Basketball, Football, Hockey uniforms are all arguably conducive to athletes’ performances in their respective sports, Baseball uniforms aren’t. Sure, they aren’t made of wool anymore, but still. Surely shorts, optional hats (not counting batting helmets) would improve a player’s performance in certain (most) circumstances, has such a thing ever been considered? This is a summertime sport! When was the last time you saw a soccer or tennis player wearing long pants or a hat, come on!
Um…no. The idea of sliding into second while wearing shorts is not an appealing one.
The White Sox used shorts for one game in the late 1970s. Sliding was a definite problem. Unlike a soccer player who is sliding on grass, a baseball player is sliding on dirt. Which tends to have hard stuff in it that cuts you up.
If you ever see a soccer game played on artificial turf, which doesn’t happen often, the goalies wear long pants because they often have to make long slides and they don’t want to cut themselves up.
I don’t believe any of the other players on a soccer team can wear long pants regardless of the weather or field condition.
Male pro golfers are still required to wear long pants. They finally allowed the caddies to wear shorts if it’s really hot. Some very restrictive golf clubs make the women play golf in skirts instead of shorts.
Yes, for one day. On August 8, 1976, the Chicago White Sox played the first game of a double header in new uniforms featuring blue shorts and white shirts. It was the brainchild of - who else - Bill Veeck. Although Chicago beat Kansas City 5-2, mainly because their opponents were laughing so hard, they switched back to long pants for the second game. It was such a spectacularly bad idea, the uniforms were never used again.
They looked like a beer-league softball team.
90% of baseball is just standing around, waiting for the ball to come at them. They don’t do a lot of running, certainly no more than occasional 90ft sprints. So shorts aren’t as necessary as soccer, basketball, or track & field, where the athletes are running constantly.
Hockey players don’t wear shorts, do they?
Baseball caps DO improve a players’ performance!
The long bill functions as an eyeshade, helping the fielders to see & catch fly balls easier.
Possibly not as important now with domed stadiums in many cities.
The White Sox were Johnny-come-lately at this. In 1950 the Hollywood Stars of the old Pacific Coast League introduced shorts as an experiment.
Only two teams play in fixed domes, Minnesota and Tampa Bay. Every other team plays in an open air stadium or one with a retractable roof, so they get sun most days.
Women in their pro ball leagues of the 1940s and 1950s wore skirts. As shown in the film, A League of Their Own, (something Hollywood got right for a change) their legs got terribly bruised by sliding, diving, rolling, falling, collisions, and all the other things that happen on a ball field.
They did it for simple sex appeal, the way women in tennis would later wear skirts that flew up to show their panties. In our society you’d have a tough time getting men to expose their bodies… to risk, just to flash some leg.
The pants look short to me.
The Flyers and Whalers experimented with long pants for a couple of seasons and they were told to stop.
Mainly because they looked funny.
Rafael Nadal, who won the French Open last year, plays in pants.
As for baseball, Major League games are played primarily at night. In April, May, and September in most cities, the temperatures are in the 50s or lower after the sun goes down. It was 37 degrees at this game at Cleveland in early April, as just one example.
Here’s a link to the long pants: http://www.nhluniforms.com/1980s/FlyersPants.jpg
That was easy to find… it just sounds like something that would have occured during the 80’s.
I contend that the link to the Flyers long plants are NSFW. 
Also, meant to say that hats have become commonplace in mens tennis. Andy Roddick always wears a cap. So do other top players like Leyton Hewitt, Ivan Ljubicic, and Andre Agassi.
Personally, I think he trend has more to do with endorsement deals to wears caps with corporate logos than anything else.
Of course most games are played at night nowadays.
I wonder how much the bill of the hat helps with the glare from stadium lights?
They were called “Cooperalls.”