Just a bit outside

This morning I ran across a creative promotion (scroll down to “My First Baseball Game”) honoring baseball’s generation-spanning “timeless nature.”  The Ogden Raptors  scheduled an Hourglass Appreciation Night for Friday, August 11 as a way of celebrating “that baseball needs no clock.”

My first reaction was “Well, ok, it’s quirky, but sure, you could hand out baseball-themed hourglasses to symbolize baseball’s freedom from clocks.”  But I had not yet begun to grasp the full scope of the Raptor’s inspiration.

The Raptors were not content to hand out mere trinkets.  They were going to embody the hourglass, anthropomorphize it.  Or, perhaps more precisely, gynocomorphize it in the persons of “18 hourglass-shaped commentators.”

“That’s right!” burbles the press release, each half inning a different “gorgeous woman” will join Raptors broadcaster A.P. Harreld in the booth. “The Raptors will video-stream the broadcast booth,” continues the release, “– well, at least the better-looking half of it.”

Noting that the visiting team that night will be the Billings Mustangs, the Raptors planned to give fans a chance to pose for pictures with “the real thoroughbreds” — which, I suppose, explains how this works as a way to promote attendance rather than an invitation to stay home and watch the video stream to better appreciate “the lovely ladies… whose gorgeous curves rival those of any stud pitching prospect!”

OK, it’s a bad idea.  A terrible, horrifying, get-your-rear-fired-in-an-instant-all-the-way-up-to-the-GM idea. An idea that got cancelled as soon as someone sober got wind of it.  But does that mean we, proud EFL franchise managers, couldn’t step up to the plate and do our worst?