"Pujols Mows My Lawn:" Another Stanza to my Lifelong Poem of Hatred to Wrigley Field.

[Bring Back the Stein]

After my shoes had been vomited upon, after the rooftop Disneyland where I watched the game blared "Sweet Caroline" over the National Anthem, but before I directed a group of blitzed-out 20-somethings who looked at my ballcap and told me that Prince Fielder indeed was a fatass the wrong way on the Red Line, I encountered the vendors selling t-shirts with the legend above.

 

I'm not interested in the etymology, since there is one and it includes Ozzie Guillen's laughing at his insertion into this joke, because this is on its face a racist joke. I was with a friend from the Deep South, who knows a thing or two about racism when he sees it, and so he got into it with the vendors. What animates the joke is the stereotype of Hispanics as gardeners. What makes the joke all the more appalling are the passing crowds of fat white dudes driven in from Linolnshire guffawing on Sheffield at the very notion. Would "Ankiel Mows My Lawn" tickle their jiggling jowls so much? The vendors know their market, though. They know their market.

 

And so it goes at shameless, soulless, joyless Wrigley Field, where you would not know there is a recession and where I have almost - almost - ceased to be surprised at the obscenities I will have seen. This time it was to a building where I had watched games more than a decade ago on rickety wooden bleachers. Now, to the tune of $165 per entry (I didn't pay for mine), it has been transmogrified into something unspeakable. Imagine if a Dave & Buster's raped a bad martini bar and it would approximate the miscarriage of a place.

 

All-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, freezers-full of ice cream snacks, plasma screens at every turn and all done with the fake brio of cheering on the Lovable Losers (Oh, the Cubs and the city wet their beak at this trough). The all-you-can conceit roared to its logical conclusion by about the 6th or 7th inning, when the real vomiting began. It didnt much matter to the crowd, though, since they weren't watching the game to begin with, only making sure they got their fill of riblet sandwiches, pulled pork, Italian beefs, cheesburgers, Chex mix, pinot grigio, whatever.

 

The Let-Them-Eat-Cakeaters are more deserving of the guillotine than the gonfalon. I will hear no more fake nostalgia about Bleacher Bums and have them try on, lamely, the working-class hero mantle. No, not when my laminated pass still has bile upon it.

[ClubLevel]

To be fair, the Pujols version of this shirt was in response to the "Zambrano Mows My Lawn" shirt that has been sold in St. Louis for a while now.

[Bring Back the Stein]

To be fair, the Pujols version of this shirt was in response to the "Zambrano Mows My Lawn" shirt that has been sold in St. Louis for a while now.

Like I said, I'm aware of the history. Let's just agree that if anyone tries to sell these around Miller Park, there'd be enough people with the good sense to throw them in the river. Or at least I'd like to think that.

[Fatter than Joey]

Let's just agree that if anyone tries to sell these around Miller Park, there'd be enough people with the good sense to throw them in the river.

 

Ehhh... I'd hope so, I am guessing probably not though.

 

The Cubs and their fans suck.

[Invader3K]

I've seen enough of the various "hilarious" Cubs fan Fukudome t-shirts to know enough about their taste in fan apparel.

[RyDogg66]

Horry Kow, Cubs fans are idiots.

[phxMILWfan]

I think there are more than a few people that are "mildly racist" or however it should be put, in Milwaukee/WI as well. Not exactly card carrying Klansmen but still enjoy racial humor, think less of people of backgrounds different than theirs. They don't realize they are racist but are. I move to Phoenix, AZ and there is pleanty of it here too. It's everywhere. I don't like the T-Shirts either but I don't let it bother me.

[Patrick425]

I know that politics and religion are not allowed on this board, but this thread screams it. All I'm going to say is that people are way too overly sensitive.

[Bring Back the Stein]

I know that politics and religion are not allowed on this board, but this thread screams it. All I'm going to say is that people are way too overly sensitive.

I know, I know, some people aren't interested in what other people find racist and think all this stuff is no big deal. Thinking about these things is difficult, especially for people who come from the dominant culture. My outrage, at any rate, had as much to do with how gross Wrigley Field has become. To see these lameass t-shirts laughed at just accentuated that point to me - and to the group of out-of--towners I was with, I should add.

[SeriesFinale]

A lot of Brewers' fans wear plenty of stupid stuff as well (I myself find the "...mows my lawn" shirts racist as well, but to be fair, pretty much all my Cubs' fan friends do, too)...I mostly resent, like BBtS, the specious concept of that dowdied-up rothole being treated as some kind of mystical castle to True Baseball Fans.

[hawing]

Yeah,if you want a tasteless but mildly amusing T-shirt idea, make fun of the falling pieces of concrete at Wrigley, not players' nationalities.

[bucks2281]

I saw some guy at Miller Park wearing that same shirt last night.

[homer]

I've seen shirts suggesting the Cardinals insert objects into their, uh, Albert's last name.

[berniebrewer4life]

To be fair, the Pujols version of this shirt was in response to the "Zambrano Mows My Lawn" shirt that has been sold in St. Louis for a while now.

The cub vendors also sell "Ozzie mows Wrigley" shirts as well. While racism is not limited only to chicago, between the three shirts i can think of off the top of my head(the ozzie one, pujols, and the horry kow shirt), Wrigley Vendors take the cake.

[razzzorsharp]

That original passage brough me back to the days of reading LOTR in high school. I read it, read it again, and then on the third try got it.

[mothershipconnection]

To top it off, it's really not even funny. There are offensive things that make you think "that ain't right, but in a vacuum it's funny", not the case here. The plays on his last name and butts, yeah, I get that, and can think back to high school when that one would at least have made me chuckle.

[Bikeage77]

The Pujols and butts joke is so childish and stupid, these t-shirts are the cream of the crop of just tasteless. Vendors are stupid, they don't see the other edge of the sword and how almost 1/3 of their team is made up of players from the Dominican or Venezuela.

 

Whatever, as mentioned above there are plenty of stupid shirts at Miller Park too, frat boys will always take over and ruin things that at one time in your life you probably appreciated. For example: the wave, drinking, etc.

 

PS: 165 dollars to sit on top of a building to be 600 feet away from homeplate? LOLZ!