ChiSox can’t sell Sale on throwbacks

Published 7:37 am Wednesday, July 27, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The first acts of legitimate civil disobedience often get punished severely.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s the knee-jerk reaction before common sense kicks in.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The real heroes of a social uprising rarely reap the benefits.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Chris Sale seems destined for that.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But let us all hope that one day — and a better day it will be — Sale is at least a footnote to the revolution that historians will remember he started.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Chicago White Sox pitcher took a bold stand over the weekend.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Enough was enough.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He was fed up.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Somebody finally said “No mas.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There are limits, apparently, to what even millionaire ballplayers should be forced to wear while singing for their supper.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Sale, the White Sox’s best pitcher, drew the line in the sand … and snapped.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Faced with wearing a hideous uniform from the White Sox’s past that reeked of 1970s ugliness — an ugliness that goes beyond the comprehension of most decades — Sale had had enough.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He could have just whined about it.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Well, actually, he did.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">He could have just put his silly suit on, grinned and beared it, and played the good clown for a day.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But apparently this was the breaking point.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So he took action.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">While his teammates were prepping for the game in their warm-up jerseys, Sale took an ordinary pair of scissors and methodically went through the locker room cutting holes and slashes into enough of the awful jerseys to prevent their use.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Edward Scissorhands would have been proud.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the White Sox “authority figures” were not amused. Chris Sale got sent home, with no supper, and subsequently suspended for five games.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So let’s review the crime.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Normally teams kind of get a pass when dragging out the retro unis.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Most places it’s seen as harmless fun (and the jerseys tend to be on sale in the team gift shop, probably a coincidence).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But the White Sox are no ordinary team.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">When the Pale Hose, as they’re sometimes referred, dip into their fashion history, it’s a never-ending clothesline of mismatches, plaids and stripes and what-on-earth-were-they-thinkings.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What they had in mind for Sale &amp; Co. that day wasn’t even the worst of the possibilities.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the ’70s the White Sox put short pants on major league ballplayers — fortunately none of them named Prince Fielder or David “Big Papi” Ortiz.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">What Sale took exception to was another ensemble from the ’70s, a black jersey with a prominent collar — there’s no collaring in baseball — that was often referred to as the “leisure suit” uniform.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Which tells you all you need to know.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The garden-variety leisure suit, of course, was a popular atrocity of the 1970s — a decade that took ugliness to uncharted levels.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But leisure suits were so bad they were often associated with disco, even a popular choice with news anchors.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So, yes, what self-respecting big-leaguer would want to be caught dead in those things?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The players union should be rallying the troops behind him.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Actually, when Sale finally spoke to the media Monday, he said his hatchet job was more an issue of comfort and functionality than of aesthetics. He thought the big collars affected his pitching motion and bemoaned the notion that the White Sox were putting a shameless business promotion ahead of the notion of winning.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Duly noted.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But this is no time to start letting the facts get in the way of a good, uplifting story. Some would even call it heroic defiance by Sale.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Me, for instance.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The sports world is teetering on the precipice of accepting that, when it comes to uniforms, ugly is cool, atrocious is hip and anthracite is downright sexy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Let us all pray that Sale is the sports world’s first sartorial martyr.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Maybe the Patrick Henry of big-time athletics.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If this brings some sanity to sports fashion, then five games will be a small price to pay.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And to think, it all started in baseball, which, leisure suits aside, is usually a minor offender in these matters.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But this kind of defiance — a thumbed nose at authority — tends to trickle down to the college campus. Goodness knows that’s where this revolution needs to concentrate its newfound power.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tell Oregon football it need no longer be a slave to Nike’s awful whims.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Tell Under Armour to be on alert. Somebody may not take it anymore.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And the next time an outfitter trots out some team with invisible jersey numbers, let fans revolt — let the riot and stampede from the cheap seats begin.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It could be more fun than the Whiskey Rebellion (1791–1794) or the Boston Tea Party (10-10:15 a.m.).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">True, there is much work to be done, lest Sale’s Rebellion go down in vain.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But if ESPN and the ESPYs are looking for the early leader for next years Arthur Ashe Courage Award, right now you’ve got to at least put Sale on the short list.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AZaphdingbatdot7pt">l</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress"><span class="s1">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</span></a>

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