Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to rant and rave about the Cubbies, but about Major League Baseball's gear. There's a giant gap between the things that are marketed to women vs. men. When looking for women's shirts (they do fit nicer then men's shirts as men's sizes start at a medium) I can get the Cubs shirt with flowers on it, or maybe a Cubs shirt in pink or baby blue. Now for those of you who are unsure what the problem is, the Cub's colours are red and blue. Not pink or baby blue (do you think anyone would find that 'manly' enough for a baseball team? HA!) But it's not just the Cubs, you can now buy hats and t-shirts for the Yankees in pink (colours: black and white), etc.
Observe:
Women's hat:
Men's hat:
Now when you go to the online store and click on caps, only the latter comes up, as with the other types of apparel men's stuff *is* the default, but when you go to women's apparel you are assaulted with baby blues and pinks. *puke* Seriously if I wanna support my team I want to wear their colours, but just the idea of this is insulting. It's the MLB saying that women won't wear team stuff unless it's pink. Now I love the red and blue. I think most girls/women who grew/are growing up on the Northside of Chicago do. But that's not the point. Some people will read this and be all "I like pink" well, fine, but you don't get to choose your team colours. I would have gladly traded in the Green and "Gold" of my High School for any other colours, but guess what? I was stuck with those colours just as fans of sports teams are stuck with their colours. Like pastel pink, wear it even, but if you're supporting a tem you gotta wear their colours.
Back to the people who love the red and blue and may possibly have two X chromosomes: It's our team, it's a cultural thing not just a sports thing. I used to take my younger brother to games on the Red Line and get there early to watch batting practice. When I was home a few years ago I did it again (except he's older now and so am I so I got to *actually* drink at the game) we watched the Cubbies and the Astros from the bleachers, our summer home when we were growing up (and before tickets were $30-40 for bleacher seats. When we went I didn't see many kids in the bleachers. It's so sad. My dad can't even afford to go to games anymore, but that's a whole 'nother post.) We like the damn colours b/c they're the Cubbies colours. Pink is no one's colour.
I'm not the only girl I know who has a story like this. To grow up on the Northside of Chicago means you eat, sleep, and breathe Cubbies from Spring till September (sometimes fall, but really it's the Cubs we love them anyway.) So what's up MLB? Not to say that I haven't seen the offensive pink caps being worn, but seriously I can't buy a friggin' shirt in the correct colours without flowers on it. I mean the long sleeve hooded t-shirt sounded great until I saw it:
For the love of FSM, why? (I say acting as though I didn't know.) This shirt is on backorder so obviously it's popular enough, but seriously, why can't I like sports without flowers or pastel? What the hell were they thinking (again I say as if I didn't know) "Hmmm, we need to sell more women's stuff. Instead of making the men's stuff in sizes for women maybe we should make completely different stuff and add flowers! Yes! That's it! And then we'll give them no other option unless they want to watch too large men's clothing. Muahahahahahahahaha." I hate you MLB marketing team. I hate you so much. Plenty of women love sports teams and will wear their logo, etc without the pink. We just want an option that's not floral or pastel.
*NEWSFLASH* Women like things that aren't sterotypically "girly." But then again it seems as though they think I should be wondering more about how the players look then about their stats, because that's why women like sports, right? Fit players in tight pants? (Seriously I don't understand why women would be baseball fans then...there are more beerbellies in baseball then any other sport.)
Speaking of beerbellies-you know what makes me not want to wear my cubs stuff or watch the games? Bullshit "manly" posturing like what Carlos Zambrano pulled last year among other times. Hitting someone with a pitch and then yelling at him and acting all macho. I am seriously pissed that he's still on my team. The Cubbies didn't use to be like that, and he needs anger management classes. For the first time I *hate* one of the players on the Cubs, and it's for pulling the stereotypical "manly" bullshit. I know it's in other professional sports, but maybe if you want to keep a bigger audience you would rein that shit in somehow. I don't want to see fights, I want to see sports. Grrrr.
Anyway, since my Cubbies are on I am very distracted at this point, so I leave you with a cartoon from Cat and Girl (which is pretty damn good.)
