Minor League Team Trumpets "Hourglass Appreciation Night," Backlash Ensues
By Kyle Koster
A minor league team in Utah has announced — and possibly scrapped — an ill-conceived Hourglass Appreciation night at the ballpark.
The Pioneer League’s Ogden Raptors, a Dodgers affiliate, blasted out a release trumpeting a night devoted to the curvy female figure on its website last night before it disappeared. Some of the language in question?
"The home team hosts the Billings Mustangs, but the real thoroughbreds will join Raptors broadcaster A.P. Harreld in the booth. Since August is the eighth month of the calendar year, and an 8 looks tantalizingly similar to an hourglass, be there a better way to remind the world that baseball needs no clock than to feature 18 hourglass-shaped color commentators? That’s right! Stars Talent Studio of Salt Lake City will provide a different stunner each half-inning. And the Raptors will video-stream the broadcast booth – well, at least the better-looking half of it! […] Fans will have the opportunity to pose for pictures with the lovely ladies as we showcase seriously splendid visual appeal: Utah’s legendary mountains, Dodgers and Reds farmhands – and gorgeous women whose curves rival those of any stud pitching prospect!"
Efforts by the Salt Lake Tribune to get to the bottom of this development were unfruitful.
There hasn’t been this much controversy over a Utah minor league theme night since the Orem Owl’s failed Caucasian Heritage Night in 2015.
Look, we should all have a soft spot for the good people of the minor leagues who are always looking for a new way to entice patrons to come out to games. It’s no easy task, ergo why you see so many stops pulled out. That being said, the folly of Hourglass Appreciation Night should be self-evident. The clumsy, cringeworthy release compounded the poor idea.
If the Raptors really wanted to do it, though, they’d need to also fete every other body type throughout the year, which might prove difficult. Remember how much trouble Jerry Seinfeld’s fitted cap giveaway caused George Costanza and that event was canceled due to a bomb threat.
We all know hourglass appreciation’s niche in our culture is in television, movies, print magazines and billboards, in advertising, on the sidelines of boxing, football and basketball and, finally, around construction sites.