I recall reading that John McGraw ended his managing days wearing a suit & tire during games. Could today’s managers do the same or even dress more like their NFL counterparts?
Suit & tire? Eyesight where hath you gone?
Apparently managers and coaches are covered by Baseball Rule 1.11(a)(1):
…even though there hasn’t been a player-manager since Pete Rose got run off. As far as I know, Connie Mack was the last suit & tie wearing manager, probably by a long stretch.
According to a former pro baseball player friend of mine, baseball coaches are really the only coaches who go onto the playing field, so that’s why they wear the uniforms. I don’t know if it’s a league rule or not.
NFL coaches cannot wear a suit and tie now. They must wear some clothing with the team logo. I guess they could wear a jersey since that has the team logo on it in some cases.
From the Official Rules of Major League Basebal
Basically, if the Manager wants to be in the dugout, he needs to be in uniform.
MLB just ruled today that Ray’s manager Joe Maddon can’t wear an unapproved hoodie over his uniform. They apparently take this stuff pretty seriously.
They apparently can, as long as they’re made by Reebok.
For a time, then-49ers head coach Mike Nolan wore a league-approved suit and tie designed by Reebok. Jack Del-Rio did, too. I’m not sure wqhat the status is now, but the suits did look pretty snazzy.
Connie Mack, the owner and manager of the old Philadelphia Athletics, wore a suit, tie and hat in the dugout. As a “grand old man” of the game, he was allowed to do so… but he was not allowed to leave the dugout or go onto the field in that attire.
So, if he wanted to communicate with the pitcher, he couldn’t walk out to the mound. He’d have to send a uniformed assistant coach (like Jimmy Dykes) out onto the field to do that for him.
I’ve always found that MLB rule to be capricious and arbitrary. It really just amounts to “because I said so.” It’s not like there’s some sort of law of the universe where if you go onto the field you have to be in uniform.
In the NFL, coaches and (especially) trainers go onto the field all the time. (Trainers run out with gatorade and towels during every commercial break.) Luckily there is no similarly stupid rule requiring them to wear shoulder pads.
Note that coaches regularly run onto the field to yell at the officials, either about a disputed call or to scream that they’re throwing a challenge flag.
The world is a better place for this rule, lest we get the image of John Madden in his Oakland Raiders’ get-up. 
Non-uniformed MLB and minor league trainers (that is, certified athletic trainers employed by the clubs, not “personal trainers”) are seen in dugouts and on the field too, typically in response to injuries.
I’d like to know how the Red Sox manager gets away with wearing his dorky red top over his Red Sox jersey.
Francona’s got some health/circulation problems, and apparently has some hazy unofficial approval from MLB to wear the top instead of the jersey. He’s been called on it a few times though.
Is the practice of MLB managers always wearing a jacket of some sort over their uniform top a fairly new one? I don’t recall them doing it so much when I started watching baseball in the mid-late 80s.
Managers are allowed to wear the pullover over the jersey. Francona got a little rebuke for wearing it without the jersey under it.
Nolan had asked permission to wear a suit in honor of his father, Dick Nolan, who was an NFL head coach in the 1970s (49ers and Saints), in the days when many coaches did wear suits on the field.
They looked far better than Bill Belichick, who, with his stupid hoodies with the cut-off sleeves, looks like he raided Oscar Madison’s closet for his attire.
I have always hated the idea that baseball managers have to dress up in a uniform. They look plain ridiculous. I know it’s about money, and whatever they wear has to be approved by MLB so they can sell it to the public, but a uniform? Can’t they wear some stylish team shirt/attire that would be appropriate for a 60+ year old man?
The NFL is even stranger. They are very image conscious, to the point that if a coach wants to wear a suit, he needs permission and it has to be made by a company that makes uniforms. So a Mike Nolan can look like a million dollars on the sidelines, very classy and professional and he has to jump through hoops to do it, but Bill Belichick takes a pair of scissors to his “hoodies”, looks like a homeless person, and is in compliance.
That has always bothered me. Can you imagine Tom Landry in a hoodie?
Actually Burt Shotton didn’t wear a baseball uniform when he managed the Dodgers in 1947-1950. He had sworn he wouldn’t wear a baseball uniform when he retired in 1945 and kept his promise when he was suddenly named Dodger manager in 1947 when Leo Durocher was suspended for a year.
Apparently both Connie Mack and Burt Shotton managed their last game on October 1, 1950