Fashion statement

Frank Umont becomes the first umpire to wear glasses in a major league game 68 years ago today as he works second base in the Detroit Tigers’ 7-4 victory over the Kansas City Athletics before a Tuesday afternoon crowd of 13,963 at K.C.’s old Municipal Stadium.

“I expect to be ribbed about my glasses,” Umont says before today’s game in 1956, “but I don’t expect it will worry me.”

Nor should it.

After all, who is going to mess around with an umpire who in a previous professional life is an offensive lineman in the National Football League with the New York Giants?