Shirt tales: The swoosh's billion-dollar blunder

I would have sworn that it was impossible to screw up a baseball uniform. Then, Nike asked me to hold its beer.

There is no piece of clothing I have ever anticipated more than my first pair of baseball pants.

That was the difference between the minors and the majors in the South Suburban Little League of Klamath Falls, Ore.

In the minors, you provided your own pants. I usually wore grey sweatpants with the elastic cuff. Some kids wore jeans. In the majors, you were provided one pair of white pants, which hit midcalf leaving room to show the stirrups, which I cut to show more of my mustard yellow socks. I have never in my life felt as good about how I looked as I did when I first put on that uniform. It felt … official.

Somehow, Nike managed to screw this up, and while I’m not sure the exact chain of events that caused this to occur, I’m fairly certain that there was a great deal of hubris mixed in there.