It’s that time of year, girls … bust out your pink baseball hats and get ready to draft your fantasy team. No, I’m not talking about those boring fantasy baseball leagues where you have to draft a lot of stupid players for all those silly positions and then spend your time worrying about a bunch of ridiculous statistics. You draft just one single player: your baseball boyfriend!
No joke. CBS Sports has introduced an app called Baseball Boyfriend, where for a mere $2.99, girls can pick a player to be their boyfriend for the season and “dump him if he can’t perform” (their words, not mine). Sorry King Felix, your BABIP just isn’t doing it for me any more. Now Tim Lincecum, there’s a man who has quite a WHIP.
But why stop with girls? CBS Sports should make sure the boys aren’t left out. They can download Baseball Bromance! Guys get to pick a player to salivate over all season … did you see the good wood Pujols got on that pitch?! Bromance players could also be dumped if, say, they get caught on camera having their celebrity girlfriend hand feed them popcorn. (Not cool dude!)
And suppose the young ladies would prefer a baseball girlfriend? Okay, so maybe women aren’t allowed to don’t play professional baseball. But in the spirit of fantasy, they could pick from their favorite female on-air personalities. Will the YES Network’s Kim Jones “perform” or will you have to dump her for Root Sports’ Angie Mentink?
I’m not going to lie and say we women don’t appreciate a nice posterior or a handsome face on a player from time to time, but that’s not why we love baseball. Most of us — much like male fans — came to the game thanks to our fathers (and mothers). My dad passed his love of the game and the New York Yankees to me. We watched the games together. He explained the rules and the stats to me. He gave me money every Friday so I could buy my weekly pack of Topps baseball cards (that was back in the day when cards came with that hard, wonderfully sugary bubble gum). He took me to Cooperstown one summer and we posed in front of Babe Ruth’s locker.
Little girls should be encouraged to enjoy baseball. What they don’t need is to be to talked down to. And if they want to fanaticize that Derek Jeter is their boyfriend, that’s fine, too. He just best make sure he hits above .300 or he may find himself out of her starting lineup.
