Thank Goodness for Uniforms

I don’t know why, but it occurred to me the other day that clothing really changed sports. In ancient Rome, sports were played in the nude. Seriously. That’s probably why there were no team sports. Everything they played was an individual event. The marathon, shot put, discus, and javelin were all played in the nude. I think when they started wearing clothing during sporting events, not only were more people willing to watch, but it opened the door for team and contact sports. So I started thinking, could you imagine if we still played sports without clothes? What kind of impact would this have on modern sports? If you think salaries are too high now, just imagine what athletes would have to be paid to play without clothes. How would we differentiate between teams? Would recreational sports even exist? First, and foremost in my mind, this would drastically change the relationship between a quarterback and his center. It truly is a scary thought. I think we would see a lot more of the shotgun rather than the traditional "under center" formation than we’re used to. I don’t imagine there would be many low tackles either. In basketball posting up would now be a foul. Can you imagine? The way guys use their backside to bump the defender and try to gain position in the post? That just would not be allowed. It would give new meaning to the "in your face" dunk. Nobody wants to get dunked on now, but how much worse would it be sans clothing? One of the biggest changes would be hockey, I think. It would take some very brave men to get on the ice in that situation. Regardless of the effects the cold has on a man’s body, a sweaty, naked body would stick to the ice! When a fight would break out, it would look like some strange version of Greco-Roman wrestling. There would never have been a head first slide in baseball as it would just be too painful to be worth it. There is one positive to this scenario though, women’s sports would have a much bigger fan base. They would probably be more popular than men’s sports. So the next time you start to talk about the ugly uniforms some of our professional sports teams wear, just be thankful they are wearing them at all because if they weren’t, you would be watching a bunch of guys bumping uglies all night and no one wants to watch that.