Off limits

Dear Ken,

“It’s not funny!”

No, those weren’t the words of Jeff Suppan or Dave Bush as they took their respective walks of shame into the dugout this past weekend.  Rather, that was the retort of one ridiculously drunk Brewers fan right after she vomited all over the front tire of an SUV in the Miller Park parking lot. Aren’t we the ones always complaining about all the drunk, assholish Cubs fans that descend upon Miller Park with coolers brimmin’ with Bud Light? How we’ve come full circle, Ken.

As easy as it would be to make fun of the many, many Brewers fans who demonstrate why we can’t have nice things here, it’s usually not acknowledged unless it’s a Cubs fan acting a fool. Like drawing Muhammed, it’s practically sacrilegious to point out that the many drunk buffoons in Ryan Braun jerseys stumbling around Miller Park make Brewer games feel like something akin to Ozzfest, not our national pastime.

That got me thinking, Ken — why do our fans get off so easy? Perhaps some of your players would like to have a few things off limits, too.  I’m sure they’d gladly welcome a fatwah on the following “jokes” they’ve undoubtedly heard.

• Prince Fielder is fat

Every single bad joke about Prince Fielder revolves around the same tired premise: his larger than average size. You’d think becoming a vegetarian — which requires a significant amount of self-control — would put this tired trope to rest. But, like a zombie with no sense of humor, it keeps coming back in so many hackneyed articles about Fielder. If you’ve ever seen Fielder run the bases, you know it’s time to give it up.

• Ryan Braun designs ridiculous t-shirts

Yes, they’re ugly and frequently worn by douche bags, but if this joke was a form of energy we’d never need to drill for oil ever again. If people want to wear the t-shirt equivalent of a face tattoo, don’t begrudge Braunie for selling it to them.

• Jeff Suppan’s last name sounds like “soup!”

Unlike Fielder and Braun, Jeff has embraced his wacky nickname. This has only encouraged every sportswriter to incorporate some variation of Soup’s Cold/Hot Soup/Beer Cheese Soup into each and every column written about our contractual albatross. Let’s not encourage him.

• Jim Edmonds appears to be wearing guyliner

I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that, right?

Nope.

• Corey Hart + sunglasses + nighttime  = comedy gold

This was funny for about as long as the Canadian pop singer was popular, which coincidentally is about as long as our Corey was considered a star prospect.  You know what’s not a coincidence? In three years, you’re likely to see both at a county fair in Kentucky.

From now on each and every one of these worn out observations will be prohibited from being thought about, muttered out loud or scrawled on a poster. If it can work for radical fundamentalists, why can’t it work for us, Ken?

You’ve got a quick three game breather against the Pirates before you head west to face the Padres. Hopefully, the piece of mind that comes from your players knowing they can’t be ridiculed will prompt a performance less hilarious than whatever it was that you just did against the Cubs. Now that was truly offensive.

Best regards,

Rob Vosters