Fashion/Age Limit Question

I am going to work backwards on this one, at what age is a man too old to either wear his baseball hat backwards or wear a sports jersey?

Now, here is the reasoning for me to ask this question. We had football jersey/team colors day here at work on Friday. Since I am smack dab in the middle ground of Giants and Pats country it made sense. I as you should know by now am a Oakland Raiders fan. I currently do not have a Raiders jersey, so I brought in my Raiders hat and hung it on the corner of my cube.  I did have a Raiders jersey but it was of Charles Woodson and he greatly disappointed me so the jersey went in the trash. I like football jerseys but there is really nobody on the current Raiders that I like enough to put their name on my back. I also fail to pull the trigger on buying one with an old time player on the back.  I do own three hockey jerseys and one soccer jersey.

This raised a bigger question though because WEEI, the Boston sports talk station on their afternoon drive show, the Big Show often tries to promote the theory that men over 30 should not wear jerseys, no ifs, ands or buts. I can see the reasoning behind that. One of my problems with buying jerseys at this point in my life just about any current player would be younger than me. I don’t know why but that kind of creeps me out for some reason. 

I was discussing the 30 year old rule with a female friend of mine and she didn’t have a problem with more mature men wearing jerseys but she did tell me about a fashion rule that I did not know.  Men over 30 should not wear their baseball hats backwards. I stand in direct violation of that one. In fact, every day I go to the gym, I stroll in and work out with a backwards hat on. Mostly that is a bed head kind of thing but even on the golf course or at a show, I will turn my hat around, its more comfortable to me. Granted, I don’t know where a baseball hat anywhere near the amount that I used to. Now its mostly a sun or rain protection thing. I said “f it” when I heard the hat rule, because its more comfortable to me.

The jersey thing is a little harder for me. As I noted before I do own jerseys and I often look online for new jerseys to pick up. I like the looks of them. My problem is once I own one, I have a very hard time finding an occasion to wear one.  I know, I go to alot of sporting events but I think in the back of my mind I do think, you’re almost 40 and you’re rocking a Guinness hockey jersey, get a life.  Most of the time I wear my jerseys are to concerts or to a relevant sporting event or sometimes just for an evening of bar hopping or someplace, I know its completely inappropriate. Example, wearing my Ray Bourque Bruins jersey to the US Open golf tournament.

The last part of this argument is I went to a UMass hockey game on Saturday night with various members of my family and several of my nephews and my niece Maggie. The promotion for the night was “White Out Night”. The idea is to get everyone in the arena to wear white. It makes for a very cool effect.  So, my brother, his wife and two of his kids come in the house, only his wife had white on. I made a comment and Maggie quickly commented that I had black on. Maggie is 16, a great girl but very fashion conscious and cool, come on she is 16.  I told her that I was going to change into a white shirt after we had pizza and if she wanted to, I could wear my white UMass jersey. She was horrified. “You have a UMass hockey jersey?” I was like, of course.  “Well,  you better not wear it”. I wasn’t going to but with her offense, I had to and I declared I would be sitting next to her. Both of these events occurred.  As we walked into the game, my brother inlaw and his three sons were saving seats for us. I saw my youngest nephew Paul had his jersey on, so I turned to Maggie and said, “look Paul his jersey on Maggie.” She is so funny, she goes, completely dry, “yeah Uncle Don, Paul is like 7”  At the end of the night, I got Maggie’s brother to take a picture of Maggie next to me with my jersey on with my disposable camera. Her shock at my having a disposable camera will have to be another post.

So, over 30, backwards hat or jerseys, they ok to wear or no????