This story begins in the late 19th century in Yorkshire, England. Keith Richards was a young adolescent, trying his hand at a strange new game from the Yanks across the pond- baseball.
In the bottom of the 4th inning, in a scoreless game, Richards, who was 0-1 and batting cleanup, was struck in the scrotum by a wicked slider that simply got away from an Irish laddie in his 3rd game. As the home crowd berated the red-headed youngster with predictably derogatory nastiness, Richard’s left ball began swelling to the point that blood flow to the area was restricted.
As the umpire curiously looked down over the future Rock’n Roll hall of famer while teammates gathered around, he asked why Richards was clutching is groin area. Keith screamed indignantly at the man, “Bloody hell-They’re turning blue!!” As many of his teammates repeated the cry, the crowd took the excitement as fury directed toward the umpire, who was ironically, like the frightened pitcher, a ginger Irishman. As the crowd started chanting “blue”, chaos ensued.
Richards soon after began a pain management regiment of opioids and other dubious substances which strangely continues to this day.
English authorities then decided since Irish police officers already were assigned copper badges to match their copper hair color, Mic Umpires were assigned blue uniforms in response to the jeering crowd that fateful day, not to mention Keith Richard’s purple ballsack.
The events of that day taught Richards that having “no children is just a shot away” inspired his writing the lyrics to the Rolling Stones major hit- Gimme Shelter
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