MLB Fan Cave

That's right. I am applying to be the next MLB Fan Cave contestant, and I will be sharing with you all each part of the application process. The first part of the application is to answer one of two prompts. I chose to address this prompt:

1. Tell us why you would be the ideal fan to live out your baseball dreams at the MLB Fan Cave in 2012.  

My response:

Baseball has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Early on in life, following in my brothers’ footsteps, I strapped on the stirrups, the cap, the glove, and the….well that’s all I strapped on (after all, I am a girl), and hit the field with the boys.  Some of my earliest memories involve hitting baseballs in my backyard with my brothers and dad. The love of baseball runs deep through my blood from me to my 100-year-old grandmother who never misses catching the Cincinnati Red’s game on TV. Throughout my life I have experienced baseball as a player, a fan, on TV, during spring training, with my family, and with my friends. Now my dream is to experience it as a member of the MLB Fan Cave.

I am the ideal fan for the MLB Fan Cave because I offer a new perspective. The female perspective. Ugghh, I know, I can hear the groans all the way from New York City to the 13^th floor of my Northern Virginia apartment. But hear me out. Baseball is America’s pastime, enjoyed by people of all ages. Yet, how many men still have to beg their girlfriends and wives to go to a game with them? Or, if the lucky man is successful enough to get her to the game, she yawns during the third inning and asks “when is it time to go?” The MLB needs a female perspective to teach these women that baseball is more than a pitch or a batter or, let’s be honest, the not-so-tight-anymore baseball pants. Women need to hear that baseball is also about the history, the atmosphere, the strategy, the statistics. Woman-to-woman. And I’m your woman. 

Now, I’m not trying to change the game here. I would follow all the rules and requirements of being part of the MLB Fan Cave.  All I’m suggesting is that if the MLB is going to have a Fan Cave then the MLB needs to represent all fans. Baseball is understandably geared towards the men. Even when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League existed, the league sought “to make each player as physically attractive as possible” (AAGPBL website). For who? The men, of course.(And the dirty old ones for that matter—all the young guys were off in the war). Now it’s time to do something for the women. After all it is a Fan Cave, not just a Man Cave. 

Stay tuned for the rest of the application!

Marie Colette