Florida Marlins Recruit Fat Cheer Squad
[Guest post by DRJ]
“The Florida Marlins are looking for some footloose fat men. The National League team is creating an all-male, plus-size cheerleading squad to be dubbed the Manatees. Tryouts were scheduled for Sunday.
The team hopes to recruit seven to 10 tubby men to dance, cheer and jiggle during Friday and Saturday home games this season.
Real manatees, 1,200-pound mammals sometimes referred to as “sea cows,” are not considered the most agile of creatures and often get caught in boat propellers.”
The Manatees will join the Mermaids, the Marlin’s svelte female cheer squad. They will be unpaid but will receive free game tickets and, presumably, adoration from the crowd.
However, the Manatees won’t be the first of its kind. The Chicago Bulls basketball team already has a plus-size male dance troop, the Matadors.
— DRJ
Cheer squads in baseball?!?
Paul (236e0e) — 2/23/2008 @ 2:30 pmThe svet ones are the only reason I’d go to a game…
LOATH the sport, I do…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 2/23/2008 @ 3:23 pmsvelte*
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 2/23/2008 @ 3:23 pmAnd, in other Marlins’ related news,(no link comes up quick enough for me to post in this comment) the politicians that form the commissions in the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County have now worked out exactly how much they’re going to fork over to the Marlins to build a new stadium. Most of the money comes from funds that were initially budgeted for affordable housing. Does this surprise anyone? I am glad that I live in Broward County. It’s bad enough my taxes pay for the Florida Panthers; they don’t need to subsidize any other pro teams.
Lawsuits are being filed to block the deal, of course. In the meantime, I haven’t gotten to a Marlins game yet, despite their two World Series, and no bunch of dancing fat men will lure me in again. (Their ticket sales are among the worst in baseball, apparently.)
On the other hand, it was in the upper eighties today, and no rain. There are benefits to living in Florida:)
kishnevi (e4fabe) — 2/23/2008 @ 4:43 pmFound the link.
Apparently, enough pigs are fighting for their place at the trough that the deal may fall through.
kishnevi (db1823) — 2/23/2008 @ 4:50 pmI haven’t gotten to a Marlins game yet, despite their two World Series, and no bunch of dancing fat men will lure me in again.
kishnevi, no surprise the the local fans hate the Marlins front office, since each time they’ve won the World Series, the team has held a fire sale of the quality players on the roster. Frankly, what I am surprised about is that Dontrelle Willis and Miguel Cabrera were allowed to stay as long as they did.
Paul (236e0e) — 2/23/2008 @ 5:14 pmactually, the front office is being entirely logical. It’s one of those catch 22 situations. The team can’t afford to retain quality players because people don’t buy tickets to see the games because the team doesn’t have enough quality players…
And the Marlins are still not as bad as Connie Mack back in the early days, when as owner of the Philadelphia Athletics (I said it was the early days), he held similar fire sales each time the A’s won the World Series–THREE times in all.
kishnevi (33a0bd) — 2/23/2008 @ 5:30 pmKishnevi,
I understand about the Marlins’ financial issues but baseball fans cheer for the players as much as the team. The Marlins’ management seems to go out of its way to trade the fan favorites. (At least the Texas Rangers only trade their most promising players — sigh.) Trading the fans’ favorite players compromises the team brand and seems more like pettiness, and I don’t blame fans for resenting it.
DRJ (3eda28) — 2/23/2008 @ 6:04 pmWell, the Marlins have a disadvantage most other teams don’t have when it comes to the fan base. When the Yankees played here in an interleague game, there were almost as many Yankee fans in the stadium as there were Marlins fans. And they didn’t fly down just to enjoy the game, either: they’re some of those Northerners who moved to Florida. The Mets also has a lively fan base here. (I’m a Northerner who moved down from BostonRed Sox Nation.)
Also, I think the Marlins maybe the only team who ever picked a player based on the fact that as a Cuban, he would have a built in appeal to the locals (Orestes Santiago).
Add to this the fact that Marlins is a relatively new franchise, and while baseball has some appeal to Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Venezuelans (that’s one reason Cabrera stuck around so long), they, along with Colombians, Brasilians, Argentinians, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Peruvians, Chileans, etc. etc. etc. tend think of soccer as the premier sport. And there are lots and lots and lots of Colombians, Brasilians, etc. etc., not to mention Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Venezuelans around here. Not to mention the tons of people from Haiti and the former British West Indies, who do cricket a lot more readily than baseball. (The Brits, that is. I think the Haitians prefer soccer.) (Supposedly, 1 out of every 2 people in South Florida is foreign born.) So how do you compete in a market like that?
kishnevi (2dbd61) — 2/23/2008 @ 6:50 pmAnd the Marlins are still not as bad as Connie Mack back in the early days, when as owner of the Philadelphia Athletics (I said it was the early days), he held similar fire sales each time the A’s won the World Series–THREE times in all.
Very true. In 1916, after appearing in four WS in five years, winning three, the A’s had the worst team in the 20th Century (yes, they were worse than the ’62 Mets–the Mets lost 3 more games only because they played more.) Mack blamed Federal League defections for his problems, but that was and still is a lame excuse, since there were good players available on the cheap after the Federal League folded after the 1915 season.
Mack’s A’s appeared in three straight from 1929-1931, winning two of three, then purged the roster again.
What’s more interesting (and mind-boggling, considering how constantly strapped for cash Mack was) is how the A’s ended up with most of the stars of the International League’s Baltimore Orioles of the early and mid 1920’s, arguably the greatest minor league franchise of all time. So good were these players, in fact, that the A’s eclipsed the Murderer’s Row New York Yankees by 1929.
Paul (236e0e) — 2/23/2008 @ 6:54 pmAdd to this the fact that Marlins is a relatively new franchise, and while baseball has some appeal to Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Venezuelans (that’s one reason Cabrera stuck around so long), they, along with Colombians, Brasilians, Argentinians, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Peruvians, Chileans, etc. etc. etc. tend think of soccer as the premier sport.
Dominicans think that soccer as the premier sport?
Considering how many foreign-born MLBers have come out of the Dominican Republic (especially infielders) and how much baseball is played there, that’s surprising.
Paul (236e0e) — 2/23/2008 @ 7:06 pmI’m with Scott (#2). I hate baseball. Football too.
nk (669aab) — 2/23/2008 @ 7:48 pm