Rant #3,299: The Letter

I was watching some spring training baseball this weekend and yesterday on television, and after watching baseball intermittently, I have to ask you this:

Do the new uniforms seem to lessen the size of the information on the back of the uniform tops?

While players have been grumbling about the sheerness of the uniform pants--claiming that the lightness of the pants have made them virtually see-through--to this viewer, at least, the information on the back of the shirts--the player's name and his number--is what i am looking at, and appears to my eye to be smaller.

Major league bsseball switched its uniform manufacturer and designer--Fanatics and Nike, tespectively--to streamline the uniforms, making them lighter and more flexible for the players.

But it seems a lot of the players have complained thst the uniforms are lighter as advertised, but they are also much sheerer.

It seems thst many players won't wear the new pants, so they are wearing the new tops but are wearing the old bottoms.

I don't think that baseball will be getting like tennis now--where the outfits of the players--mainly the women--are almost more important than the action, but it bears worth noting.

On my end, the numbers seem to be smaller, as do the names.

I have macular degeneration to begin with, so trying to follow who's who by the back of the jerseys is going to be that much more difficult for people like me.

I guess for some players with shorter names it isn't that big a deal, but in order to squeeze longer names on the jerseys, they just shrunk the entire template.

And when you are watching spring training games--where most of the players you haven't even heard of to begin with--it just makes it that much more difficult for someone like me.

But for a guy like the New York Yankees' Aaron Judge, well, he is so huge to begin with that you will never miss his name or number 99.

But what do you do if you are Christian Encarnacion-Strand, the Cincinnati Reds player who now holds the record for longest last name on the back of a major league baseball jersey, with his last name clocking in at 18 letters including the hyphen.

I guess all you can say is thank goodness they don't put the first names of the players on there too.

Or the middle names ... Encarnacion-Strand's middle name is, mercifully, Lee.

L--E--E ... 1--2--3.

Me, I should have been an MLB player, based on my name if nothing else.

With just five letters in my last name, my name would have fit perfectly on the back.of the jersey.

But I would hope they would spell my name correctly.

I have had my name spelled in so many different ways--Lapha, Lappa, Lapke, Lakka, and so many other ways--if it is wrong, it doesn't matter if the lettering is large or small if it isn't correct.

Yes, I obviously missed my calling.