Let’s get new White Sox nicknames!
A picturesque, picture-filled plea
Now is the time to put the Pale Hose to death!
No, not the team — that would be a tad drastic — the nickname. It was apt in 1910 when it was created. It ain’t apt now.
We’ll take a look at hose, pale and otherwise, through the years coming up, complete with pretty pictures. But first, we digress.
A NEW AND APT NICKNAME FOR THE BULK OF THE ORGANiZATION
We know that the main criterion — make that the only one — for a lofty front office or managerial job with the White Sox, on the baseball side or pretty much anywhere else, is the ability and willingness to affix your lips to Jerry Reinsdorf’s keister.
By now, people with decent levels of self-esteem won’t come to the organization. What remains is a trash heap of those who abase themselves before the Great God Jerry, turning themselves into a pathetically small version of the people they might have been.
Hence, our new nickname for all of them (I’m really happy with this one, so please use it whenever applicable, or even if it isn’t):
“Reinsdwarfs.”
Short, smooth, accurate. Saves a lot of time naming any of them. Just say “Reinsdwarf” and move on.
WHAT ABOUT SOMETHING TO COVER THE LATEST NASTY REINSDORFNESS?
There are a lot of players in the conspiracy to thieve billions from the people of Chicago and Illinois for a new stadium, and they’re subject to change and additions at any time. It’s hard to keep track, so we need one way to cover them all.
A descriptive phrase that came to mind is from a kids’ ditty of many decades back that younger folks may not have heard of, but which sticks in the minds of those of us who once sang along:
“Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts.”
That’s an excellent image of billionaire Reinsdorf and the various players from Related Midwest and its humongous parent company with its multi-, multi-, multi-billionaire owner. However, it doesn’t actually directly pertain to the boondoggle at hand.
Still, the repetitious hard G sound is inspirational, leading to the long version of the nickname for this crowd, which has the same number of words beginning with G.
“Grotesque, greedy, grasping, grabby, grubbing, gargoyle gimmes”
Good, right? But I hear you when you say, “Whoa. That’s way too long and harder to remember than the names of the graspers.”
You’re right, Which is why they will come to be known simply as the G’s. Or, for so you don’t have to hit the apostrophe key, the Geez. That’s short, to the point, and fits in sentences like, “Geez, what are those &^^holes up to now, or “Geez, why is any politician even listening to the Geez?”
Of course, any politicians who do go along with any public financing for this nefarious scheme, be it because of graft or stupidity, will become Geez themselves, so you won’t have to learn how to spell their names.
NOW TO THE MAIN POINT — CARVING UP THOSE PALE HOSE
Men’s hose may have been all the rage back in Shakespeare’s day, but Google “hose” that today and the hits are all for pantyhose (honest!) or, more often, the orthopedic type long socks some people wear to fend off thrombosis. You do not get baseball hits.
You might have back in 1910, had the web existed then, when the phrase “Pale Hose” first came into being. It was also an appropriate reference to long, visible footwear, as Shoeless Joe Jackson models:
It’s probable that back then, just as now, no human being ever uttered the phrase “Pale Hose” except perhaps when shopping in the women’s section at Carson Pirie Scott, the description being the sole proprietorship of scribes (nobody ever really uses that word, either) desperate not to use Sox repeatedly in their pieces, or headline writers trying to save an inch or two. Witness the never-happened conversation:
“What you doing this weekend?”
“I thought I’d embark on the elevated train and go to Guaranteed Rate Field to catch the Pale Hose game on Sunday.”
Still, it hung around and continued to be a more or less apt description for decades. Witness the 1937 White Sox:
But not long after that, we notice a change in the outfits of two future Hall-of-Famers:
If you insisted, you could say they were wearing Hose, but they definitely weren’t Pale. Heck, that wasn’t even the case in the most infamous of Sox uniforms, 1976’s shorts, as modeled by Ken Kravec and Goose Gossage:
Stripedy Hose would have been the more appropriate nickname at that point. Then came a big change in 1990:
Big Frank, perhaps because he was a rookie, maintained a tiny bit of the older look with a comely turn of ankle, but Bo Jackson was proving to be not just a sensational multi-sport athlete, but also a major fashion trendsetter. Through the ’90s the stirrup socks disappeared from the majors, replaced by pants down to the shoe tops.
Yet “Pale Hose” persisted in some quarters.
Nowadays, it’s completely wrong, whether for Tim Anderson last year, where neither the Hose nor Pale part fit, even in throwback suitery:
Or for those White Sox players who have joined the retro movement in sockwear that has been going on for the last five or six years, such as Tanner Banks:
See? The socks are black. Maybe sometimes striped or brightly-colored. Never white.
What may well be Pale, although barely visible if stirrup socks go on top or invisible, are the regular athletic socks players wear. But not even The Bard himself would rate those as Hose.
If there must be team references to clothing that gets stuffed in shoes, other than the official name, then we need to make them accurate for today’s footwear, such as:
Cream Crews
No-Color Knee-Highs
Milky Mid-Calfs
Or, most appropriate to the styles of the day for younger males, and a personal favorite,
Alabaster Anklets
Heck, even the Reinsdwarfs and the Geez would probably go along with Alabaster Anklets.