Palmer on Team to Pitch Jockeys for Her

The question was inevitable. “Jim Palmer, which Jockey shorts are you wearing under your tan trousers?”

“A pair of red-and-white stripe Elance,” responded Palmer, the former Orioles pitcher who now pitches for the underwear firm.

“They’re European styled,” Palmer elaborated, adding that he prefers this model “because it’s stylish but not real skimpy.”

Skimpy. Now there’s the perfect topic of discussion for Dr. Lynne Pirie, Palmer’s partner for the day at the Broadway Century City.

A Phoenix orthopedic surgeon and a champion body builder, Pirie recently joined the Jockey advertising bandwagon--along with four other females--to tout the company’s women’s line. But instead of showing off her championship body in a Jockey-for-Her bikini or French-cut panty, Pirie appears in ads wearing a full-cut classic brief.

Pirie said she was surprised not to be chosen as the one to go very bare. Of the five--there’s a recent college graduate, a New York City mother, a company vice president, a California construction worker--the surgeon/bodybuilder noted, “ I’m the only athletic one. I thought I had the better body.”

Her medical colleagues had some reservations about her public exposure, although as she points out: “I certainly appeared in a lot less on the cover of my book” (which is called “Getting Built”).

But when the ad hit the stands, Pirie said, everyone was relieved even though she was “a little offended.” She was told by her peers that her Jockey get-up had “about as much sex appeal as a flannel nightgown and a pair of socks.”

At the Broadway, Pirie had plenty of sex appeal in her unseen turquoise (“I think”) French-cut Jockey panty, a very visible white satin pantsuit, metallic gold-striped blouse and a healthy dose of jewelry.

“It’s my L.A. look,” she told Palmer and the lunchtime audience, which had gathered for a giggle-producing retrospective of Jockey underwear.

Taking a few liberties, the show moved from Adam (in an attractive leather fig leaf) to the cave generation and on to real Jockey items such as the 1910 Kenosha Klosed Krotch long johns. (Jockey International, as the firm is now known, was once the Cooper Underwear Co. of Kenosha, Wis.).

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers look-alikes appeared only partially dressed. The rest was underwear.

“Saturday Night Fever” was danced by a John Travolta-type who wore an open-neck shirt, vest, jacket, Jockey briefs, socks and shoes. And, as all good fashion shows do, this one ended with a wedding party. The bride and groom wore see-through plastic--all the better to see their Jockey for him and for her--and the attendants looked dressily undressed in their underpinnings.

After the show, fans lined up to praise Palmer and get his autograph on posters and baseball cards. By this time, he had the limelight all to himself again.

Pirie had discreetly vanished from view, presumably heading back to her medical practice in Phoenix after cautioning one member of the press: “Never call on Wednesday.”