Baseball Cheerleaders Pt 2

Back in November, I wrote about cheerleaders in baseball. As a red blooded normal American male, I find them nice to look at, but as a baseball fan, meh. Like crying, they don't really belong in baseball, do they?

When I last wrote about this, it seems that when there are cheerleaders, it's in Latin ball mostly. Turns out that's not an exclusive thing south of the United States. I saw an article today talking about the cheerleaders for the Florida Marlins, The Mermaids. Heh. Given the community in the Miami area, it makes sense I suppose, but I can't say I recall seeing them on TV. Not that I see a lot of Marlins home games, but you'd think they'd turn up somewhere.

What do you think of the concept of cheerleaders in baseball? A lot is written at places who write a lot better than I about what "baseball has become". The game itself sometimes seems like a sideshow to all the other "stuff" that is going on in and around the park. A lot of teams have faux cheerleaders already - ushers that dance, groundscrew that dance, and the Rangers version of that, the "somethingorother six shooters" - girls that play games with the crowd, shoot t-shirts into the stands etc. They're "fakey" cheerleaders.

When I was in Florida in March 2007 for spring training, the Phillies had Hooters girls (in full regalia) as ball girls. Ball girls are a bit different than an actual cheerleader, though. Makes you wonder at what point some major team will take the leap from all these "almost" cheerleaders to actual cheerleaders. I mean besides the Marlins.

Or heck, with JerryLand™ being built next door to our little ol' ballpark, I wonder if we'll be seeing the Cowboys cheerleaders at games now. I mean if you go to a Rangers game, which of these two pictures would you rather see live in person? It's a harder question than you think. :)

It could be worse, though. It could still be "Rootin' Tootin' Ranger". :)