May 24, 2006
So How Come?

The question.  As we approach Memorial Day 2006 and the zenith of our Happy Valley baseball season, the 49^th annual Alpine Bank National Junior College World Series aka JUCO, the question is not what the NSA was up to listening in on our cell phone conversations, or whether watching Tom Hanks for 90 minutes in a movie theater causes your life-long Christian faith to instantly vanish, today’s question is more important than all that, it’s why do baseball managers and coaches, the ain’t never gonna play in a game people, wear a uniform just like the players?  Name another sport where the coaches dress like the participants. 

Not football.  One would be shocked to witness Mike Shanahan, or God forbid the Seminole geezer Bobby Bowden, pulling a jersey over shoulder pads and strapping on a helmet before heading to the sideline to coach.   

Come basketball season the same is true for Denver Nuggets headman George Karl.  In fact Karl was fined by the NBA for wearing a “retro” Nuggets jersey while sitting on the bench at a Nuggets throwback night a season ago.  And trust me, Mr. Karl has tarried way to long at the buffet to be wearing a basketball jersey.  George’s expanded waistline causes a basketball jersey to be anything but pretty when draped over his ever-expanding paunch.  Not that he’s the “Lone Ranger” when it comes to Denver head coaches who appear to have “wintered” well. Rockies pin stripes certainly lack a slimming effect on skipper Clint Hurdle.  

Hockey coaches would be way ahead to wear skates during games to ease the street shoe slide across the ice transition from dressing room to dasher between periods. 

But baseball coaches, the long in the tooth souls who years ago used up their eligibility, will show up at Suplizio Field, Omaha’s NCAA World Series and professional leagues from rookie to major dressed as though they were in the starting line-up.  Why?   

How silly would it be if horse trainers were forced to appear in the paddock dressed in racing silks like a jockey, swimming coaches thankfully spare us parading poolside in just a Speedo at meets and speaking of visual nightmares imagine Olympic gymnastics coach Bella Karolyi forced to wear the same outfit as his tiny teen-age tumblers. 

Baseball says it’s tradition, as once upon a time there were playing managers.  That’s a happening that hasn’t occurred since the early 80’s and Pete Rose, before that the late 40’s and Lou Boudreau.  But baseball still doesn’t allow anyone on the field not dressed in a uni.  Except for the trainer.  And why the trainer dude doesn’t have to suit up if everyone else does also makes no sense.   

Baseball loves to babble about tradition and keeping the game seamless for each and every generation while pretending we won’t notice sacrilege’s like day/nite doubleheaders, inter-league play, metal bats and the most heinous abomination in the last two decades, the DH.  C’mon baseball, follow the Little League lead and let the managers wear a golf shirt and flat front chinos.