Basketball coaches wear suits to every game. Football coaches generally wear team colors and jackets (except for T.L) casual dress, but not the uniform. I’ve seen hockey coaches in suits and in casual wear. Please explain why baseball “managers” wear the actual uniform of the team. Are they somehow sportier than other coaches?
Tradition. In the early days of baseball many, perhaps most, managers were also active players, and would take the field with the other players. Of course they wore uniforms in the dugout. Although player-managers are now essentially a thing of the past, the tradition hangs on.
Simple tradition - in the early days of the game, the manager was almost always one of the players, so he had to wear a uniform. Perhaps the custom was retained by managers who wanted their players to think they were part of the team as well, or perhaps they simply felt more professional in uniform, “on duty”, or perhaps in some cases they weren’t ready to stop thinking of themselves as players. There have been a few managers who’ve worked in street clothes, most notably Connie Mack, but none in recent decades.
They are “part of the team” – not in the sense of being active players (with vanishingly rare exceptions), but in the sense of being an integral part of who is permitted in the dugout, on the field, etc., from that team. (Note that basketball and football coaches do not themselves go out on the field; when a coach needs to “send in a play” in those sports, he either sends a uniformed member in with the information, or calls an active player to the bench to give it to him.) By contrast, there are numerous circumstances when a baseball manager is permitted out on the field of play. Also, note that the active coaches are also in uniforms, for the same reason.
I heard once that a person couldn’t go out on the field unless they were in a uniform, but I don’t know if that is true or something my grandfather made up.
Pro basketball and hockey coaches wear “uniforms”, too - snappy three-piece business suits, preferably Armani. NFL coaches’ “uniforms” are team-logo jackets, baggy enough to cover their beer guts.
IIRC, to go on the field you must be in uniform, manager or not. That means if you wear street clothes you have to send someone else out there to pull your pitcher. 
NFL coaches are pretty much “in uniform” nowadays, the “uniform” is simply NFL-licensed casual wear instead of the team uniform itself. Before last season, 49ers coach Mike Nolan requested permission to coach in a suit & tie (like Tom Landry used to) and was turned down. However, I seem to recall that he was promised that a “suit & tie” option might be made available for the 2006 season.
I’ve seen a particularly entertaining NFL Films feature on ESPN on some of the not-so-inspired/not-so-flattering coach-wear in recent years.
NFL coaches don’t dress that way on the sidelines purely out of a lack of any fashion sense. A league contract with a clothing provider requires them to wear that team-issue stuff.
Dick Nolan, the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, asked the NFL in 2005 for permission to wear a jacket and tie on the sideline during games, and was denied. This article (SFGate.com, 5-11-05) talks about it:
Simulpost! :smack:
The article I linked does make mention of Nolan’s possible suit-and-tie option for '06 that fiddlesticks talks about.
I’m not so certain about that. Trainers go on to the field whenever there is a possible injury, and they are not in uniform.
Zev Steinhardt
Philadelphia owner-manager Connie Mack never wore a uniform. I’m not sure that he ever went on the field during a game. It’s possible he sent one of the coaches to do his arguing for him.
Gregg Easterbrook in a Tuesday Morning Quarterback column argued that Reebok could probably make a killing with NFL dress clothes like a suit.
“Imagine walking into your next business meeting nattily attired in a three-piece Denver Broncos business suit with a bright orange stripe up the side. Imagine a tuxedo with tiny Philadelphia Eagles’ logos as trim, or a women’s power suit in the colors of the New England Patriots. This idea is so completely ridiculous, no one could believe anyone would ever put down good money for it. Sweetheart, get me NFL Properties on the phone fast!”
The rule about uniformed personnel is not part of the Official Rules, but it is a guildeline of pro baseball. Trainers have always been exempted. Leagues adopt limits on how many people can be in uniform for any one game. This serves to put a limit on coaches in the dugout also.
I believe college coaches all have to wear uniforms too. High school may be the highest level of baseball where the coaches can wear street clothes. But the coach would have to wear a uniform if he wanted to act as one of the base coaches.
2.00:
A BASE COACH is a team member in uniform who is stationed in the coach’s box at first or third base to direct the batter and the runners.
A COACH is a team member in uniform appointed by the manager to perform such duties as the manager may designate, such as but not limited to acting as base coach.
THE MANAGER is a person appointed by the club to be responsible for the team’s actions on the field, and to represent the team in communications with the umpire and the opposing team. A player may be appointed manager.
(a) The club shall designate the manager to the league president or the umpire in chief not less than thirty minutes before the scheduled starting time of the game.
(b) The manager may advise the umpire that he has delegated specific duties prescribed by the rules to a player or coach, and any action of such designated representative shall be official. The manager shall always be responsible for his team’s conduct, observance of the official rules, and deference to the umpires.
© If a manager leaves the field, he shall designate a player or coach as his substitute, and such substitute manager shall have the duties, rights and responsibilities of the manager. If the manager fails or refuses to designate his substitute before leaving, the umpire in chief shall designate a team member as substitute manager.
3.15
No person shall be allowed on the playing field during a game except players and coaches in uniform, managers, news photographers authorized by the home team, umpires, officers of the law in uniform and watchmen or other employees of the home club.
There appears to be no strict rule that the “manager” must be in uniform, but a manager not in uniform may be limited in his coaching duties, if he should choose or need to take them on.
Mack did go on to the field to argue calls. He was Connie Mack; he was one of the founders of the American League. The rules didn’t apply to him.
Were these “early days of the game” always that early? I remember that Charlie Brown was always the manager of the Peanuts baseball team he pitched for, and he was written into existence in the 1950s.
IIRC Tommy Lasorda actually was a player for the Dodgers before becoming manager. Is that still the way it usually goes? That is, is the manager usually a former longtime player of the same team he’s managing?
Bios of Mack I’ve read said that he did not go out on the field to argue calls. He just yelled from the dugout. But he tended to not do much during a game. He just would sit in the dugout with a scorecard and use that to position his fielders. Sometimes he would just whistle to tell his pitcher to leave the game.
As Mack got older, he brought on more coaches to handle matters for him. Some of them had jobs like keeping him awake.
That’s a coincidence much of the time. Nearly every manager is a former player at the pro level, but people who want to become managers will try to hook on with anybody they can.
Because fans complain when managers walk the mound naked.