Black Pants Lions vs Cowboys

[IceGator8]

Originally Posted by Bob M.

REPLY: Spoke to an NFL friend who told me that his referee made the recommendation to Pereira that they not limit the black pants to cold weather. Apparently Mr. P liked it...otherwise you would have seen knickers yesterday in the Pontiac Dome.

I find the balance between tradition and new ideas interesting. When I started doing baseball the blue Elbeco postman shirts were the standard. When the Major League umpires switched to a navy polo style shirt the old school umpires in my association moaned and groaned quite a bit. Along with a few others I adopted the new style immediately much to the chagrin of the old school guys. It was easy for me to see why the new style was better. In spite of the protests of some of the more traditional umpires everyone was wearing the navy shirts within two years.

Frankly I think the old ways of doing things need to receive a hard look every once in a while just to see if things can be done better. If tradition can be maintained then I'm fine with that but if another style is clearly superior as far as performance and comfort then I think it should be adopted. I think a lot of the NFL guys are starting to find that the black pants are better than knickers and that is the reason the request was made.

Anyway, the purpose of this is not to rub anything in the face of my more experienced bretheren. I respect your contributions to our vocation and appreciate the wise advice I've received.