This is Not the Opening Day Post You're Looking For

No, really, we had an entire AL East preview post planned--err, by "planned," we mean that we talked about it all the time and cracked ourselves up doing so, but never quite got around to writing anything down--but this MLB Mancave Fancave Frat Boy Extravaganza Real World Reunion Tour 2011 distracted us from our plans. Heck, it distracted us from baking (for our men) while wearing heels and pearls and cleaning (for our men) while rocking a beehive and loving pink (for our men) and putting on makeup (for our men) and all the other stereotypically girly things MLB apparently thinks we spend all of our time doing.* Be assured, though, that we'll at least share the Red Sox and Yankees sections of the post, and hopefully sooner rather than later. Before the All Star Break at the very least.

And, hey, we'll admit that we basically mocked the initial contest concept--who could watch all the baseball? how would that person have time to, you know, shower? or actually physically go out to the ballpark to watch a game?--and neither of us entered. However, we know that at least one female fan did. So it's not like there weren't any female contestants from which to choose.** We didn't sit down and watch all of the video submissions, so we have no way to judge whether or not the ones that won were the best. We did watch the clips from the Yankees fan's submission that are online, though, and let's just say we were decidedly whelmed. We're pretty sure that MLB saw all the memorabilia he has and thought "KA-CHING, we have a winner. Oh, hey, and he probably does drunken impressions at the bar--just like us!" (No, we're not linking. We don't want to give them the traffic.)

But let's just say there weren't any "qualified"--quotes used more because the qualifications were maddeningly vague from the start of the contest than for the sarcasm they may imply--female contestants. It's possible. That doesn't mean that MLB needs to market this entire thing as a glorified mini-frathouse, complete with Z100's Greg T the Frat Boy. That doesn't mean that they need to interview an underwear model to celebrate Opening Day; we'd argue that even if the VS model in question is a hardcore baseball fan, that advertising the event as "interviews with an underwear model" rather than "interviews with this totally hardcore baseball fan who, by the way, happens to be a VS model" basically tells that MLB is pretty damned sure that their audience is male, straight, and into underwear models. When dealing with a PR-based initiative--which the Mancave surely is, wrapped up in Real World nostalgia and Jersey Shore mystique--perception is a huge part of the equation.

And, to a female fan right now, the perception is that MLB either doesn't care or doesn't recognize that female fans make up about 45% of their demographic. That's pretty damned close to half, or so we hear; we're girls, doncha know, which means we don't understand the complicated math.***

It's just, look, we're constantly being asked if we understand the infield fly rule, no matter how many times we're the ones in our section who can tell you the name and scouting report of that kid they just called up from Portland. We're the ones buying kids' player tees because the men's ones don't fit--and we're lucky because we're both shorter than Dustin Pedroia and can fit into kids' t-shirts, even if they don't particularly fit our shapes properly--and we don't want to wear sparkles or bangles or pink or PINK. And while it's nice to be told by the grandfatherly type two seats over that he was "relieved" when we "proved our knowledge" because he "groaned" when he saw us coming to sit near him because we "look like teenage girls," well. It's actually not. And we'd really like to think that MLB the Giant [redacted] Entity thinks better of us than that guy, you know? We'd like to think that maybe the fact that we buy tickets and the Extra Innings package and scorebooks and baseball cards might make our fandom just the teensiest bit important. The sparkles and the bangles and the pink and the PINK really should've been a clue.

Heck, and this is just off the top of our heads here so please bear with us on this, but if they want to start things out by bringing a beautiful woman into the Mancave, why not invite Alyssa Milano? We hear she's definitely into baseball.

*Please note that we mean no disrespect to anyone who does any of these things--we do some of them ourselves!--because all of these things are awesome too. Though as neither of us currently has a man, per se, we're doing them for ourselves. Because who doesn't love a delicious Iraqi cardamom whole wheat cookie? Or a really great pair of heels?

**We're not even going into the fact that both winners are white-seeming dudes who root for AL East teams. But, you know, both winners are seemingly white dudes who root for AL East teams.

***Actually, math isn't our strong suit. But that's because we're liberal arts majors, not because we're women.