Baseball's Fashion Police

Apparently the baseball fashion police are out in full force . Terry Francona , Manager of the Red Sox incurred their full wrath while his team was playing their nemesis, the Yankees. It seems that Francona was suspected of not wearing an official uniform top under his pullover jacket and underwent a “strip search”. Pullover jackets, warm up jackets and the like have become the garb of choice for most major league managers but the commissioner’s office does not warm up to the wearing of warm up jackets. The powers to be insist that a normal uniform top must be worn under the jacket ( I suspect that the hope is that it will be so uncomfortable in the summer heat that managers will discard the warm up jackets as their uniform of choice). Why all the fuss? The commissioner office feels that the managers are showing disrespect for baseball if they do not wear the uniform top.

Now I ask you what is more disrespectful to baseball, a manager wearing a loose fitting jacket over his pot belly or a manager strutting around in a tight fitting uniform with his pot belly hanging over his belt? I’ll take the loose fitting jacket. In fact if we are talking about fashion why require mangers to wear uniforms ( Connie Mack did a pretty good job in his civilian attire)? They’re not playing ball, why can’t they dress in team sport shirts and sweaters like the NFL football coaches do? If the commissioner must go after fashion violators he should concentrate on the players. What some of them consider the proper wearing of baseball pants is ridiculous and their gold chains flopping around certainly are more of a distraction rather than a fashion statement. Of course the players have a union and a strong one at that, so lets pick on the managers.