First of all…GO CELTICS! I’m not big into basketball myself, but I would still love to see them win.

Last Thursday, Mike and I went to TGI Friday’s for dinner, and sat at the bar. The Sox game was on, and the Celtics game was just coming on, on other TVs. I was sort of watching both at the same time.

One thing I don’t like about basketball and football are the constant cleavage shots of cheerleaders. Faux Sports is the worst for this, but that doesn’t surprise me, given that they tend to cater to the lowest common denominator.

I mean, are you tuned in to see a game, or tuned in to see scantily clad women? If you want to see the latter, why not just look at a catalog or a website that sells hot lingerie?

I see cheerleading as sort of offensive to women, especially when they wear skimpy outfits, such as the ones worn by the Celtics dancers and the Laker Girls.  Isn’t having the stands full of excited fans enough cheering for the teams?  To me, cheerleading is NOT a real sport, it’s just women who serve as eye candy while they cheer for male players.  Does women’s pro basketball have cheerleaders?  I don’t know, I’ve never watched it.

I don’t like it because it also ASSumes that all sports fans are men who want to look at these women.  Doesn’t occur to them that there are many women who don’t want this sort of eye candy, we actually want to watch the game.

To be fair, I also have disdain for women who go to ball games just to look at the players’ *cute butts*.  That is not what it’s about to me.

I hope that the idea of having cheerleaders in baseball never catches on.  As far as I know, the only team that has them is the Florida Marlins, they are called the Mermaids.  I dunno, maybe nobody goes to their games anymore, so they needed to have something to draw in male fans.

When the independent CanAm League team, the Worcester Tornadoes, was getting started, there was a rumor on some message board that they were planning on having cheerleaders.  So far, I’ve not seen any evidence of such on their website.  And I’ve yet to go to a game there, so I really don’t know.

I will NEVER forget this thing in TV Guide magazine long ago.   It was after the 1994 baseball strike, and they were asking celebrities about how they thought that they could get fans back to the ballparks.

One of the celebs they asked was Vanessa Williams, she of  Miss America/naughty magazine fame.  She said some dumb crap about having cheerleaders, musical numbers, flashy lights, etc.

Sheesh…if they actually did stuff like that, I would NEVER go to a ball game ever again.  If I want to see half naked dancers in music videos, I will pony up for cable and watch MTV.

Because of that, I have held much disdain for Ms. Williams…so much that I would not even try that Proactiv acne stuff that she does the infomercials for.  Never mind that I had bad acne and needed a product like this.  I finally did order it, in spite of her (and the equally bimbostic Jessica Simpson).  The stuff really does work!

But still, for the longest time, I was afraid that after the TV Guide thing came out, someone in MLB would see this and somehow think this cheerleader/music video junk was a good idea, and ruin baseball even more than George Steinbrenner and Scott Boras have.

I like mascots, and even those silly between-inning games that minor league parks have.  I love post-game fireworks.  But I draw the line at cheerleaders and other crap like that.  I don’t want ballparks to be littered with people who don’t care about the game, and that is what will happen is Ms. Williams’ suggestion were to be taken.

Just my humble opinion!