Baseball Hasn't Quite Socked Away the Stirrup Look

Stirrups, baseball’s heel- and toe-less signature hosiery, have their pitfalls for one minor leaguer. “They’re uncomfortable,” he says. “They want to fall down. They ride up in back. But it’s the look. You got to have some white showing.” Most major leaguers disagree, wearing pants all the way down to their shoes. But stirrups are hanging on in the minors, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Only one company, Twin City Knitting, still mass-produces stirrups, and it’s determined to make them forever. There’s no practical reason to wear stirrups—they came about because of mistaken turn-of-the-century fears about sock dye—save one. “When you wear your pants up, they look good,” says Dayton Moore, the general manager of the Kansas City Royals who’s making stirrups mandatory in the club’s farm system. (More baseball stories.)