King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Stirrup socks are sexy! Who knew? Plus: NBA Finals, hating "Deee-troit bas-ket-ball" and pedantic corrections galore. The readers write.
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June 21, 2005 | You never know what you're going to stir up.
Every weekday, this column tackles the sporting issues of the day, on the field and off. We got your racial politics, your sexual identity, your economics, your role of sport in the larger society, your did you see that game last night and more, all right here, Monday through Friday.
I bleed on the keyboard to bring you this stuff, and every once in a while, the mood just right and the stars aligned, you drop me a line. "Idiot!" you say. And that's good, that's fine.
And then in the third item of a three-item column, buried on Page 2, when I think no one's looking, I noodle around a little about stirrup socks. And I get deluged with e-mail.
Not to go all Howard Rheingold on you or anything, but this is one of those things the Internet does so well. It helps foster communities of people who may not have even known they were communities.
For 35 years I had no idea that anyone other than I had given more than a moment's thought to the stirrup socks that were once a standard part of the baseball uniform and are now nearly extinct. Turns out there are legions of people who obsessed over them as kids or think way too much about them now, or both.
I'm not sure I need to be a part of the Stirrup Socks Community, or to know anything more about what it gets up to -- I'm afraid to look, but I'm now reasonably certain there's such a thing as stirrup socks porn. But it's nice to know such a community could be out there if I wanted to get involved, or if I wanted to organize it myself.
That's also the best part of what sports are all about. They bring people together, form communities. Walk into a bar in Madagascar, and if there's a guy in a Phillies hat you at least have a conversation starter.
So I hear the Stirrup Socks Community singing, if I may riff on that line for the second time in a week. It's time to hear from you, the readers, about funny footwear, the NBA Finals and a few other things too.
Jane Woolway: Enjoyed your piece regarding stirrup socks. I have watched the players on the Boston Red Sox the past two years and make note of their legwear. Some players always hike their pants legs up, others do it only sometimes. Just another thing to track.
I scorecard each game and one of the things I always take note of is how the players are wearing their socks. The stirrup vs. solid sock look is one more variation for me to track. Yes, a fanatic.
Joe Smith: Finally, a fellow traveler -- of a sort! I'm a gay man and a sports nut (wrestling minor in college) whose earliest baseball memories are of the '69 Mets. Truth is, Thurman Munson turned me gay. The '77-78 Yankees with the high-cut stirrups were my best adolescent (*ahem*) hard-ons.
Jim Bouton in "Ball Four" describes his campaign for high-cut stirrups: "They make the legs look long and cool instead of short and dumpy." Yow!
