Bad sports, good sports: Minor league baseball team to add video games above urinals

Posted on April 1st, 2013 by Alan Spoll

OK, guys, you are at a baseball game and you’ve downed a few beers during the early going. Between innings, you run out through the tunnel looking for the nearest bathroom. You are not the only one with this idea, of course, and you find yourself in line. A few minutes later, you reach the urinal. You do your business, wash your hands, and get back to your seat as quickly as possible, right? The Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, a minor league affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies, hopes not. Instead, they would like you to spend a few extra minutes playing the video games they plan to install above the urinals at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown. Wait, what?

What a ridiculous and awful idea. Why would a guy want to spend more time that he had to in a stadium bathroom? I have never been to an Iron Pigs game, but my experience with other stadium bathrooms does not lead me to desire a longer experience with them. Wouldn’t a normal guy want to get back to the game he paid to watch? Why would ownership want to add something that could cause the lines in the bathroom to be even longer than they normally are? If I had to miss part of the game because the yutz in front of me in line decided he wanted to play some Space Invaders rather than get the heck out of the way so I could use the urinal, I would be pretty agitated. I don’t want to be to graphic here, but I have seen what men do in these bathrooms when the lines are too long, and it involves a use of the sinks that was not in the manual. I can just imagine what would happen if you add anger into the equation. I do know that would not be a scene I would want to experience.

There is actually a much simpler way to look at this. In recent years, many changes have been made in bathrooms that have allowed people to avoid touching the plumbing, including automatic toilets, automatic sinks, and motion activated hand-dryers. You can wash your hands, dry them, and leave the bathroom without actually touching anything with said hands. This is a great idea…you really do not want to be touching that stuff in a men’s bathroom. Who, exactly, is going to want to touch these video games? The guy in line in front of you may have been playing the game with one hand while using the other to assist in the “business at hand,” if you will. Are you excited enough to help Pac-Man eat some dots to want to follow that act? I’ll pass.

I guess it’s a funny idea, and the Iron Pigs have gotten a bunch of publicity from this, which was likely the point of it all, but I am not sure that a dopey idea like this one is something for which I would want to be known. I have always liked when places have a newspaper page posted in a case above the urinals, as it is nice to be able to read something rather than having to stare at the wall, but when hands have to be involved, I call foul.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Mansel Simmons, a wide receiver for Washington State, was hospitalized after he was injured in a brawl between players from his team and players from the University of Idaho during a party near Washington State’s Pullman campus. He was found unconscious and may have suffered a skull fracture.

3) If you owned an NFL franchise, what would you do with a quarterback who had won one playoff game in nine seasons and who had led your team to an 8-8 record last season? If you were Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, you would give him (Tony Romo, that is) a deal that makes him the highest-paid player in team history. Romo got a six year, $108 million extension, including more guaranteed money than Super Bowl winner Joe Flacco got in his recent deal.

4) Carlos Boozer of the Chicago Bulls made a big shot in his team’s game against Dallas on Saturday. After the basket, he celebrated with a fist pump that happened to make solid contact with the groin of referee Danny Crawford, who was unfortunate enough to be standing right there, unseen by Boozer until it was too late.

5) Tubby Smith coached the University of Minnesota basketball team to a 21-13 record this season, including two wins in the NCAA Tournament. Naturally, the school fired him on Monday, a day after the team lost to Florida in the Sweet Sixteen.

6) NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin will miss up to six weeks after being injured in a crash at Auto Club Speedway last weekend. This will make it very hard for him to make the Chase at the end of the season. Mark Martin will fill in for him this week at Martinsville.

7) Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby is out indefinitely after his jaw was broken when he was hit in the face by a slapshot during his team’s game against the New York Islanders on Saturday.

8) The Elite Eight game between Louisville and Duke took a nasty turn on Sunday when Cardinals sophomore Kevin Ware suffered a broken leg when he came down awkwardly after trying to block a shot. CBS stopped showing replays due to the graphic nature of the injury, and players on both teams were quite shaken by it.

Good sports:

1) The Wichita State Shockers, a nine-seed in the NCAA Tournament, have made it to the Final Four. They defeated La Salle and Ohio State this weekend to advance and become the story of the college basketball world.

2) Andy Murray faced a championship point for David Ferrer during the final of the Sony Open on Sunday. He recovered to win the match and the tournament. The win moves him to second in the rankings, ahead of Roger Federer and behind Novak Djokovic.

3) Here’s some really Good Sports…it’s baseball season.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

Author Bio
Latest Posts

Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02