Pink Bats In The Belfry
Instead of Who’s on first, What’s on second and I Don’t Know’s on third base the new routine should be Who came up with this idea, What the hell were they thinking and I Don’t Know how much more of this I can take.
As I flipped through the channels on the TV tonight I come across the ESPN Sunday night baseball game broadcast. The Boston Red Sox were facing the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in venerable Fenway Park. There in that storied ball field complete with the Big Green Monster looming in left field the players took their positions with each wearing a pink ribbon on their uniform to signify breast cancer awareness.
As I have mentioned before; the pink ribbon symbol has gone from meaningful to mirthful. It now adorns every conceivable article from tampons to tatter tots, bowling balls to baby food, license plates to licorice sticks and nightgowns to NASCAR. The symbol itself is supposed to increase breast cancer awareness but quite frankly at this point anyone who is not aware of breast cancer would have to live under a rock. It has become overused, overexposed and completely over the top.
Still, had the small pink symbol sewn onto each player’s jersey been the only identifying agent of the campaign I would have simply shook my head and let it go. But that was not the case.
No, Major League Baseball had to go big with their pink ribbon promotion. As I watched with both cynical amusement and disappointed disbelief each batter walked up to the plate to take his cuts at a 90 mile per hour fast ball or a slow sinking slider with a bright pink bat. Furthermore most of the players were wearing bright pink sweat bands on their wrists. Instead of a major league baseball game it looked much more like a comedic parody of an episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”.
Abner Doubleday had to be spinning like a lathe.
Doubleday is alleged to have created the game of baseball sometime around 1836 in Cooperstown, New York. He also was the patent holding creator of the cable car system still used in San Francisco. But beyond his great creations the fabled godfather of the national pastime was himself a lifelong military man and retired as a general having served in the union forces of the civil war. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1842 and retired from his military career over thirty years later in 1873. As the United States Marine Corps prepares to kick off its inaugural week of Marine Week celebrations do you think Major League Baseball would tie into Doubleday’s military career and honor our Marine veterans with some public display? Nope. Instead we get pink bats and wrist bands.
It is not that breast cancer awareness is not an important cause. Breast cancer is a rapacious killer of far too many women. But bright pink baseball bats are not the answer.
According to statistics there will be more incidences of prostate cancer than breast cancer this year. The guys out there playing tonight on the field of bad dreams are far more likely to personally encounter that form of cancer than breast cancer. But the marketing arm for prostate cancer or colon cancer or lung cancer is not a market savvy as the pink ribbon brigade.
No, pink bats and wrist bands did not make me any more aware of breast cancer. They just made me turn off the ballgame.
