Tickled Pink Sports Fans

by Sarah Klenakis

A couple of years ago, ESPN Page 2 columnist Mary Buckheit wrote an observant column on the phenomenon that is pink sports apparel. Pink team sports apparel has been invading my viewing pleasure of athletics for years now—jolting me from the fantasy world I enter when watching sports (blame the fairy tales for my still overactive imagination), back into the realization that I am just another fan. From the knotted pink t-shirts on the happy hour waitresses, to the splattering of pink hats in the stands trying to maintain interest in the game—the trend is everywhere. I recently revisited Buckheit’s article while watching the baseball playoffs this October, when I saw yet another of my female compatriots sporting a bubble gum pink Boston Red Sox hat.

Years after the fad was initially introduced, there seems to be no end in sight for the pink phenomenon—spreading from pink hats and rhinestoned jerseys, to salmon crocs and rose-colored booty shorts. All of them a slight shade of baby pink expressing all that is wrong with sports these days.

Now—there is, of course, a difference between the occasional shirts or bats that players and fans sometimes use in support of breast cancer causes that pop up around Mother’s Day. The hate that pink sports apparel churns up inside me has nothing to do with this. It is not even so much about the girls who wearing it to support their boyfriend’s team or as Buckheit eloquently imitates, “I put flair in front of team spirit. My style will not be trumped by distasteful team colors.” What bothers me most is that it is a new thing—that I am part of a generation of free agency, highest bidder takes all, and juicing. So every time I see a pink hat, I feel like that person is calling out, “Hey look! I’m a fan!” And I sadly drop my head because I am reminded there will be no good, old days in my future.

Pink apparel is just one more thing that takes away from our favorite team’s tradition, and today’s sports don’t need any additional help rebranding themselves—the agents, owners, and advertisers do a good enough job there.

When I go to the ballpark, I don’t need seven pieces of team flair—just the sweat-stained official MLB hat I purchased when I was in high school. Pink is a great color and I would have proudly worn a pink jersey had my college, high school, or ASA team chosen it as their colors. But I can’t think of a college or university that has even a lining of pink in their official garb. I would love to see that one day. I would gladly add a shirt or hat to my collection.

While I do think this is a national problem, found in various sports and teams across the country. I think any Red Sox fan before the year 2000 knows what I’m talking about. These are the fans who, thirty seconds after the Red Sox take the ALDS in the bottom of the ninth, feel the need to change their Facebook statuses to somehow mention their love of dirty water.

I love baseball. I love the Red Sox. I even love pink. But why does my love for a team or a sport have to be obnoxiously loud? Why does my love for ‘Big Papi’ have to be pasted in my MySpace profile to be proven? Isn’t the fact that I couldn’t sleep soundly most nights prior to October 24, 2004 good enough? Can’t I just be happy that I even get to view Red Sox game when living in Virginia? Why is it that so many members of my generation need to shout their love from the rooftops?

To this day, I cringe over the memory of the red, white, and blue anklets I made at the age of fifteen, in honor of the 1998 Red Sox. I had twenty-six—twenty-five for each individual player, and one simply reading Red Sox. Like all true Red Sox fans growing up in New England, my fandom was harnessed from birth. My father and I methodically included Red Sox baseball in our evening routines and reading box scores part of our morning. My anklets, hidden beneath my pant leg, were not meant to tell the world of my obsession. Like any true sport fan knows, I was just attempting—in my strangely superstitious way—to do whatever I could to help the team. I thought if I took them off, I’d jinx them. The anklets were frankly irrelevant (as was the fact that I interchanged the anklets with each night’s line-up)—it’s the fact that I knew all twenty-five guys on that team—that I followed them to Anaheim, Kansas City, and Toronto. My love of the Red Sox isn’t just built on Nomar, Manny, and Baseball Tonight’s highlight reel. It’s layered with thousands of games, with players like Donny Sadler and Darren Lewis, just as my father’s love is built on memories of Dick Radatz and Frank Malzone.

When the Red Sox lost to the Cleveland Indians in the ALDS that year, I snapped the anklets out of the frustration of my heart breaking. Unlike the fair-weather fans who forgot the Red Sox after the leaves turned, the Red Sox (and the pain they left behind) continued in my daily life.

It seems to get harder every year to return to this team I love. Most will say since their World Series win, being a Sox fan has never be the same. While it’s true that the agony is gone, the fans seem to grow increasingly obnoxious, the commentators more sycophantic, and the athletes more interchangeable.

Recently a friend caught me sneaking back to a party after I had mysteriously left to check in on the game. I admitted I was checking out the score. She all of a sudden got excited and anxious to know how things were going. I told her the Sox were ahead, but about to blow it. She grunted with annoyance as I headed back to the party and hoped not to have to go any further into the conversation. No true fan would ever forget a playoff game was on.

But never would I have made those anklets pink—even my fifteen year-old self saw what a cop-out that would have been.

So in the meantime, if you are watching baseball because you think Kevin Youkilis is hot—you should really check out Derek Jeter.