Won’t You Please Pity the Jocks?

Photo by Joe Giza for Reuters.

From today’s New York Times article “Humility by the Pack“:

In this tradition-bound sport…a hazing ritual that has gone on for years seems to have reached a new level of absurdity at major league ballparks: rookie relievers are being forced to wear schoolgirl backpacks — gaudy in color, utterly unmanly — to transport gear.

“Everybody laughs at me,” said Bryan Shaw, a 23-year-old rookie reliever for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Before each game, he makes the long, painful walk to the bullpen toting a pink bag adorned with an image of a white unicorn. “They all yell, ‘Cute bag!’ ” he said…

“It’s just one more way to get at your rookie,” said Mets pitcher Tim Byrdak, 37. “You have to walk all the way across the field to get to the bullpen, so you make the rookie carry this pink bag, and you can kind of humiliate him.”

MamaSharper saw the article and texted me: Because, really, what could be more humiliating then wearing something made for a little GIRL!?

7 Responses to “Won’t You Please Pity the Jocks?”

1. Marie Anelle says:

   September 1, 2011 at 10:10 pm

   Just because I didn’t feel like checking out of planet earth enough already….
2. Ms. M says:

   September 2, 2011 at 12:59 am

   What is more worthy of derision than girl stuff? Girl stuff is the most humiliating stuff on the planet. It might have COOTIES!

   Haven’t these men matured about 2nd grade?
3. annajcook says:

   September 2, 2011 at 8:57 am

   Makes me think of my latest issue of Bitch magazine and the article on the media panic over “princess boys.” These jocks need to take a lesson from kids who actually know a thing or two about not being an asshat:

   “I picked up Dyson from gymnastics and some parents spoke about his pink butterfly backpack,” she recalls. “A mother: ‘What a shame that mom buys girls’ stuff for her son.’ A father: ‘I’d never allow my boy to be anything but a boy.’ Then the son asked Dyson, ‘Where did you get that backpack? I like butterflies.’ As Dyson answered, the father grabbed his boy [away]. Kids are not the problem.”
4. Es says:

   September 2, 2011 at 11:17 am

   (off topic annajcook, but has that only recently arrived? Mine hasn’t come yet!)
5. oh hells nah says:

   September 2, 2011 at 11:27 am

   Wow. Poor rookies. This is worse than genocide!
6. mischiefmanager says:

   September 2, 2011 at 1:20 pm

   if any team that does this also made an “It Gets Better” video, something went way wrong.
7. Taking back the word “jock” « Fit and Feminist says:

   September 2, 2011 at 1:56 pm

   [...] of course, it’s not like this is limited to movies.  Over at the Pursuit of Harpyness, BeckySharper takes aim at a recent trend in pro-baseball hazing, where rookie pitchers are made to [...]