I didn’t always live in south Georgia.  Actually I’ve lived in places that make south Georgia look like the tropics.  Places that you actually long for summer.  Places where the cold gets so deep in your bones you don’t notice you are warm again until late July.

I attribute my love for the springtime to my years in those places.  But it wasn’t necessarily the actual weather of spring or even the time of year that is technically spring.

Rather it was that fantastic day in February in which professional baseball players all over the country flocked to warm homes away from home in Florida or Arizona.

It didn’t even matter that “real” spring wouldn’t hit where I lived until weeks, if not months, later because I knew that somewhere there were people wearing shorts and tshirts heading to a baseball game.  Gave me hope to keep sludging through the snow knowing that one day soon I would join them.

As divine as these first few days of baseball are (although today was bittersweet with the announced retirement of Jim Edmonds- so long Jimmy Baseball) it is also fraught with despair.  The wonder is tainted with trepidation, the anticipation dashed by anguish.

Why such a Harvey Dent outlook on life?

One word.

Pink.

For some unknown reason women of all ages, colors, and creeds, think that pink versions of a jersey or logo or mascot or what have you is cute.  I imagine they think it’s girly and pretty and just go ahead and gag me with a maggot now.

I can’t even fathom what propels them to wear such an atrocity out of the house but I have even seen women wear these eyebleeders out in public and the ultimate sin- to the ballpark.  When I see a women wearing a pink jersey at a game I imagine this is what the conversation all game is like:

“Oh this is so exciting!  Which team do we like again?  Why is everyone just standing around out there?  I sure do love these peanuts.  TOUCHDOWN!  I just love it when they hit the ball far.  Wouldn’t that have qualified as ordinary effort and therefore the ump should have invoked the infield fly rule?”

Okay so maybe not the last one.

Ladies- you are doing every woman around you a disservice. Because every time a clueless chick wearing a pink glove (no really, they have these) asks a dumb question it makes every woman look stupid.  Men, bless their hearts, tend to clump us all together and are under the assumption we all think alike.  How on earth would things like Valentine’s Day even exist if they didn’t?

So when you ask why the guy in the mask keeps going and talking to the guy throwing the ball, you set us back decades.  By the end of the game we have to check if we still have the right to vote.

Which leads to this plea: for the love of the angels and saints and all other heavenly creatures above… please get rid of the pink. Throw it away. Cut it up for dust rags. Burn it. Whatever you have to do- just get rid of it.

The universe thanks you.

Now, play ball!