(click on it to make it bigger)
GO CUBBIES!!!!
(3 run homer!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!)
19 comments:
I must say...I am a huge baseball fan (growing up in Atlanta, it is all about the Braves). When I was in middle school I used to tell people that I was going to be the first woman to play MLB. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. But, just because I am not good enough to play does not mean I want to wear cheesy pink baseball hats. Gr. And, flowers? Really?
I know, did you see the shirt, which admittedly I thought about buying until I found out that those stupid things on the shirt were flowers. Grrrrr. Double grrr.
We can like sports (we can't play them professionally, but we can give them money) as long as we remember our place. In the pink floral section.
Oh yeah, I want flowers .... Geez! When are they going to get a clue that over half their money comes from us?
I think they know and are trying to cater to us, in a horribly stereotypical and infantalising way.
They are just trying to make money. Evidently they feel that they can sell more pink shirts to women then blue and red ones. It is as simple as that.
yeah - luckily my 'Riders haven't gone that far... though I get round it by buying large kids' sizes. The 'women's' stuff does have a tank top I like though, it's black with the Rider logo... wait, they've taken all the 'Ladies' stuff off the web store, grr, I think they're updating... (it's the off season after all). Anyway, nothing pink yet, thank godde. Maybe 'cause it's a Prairie football team, I dunno.
Anyway, try the kids' stuff in large, might work??
- that's the Saskatchewan Roughriders, BTW, but of course I'm sure you knew that! ;)
http://www.riderville.com/
As a Cubs fan you should be used to not getting what you want.
mg
If you can't see that it's not about just the Cubs but about how MLB views women then you are sorely mistaken.
And as you can tell from my commenters, it's not just me.
I was just making a joke - I should have used an emoticon
mg
Everything marketed to women is getting more girly. And shoes and clothing are less and less functional.
AH, yes, I like to include my sarcasm point *i* when doing things like that. I've just been overwhelmed by poor reading comprehension.
No worries! (stupid internet)
There is a place in my wardrobe for the occaisional bit of pink or baby blue, but only if it's an official colour for something. You wouldn't wear a pink Man United shirt just because you're a girl, would you! No. I also just wanted to add that when I went to stay with a friend in Chicago a few summers ago, top of my To Do list was a Cubs game. We don't get much baseball over here in rainy Britain. I think it was one of the best afternoons ever. Hot sun, a hot dog, a cold coke, fab atmosphere, great view of everything. It was actually heaven. Whenever I hear about baseball I think of that field and that day. For me, the Cubs ARE baseball.
Hey me too. Glad you had such fun-I have great childhood memories of the Cubbies and Wrigley Field.
Pink Man U shirts? Ick.
I get around this by just buying kids/mens clothes in the proper colors. All that pink crap is too lame for words.
As are the Cubs. ;) I converted to White Soxdom about 5 years ago after seeing too many frat boy drunks stumbling past our apartment and hearing too many stories from friends about the n-word being used against them at Wrigley. So I now get some diversity and some World Series victories with my Chicago baseball!
my entire family is made up of die-hard Angels fans and my parents have picked up the habit of bringing my toddler neice and infant nephew Angel gear whenever they visit. Which is actually kinda cute. (This last time it was sippy cups.)
Except for the outfit they got Precocious last year. It was pink and gray. Grrrrr. She looked cute in it - as she always does, but she didn't look like and Angels fan. Besides, it's not like she's suffering from a lack of pink clothes.
Hey anon-I hate the yuppies just as much as you. I want them to leave my team alone, the jerks.
Hehehe. Ouch on the colours.
hey asshole-I'll keep deleting your misogynist rantings. go play elsewhere.
Just popped in from your comment at Twisty's. Here's the worst thing about the pink Cubs attire: It tends to cost more than the blue/red stuff. Really. My niece and nephew got sweatshirts. She's two years younger, so hers was obviously a smaller size—and yet it cost at least $2 more than her brother's sweatshirt.
I didn't even compare the prices! That's crap!
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