For three games during the regular season of 1976, the Chicago White Sox wore shorts as part of their uniforms, notwithstanding predictions that it would discourage sliding into base. The shorts were the inspiration of owner Bill Veeck (pictured below), who had earlier achieved infamy with other extreme examples of baseball showmanship (which will probably be described in future Factoids).
Some of the news photographers objected to the new garb on the basis that it was hard to distinguish in black-and-white pictures the skin of the African-American players from the dark-colored shorts; however, the primary reason that Veeck killed the program after three games was the fact that he did not achieve as much notoriety as he anticipated.
Veeck determined the success of the White Sox and Sox publicity gimmicks scientifically by measuring each day the number of lines devoted by the Chicago Tribune to the Sox as compared to the Cubs. When the shorts stories became too short, Veeck figured that he had gotten all of the news coverage he would get from the novelty uniform and killed it.
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