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Knickerbockers were part of cycling attire for nearly a century.
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The team was called the Knickerbockers, which later became the New York Knicks. In the late 1940s, New York City was granted a charter franchise by the Basketball Association of America. Knickerbocker got its first use in the sports arena in the 1840s, with the "New York Knickerbockers", an amateur athletic baseball club organized on Manhattan's Lower East Side. With the publication of Irving's book, the term Knickerbocker defined anything relating to New York City, similar to how Yinzer describes Pittsburgh.
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The term "Knickerbocker" first came to America around the early 1800s, with Washington Irving's "History of New York", which featured the fictional author Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old-fashioned Dutch New Yorker in Irving's satire local history. They can also be known as the shortened term knickers, although not to be confused with the British term, which refers to women's underwear. The white trousers worn by NFL officials are also knickerbockers. Baseball players wear a stylized form of knickerbockers, although the pants look less baggy in recent decades. Knickerbockers: Similar to capris, knickers are a form of baggy-kneed trousers customarily worn in the winter in the early 20th century and are popularly in sports such as golf, fencing, and cycling. The Definition of Knickerbocker and Its Role in Men's Cycling Apparel
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