Friday, December 16, 2016

Punching Down


Angels’ closer Huston Street felt the need the other day to defend the baseball tradition of dress up, up to and including guys as gals.  Street told the AP it’s all about “a tradition of team building in a safe manner.”  In support of this wonderful tradition of donning odd clothes, he cites children dress up and Halloween.  That neither of these activities involves coercion appears to be of little interest to Street.

You see, the players aren’t making fun of anyone in some cruel manner.  No, they’re just “dressed up in uncomfortable clothes, as a contrast of macho dudes dressed in too tight fitting or too revealing clothes for our body type.  Anyone looking at the exercise from a lens of humor would see the contrast for what it is and wouldn’t be offended.”  So sayeth someone who might’ve looked great as Little Lord Fauntleroy.

The irony here is almost too rich for words.  Ballplayers want the right to dress up—dare we say cross dress?—in their version of a woman, but women can’t expect to dress and take the field as major-league ballplayers.  And that lens of humor thing—does it include black face and war bonnets, or how about a simple diaper? 

And why not a dunce cap, while we’re at it?                   

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