poisoning when he received a cut on his leg in 1905. The clothing dyes, which were not as safe as they are now, seeped into his wound and caused his death. To prevent this from happening again to another player, baseball players were instructed to wear sanitary sock, which exposed the ankle so players could easily wear their cleats. Nowadays, you have the choice to wear old school baseball stirrups or modern baseball stirrups with stripes.

The Stripes Era of Baseball Stirrups

In the 1920s, striped stirrups started making the rounds when the New York Giants debuted their striped stirrups. Soon after, other teams followed suit. The St. Louis Cardinals debuted striped old school baseball stirrups with candy cane colors in 1923.

 Other teams would alternate between  uniforms and matching stirrups.  Another example of a team that wore  old school striped socks is the  Brooklyn Dodgers. The players wore  great old school  tube socks in 1931.  Out of all the  teams, Red Sox won,  wearing  stunning stirrups with broad  stripes.

The Colors Make Their Debut

We did not see any color until the 1960s when the Kansas City Athletics wore colored stirrups in 1966. The stunning gold stripped stirrups complemented the gold line on the team’s uniform. In 1970s, the “pull your baseball pants” higher tread came to be. You saw baseball players pulling their pants higher to show off their stirrups. The higher the stirrups’ cut, the cooler you’d look — the mantra of that year and now, a personal choice.

The Different Cuts

You can select a 12-inch baseball stirrups cut, 7-inch baseball stirrups cut, or a 9-inch stirrups cut. The cut of the stirrups determines how much of the sanitary socks you want on display. The 7-inch stirrups’ cut will remind you of the stirrups available in the old era. The 7-inch stirrups come up to your shins, the backs of your legs, and show only a little part of your sanitary socks.

The 12-inch stirrups and 9-inch stirrups have similar cuts. The 9-inch and 12-inch stirrups display the sanitary socks underneath up to halfway up to your shins. If you want to expose your shins, you can wear a higher cut. High cuts have been popular since the 1970s. If you play baseball, you can opt for a higher or shorter cut.