'Bloused' Pants Mystery Solved

Last week, we questioned what the heck Derek Jeter was talking about when he mentioned Yankees being made to wear their pants "bloused". Was he referring to his baseball pants, or his post-game, late-dinner at Tao trousers?

I reached out to a fashion expert, who'd never heard of the term.

I then reached out to Paul Lukas, who operates the incomparable Uni Watch website and ESPN.com column, which obsessively studies sports uniforms and is one of the great niche-sports reads around.

Lukas was good enough to hit us back over the long weekend. It was fitting that it was over Memorial Day that Lukas memorializes the concept of bloused baseball pants.

He writes:

Bloused pants refers to the proper method of wearing one's pants high-cuffed. It's not enough to have the pants bunched up at the knee -- the proper method is to have the elastic cuff tucked under and out of sight, which causes a slight bulge at the point where the fabric breaks underneath. This is blousing.

Look here:


See how the pant leg fabric turns under?

See how the cuff point is wider than the stirrup just below it? That's the blousing effect.

Nowadays, of course, the Yankees don't enforce this rule. Neither does anyone else. A pity.

[images: Daily Mail]