Welcome to the MLB Star Power Index -- a bi-weekly undertaking that determines with awful authority which players/baseball entities are dominating the current zeitgeist of the sport, at least according to the narrow perceptions of this miserable scribe. While one's presence on this list is often celebratory in nature, it can also be for purposes of lamentation or ridicule. The players listed are in no particular order, just like the phone book. To this week's honorees ...
Blooper, fully evolved mascot of the Atlanta Braves
While humans are born in a state of maximum undress, the mascots of Major League Baseball are not. Despite sharing almost every rung of zoological taxonomy with humans – from Animalia and Chordata all the way through Homini and so forth – MLB mascots, or Homo Endomorphus T-Shirtus Cannonus, punch their way out of the womb arrayed in full clothing. Specifically, MLB mascots at birth are, in a biological nod to Victorian-era finery, clothed in low-cut boots, stockings, pleated knickerbockers, a tasteful frock with matching waistcoat, and a wide-brimmed straw sun hat branded to represent the team for whom they shall one day toil.
It follows then, that the cultural evolution of the human and mascot take different paths. The human is eventually afflicted with bodily modesty-shame, thanks to municipal code violations in Eden, and seeks out the false respite of wearables. The mascot, however, progresses toward the libertine and a ritual shedding of birth-wear. The arc of mascot history bends toward nakedness.
Consider to your own titillation the fact that current mascots like Clark the Cub, Lou Seal, the Philly Phanatic, Paws, the Pirates Parrot, and others conduct their lives while bottomless. Yes, in some instances the plunging hemline of the jersey or tunic conceals what pulses beneath, but the implication is as unmistakable as a towering roadside phallus.
Until now it was believed that the Oriole Bird, restrained by nothing but the hat upon his head and the vast clodhoppers upon his feet, was the most evolved and self-actualized of MLB mascots. Now, though, Blooper of the Atlanta Braves has claimed the heavyweight championship belt of mascot Darwinism – a heavyweight championship belt that he shall refuse to wear:
Hills and loins be shaken: This thing is nude.
Those who wear jeans at home will perhaps argue that Blooper is not nude in the image above on account of what appear to be shoes, sweatbands, and a good-boy's beanie with missing propeller. These people, however, are ignorant of basic humanoid anatomy. What looks like shoes, sweatbands, and a good-boy's beanie with missing propeller are actually examples of identificatory plumage and thus as much a part of Blooper's body as all else you behold. Much like broadcaster and moundsman Steve Stone so many years ago upon the pages of Playgirl magazine, Blooper is naked and open to the possibilities.
Other, lesser mascots should from this. Blooper is now your fully realized Übermensch. Genuflect before heeding his lessons. Then let the concealing garments fall like storm rain upon the great prairie.
Fans of the New York Yankees
Praise be to paying customers of the New York Yankees for giving second-string heir Hal Steinbrenner the business and the what for. Prick up your ears and be deafened by the voice of the people:
Because the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles, team owners should quite obviously be booed without ceasing. This is especially the case when the owner is, like Hal Steinbrenner, the idling inheritor of the squadron in which he refuses to invest at levels befitting the team's boundless revenues. Boo him while he dines in restaurants, while he avoids public transit, while he tries to nap, and while he calls the police on you for having broken into his home while he tries to nap for the purpose of booing him.
You see, team owners are a necessary presence in our baseball lives only because the system afflicts us with them. Our only recourse is contempt and expressions thereof. They are not to be praised or admired, they are not to touch any trophies that have been won. And above all no longer are they to be granted honorific titles. Instead they are to be addressed via unsanctioned nicknames on those occasions when the rest of us can't avoid talking about them. Mr. Steinbrenner, Mr. Ricketts, and so on? Hell of all hells no. Owners are to be referred to, particularly in player quotations to the sporting press, as Cuckles or Dumpy or Boo Bear or Lil' Slimy or Pukey the Buttass or Stupid O'Dirty. They merit nothing loftier.
In the meantime, humiliate them in public with full-throated righteousness.
