Tag Archives: Lies

Great Baseball Lies: Old replica uniforms with names on the back (and other inaccuracies)

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Quick: What’s wrong with the picture below?

Okay, how about this?

The answer is: Neither of them are correct. In fact, they both have anachronisms in them: the Ruth jersey, for example, has the famous “NY” logo on the jersey itself, something that they didn’t do until 1936, by which point Ruth was retired.

But the biggest lie on these replica jerseys: they have names on the back. To the casual fan, perhaps, this is not anything out of the ordinary. After all, teams have been having the names of the players on the back of their uniforms forever, right?

They’d be wrong. In fact, the first time any MLB team had names on the back of the uniform was in 1960, when the White Sox started doing it.

So, in other words, Babe Ruth never wore a Yankees’ jersey with his name on the back (no Yankees, not even those of the present day, have their names on the back, with the exception of some recent batting practice uniforms). Ted Williams never had his name on the back. And, quite frankly, if you don’t know immediately that a “3” on the back of a Yankees uniform means Ruth and/or a “9” on a Red Sox uniform means Ted Williams, perhaps you should be paying more attention the history.

So, for giving people a false image of baseball history and insulting the intelligence of devoted baseball fans, I hereby declare that having names on the back of retro uniforms is one of the Great Baseball Lies.

Great Baseball Lies: “Keep your eye on the ball!”

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Baseball is full of lies. One of them is pounded into every Little Leaguer in America: you need to keep your eye on the ball from as soon as it leaves the pitcher’s hand until you are ready to swing the bat.

I was told it. You were told it. Everybody was told it. It also doesn’t help whatsoever. Mainly because, if the ball is going any faster than a beer league softball, you aren’t going to be able to see it for any long span of time, and certainly not all the way to the plate. The ball is just going too fast. This has been known for over half of a century.

So what, exactly, do baseball players who are successful actually do? Well, they basically guess and anticipate where the ball is going based on those split-seconds they have to see the ball. This is why a good change-up so fools a hitter if they’ve been getting lots of fastballs: they are expecting a 90+ MPH pitch, so time their swing based on that assumption.
So, remember kids: don’t keep your eye on the ball. Instead, take a quick glance and then guess where it’s going. I mean, I always kept my eye on the ball, and look at me: I washed out of baseball by the age of 11.