Our Own White Sox

Watching the game against the Falcons on Sunday night, I noticed that Ryan Grant, James Starks and a few other Packers were wearing their white sanitary socks pulled up high, obscuring most of their green uniform socks.

Although these things drive me crazy in a "you shouldn't alter the uniform because it's supposed to be, you know, uniform" kind of way, I'm intrigued by the look, which effectively creates white socks to pair with the white jersey.

There was a time when this white-over-white look was standard; Vince Lombardi's original Packers uniform design in 1959. For that one season only, his first in Green Bay, Lombardi's players wore white socks on the road, with a green/gold/green/gold/green pattern to match that of the road jerseys.

There is a certain logic to this - the home socks were designed to match the home jersey sleeves, so why match the road socks to the road jersey sleeves?

Logic or no, the white road socks were among the first tweaks Lombardi made to his uniforms: starting in 1960, the Packers wore the same striped green socks with both jerseys.

That sock stripe pattern, echoing the sleeve stripes, lasted through the 1980 season. In 1981 the Packers moved to solid green socks which, apart from one brief period, they still wear today.

Except, of course, when players take it upon themselves to show a little high-white.