Major league baseball players have always been trend-setters. In personal grooming, ballplayers led the facial hair revolution of the 70s. Who can forget Rollie Fingers' handlebar mustache and Al Hrabosky's fearsome Fu-Manchu? The Phillies' Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski pioneered the thankfully short-lived White Guy Afro look later in that decade. In pants fashion, the Orioles Frank Robinson brought us from the baggy 50s look to the sleek, form-fitting style copied by the Beatles and the British Invasion.. Today, we have Ryan Howard with the low-rider, baggy, hip-hop look. Chase Utley popularized the White Guy Soul Patch for Phillies fans.
There is also a dark side. Many big leaguers took steroids, a trend that was ended with drug testing. But a new trend is emerging and it is bad news for Bambi and Friends. Ball players are using a new and currently undetectable performance-enhancing drug called IGF-1. The drug is found in the "velvet" on immature deer antlers and is ingested by chewing on chunks of Bambi's horns.
Other than crotch scratching, there's nothing a ballplayer enjoys more than chewing and spitting. Gum, sunflower seeds or (gack) tobacco are being replaced by deer antlers. Tobacco-chewing Red Sox manager Terry Francona referred to last Sunday's four hour marathon game against the Yankees as a "three-chaw contest." Are "four antler" games in baseball's future?
The problem is that "velvet"-covered antlers exist only for a short time in early autumn. Ironically, early autumn is also the height of baseball's pennant races and post-season. I urge Phillies fans to support our boys by slaughtering as many deer as possible this fall and shipping those antlers to Citizens Bank Park. When Ryan Howard sends a home run ball deep into the Philadelphia twilight, we can say that we had a small part in his effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment