Softball uniforms: an unresearched (brief) history

Fish pointed out that the womens softball College World Series was starting this weekend. So I replied with what Fish feels is my "sickness" -- a treatise on softball uniforms in my lifetime. Just indulge me.

It’s interesting to me but it seems that the college softball uniforms have evolved over time. I remember as a kid when it was all UCLA v Arizona every year they wore basically scaled down versions of baseball uniforms without the hat: the short sleeve t-shirt top, the polyester baseball pants cuffed around the knee, and stirrups or socks. They basically looked like girls wearing baseball uniforms.

Then in the 90’s there was this transition to a softball-unique uniform combination: either short sleeve or banded sleeve shirts (almost tank tops), shorts, and socks. You still see this uniform combination in most youth leagues and high schools, likely because it’s cheaper to buy shorts than baseball pants. I don’t know for sure, but it’s like softball was trying to create an identity of it’s own with this uniform combination.

But then in the last ten years there has been this visual backlash and a pseudo-throwback revolution where most teams now wear baseball uniforms. I prefer the baseball uniforms myself. To me it adds legitimacy to the game they are playing, but that’s a personal opinion. And to be honest, the tight pants are one of the main reasons I end up watching the games.

Baseball Uniform Heaven

Sunday afternoon I was trying to finish up some laundry while the little one napped. I came across a college baseball game on Comcast Sports. Granted it wasn't my preferred local team of choice, but I hadn't watched live, competitive baseball in 4 months and I love college baseball, so I was hooked.
I've made my distaste for Oregon's new baseball uniforms clear, so I was shocked at the beauty I was presented with during Sunday's game. Oregon was wearing some alternate uniform combination-- college teams have so many (that's 7 different jerseys for South Carolina in the background of this photo) that it's hard to say it is "Alternate 1" or "Home-Sunday Alternate" or something like that--but it was beautiful.
Let me back up for a second. I haven't put this down in writing, but when it comes to baseball I'm what I would describe as an eclectic traditionalist. What I mean is my favorite styles of baseball uniforms are more traditional looks (by styles I'm referring to stripes, cut, font, and design - I'm not a clothes designer so I don't know the field-specific terms so you'll have to follow along as best you can), but with more eclectic combinations. I'm not afraid of baseball teams wearing colors other than white and gray (as many teams in Major League Baseball were afraid to do until recently); heck I'm even for teams wearing colored pants.
That was probably too short an explanation, but it provides some background for my reasoning behind the two things I fell in love with from Oregon on Sunday.
First was the alternate hat they wore (shown below).

It's a thing of beauty. Every time I design the University of Wyoming's baseball uniforms in my head (and when I say 'every time' I'm not talking about once or twice - I think about this once a month or so) their main cap has this same back-ground color pattern, except brown instead of green and white instead of yellow (if you followed that, give yourself a high five). When UW cut their college baseball program in the early 90's my allegiances switched to Wichita St for a lot of superficial reasons (a. their colors are similar to Wyoming's, b. they have a "W" on their cap, c. they were successful in the College World Series when that was the only college baseball ever shown on television, and d. they were relatively close to Wyoming compared with the other college baseball powers that mostly resided in warm-weather states). So I've always wanted to use the same cap style from the Shockers for Wyoming's imaginary return to the sport. I like this color pattern better than when teams add a different color bill. I'm not sure why more teams don't go this route.
Secondly, was their choice for stockings. In the contemporary baseball world where some players pull their pants down over their socks and the rest all wear solid color socks (like a girls soccer team would wear over their shinguards) it was gloriously refreshing to see actual stirrups being sported by a couple members of the Oregon baseball team (unfortunately I couldn't find any photos online to show you so you'll have to use your imagination). But it wasn't just stirrups - they not only wore green stirrups, but they had on lightning yellow socks underneath to produce an effect similar to this.

I'm pretty sure my obsession with stirrups, and more-to-the-point, multiple stirrups with different color socks underneath, comes from my dad. When I was growing up he was the head coach/GM/uniform supplier/utility-man for my church's softball team. The fact that my dad at the time played for a church softball team might be kind of funny in retrospect, but that's beside the point. When you think of rec-league or church softball it's generally a bunch of guys that look like this. They show up with the same lazily put together t-shirt, but everything else is different. Some wear sweats, some shorts, some even show up in jeans. No one wears the same hat if they wear a hat at all. Don't even begin to think about wearing stirrups. So it was quite extraordinary that my dad, for at least 3 or 4 years, had our church softball team outfitted in baseball-looking uniforms. They had real baseball pants, stirrups, and jerseys complete with logo and number. I wish I had some pictures, but I'll have to do this from memory. My dad fashioned the jersey's based on the 70's Oakland A's and the Baltimore Orioles. Our church's colors were orange and brown (big reason why those are two of my favorite colors still). We had a white jersey that said "Alliance" in brown script and an orange jersey with a stylized "A" logo on the left side (similar to what the Detroit Tigers or Cubs have on their home jerseys); we had white pants and brown pants; we had orange stirrups, brown stirrups, and solid orange socks; and we had two different caps - an all brown model and a white model with an orange front and bill. All these options meant our softball team had 24 different uniform combinations. My dad would sit down prior to the start of the year and plan out what uniforms we would wear for each game taking into consideration not wearing the same combination against the same team twice. It was all really amazing and probably what started my obsession with uniforms. Anyway, I digress. The point of all that was one of the stirrups/socks combinations was brown stirrups over orange socks, which sounds hideous, but I was personally fascinated by. No one in major league baseball wears a combination like this anymore and it is rare to see a team of any level do this.
The uniform combinations Oregon wore were, strangely for a completely new team, nostalgic for me. It made me think of watching Wichita St on my black and white 13 in. tv in my bedroom as they won the CWS. It made me think of watching my dad dressed up in a professional looking baseball uniform, not much older then than I am now, and how much fun it was to watch him play. He was wildly more talented than I am. I remember watching very little of his actual games because as soon as I got to the softball fields I would immediately (in my own rudimentary uniform replicas) take off to play waffle ball with my friends and imagine I was my Dad belting homers, hustling like Pete Rose, and in hindsight, being a little too competitive for church softball.