Time To Kill The Rally (Towel)

Phillies fans twirl imitation Terrible Towels during home
games. What is it with the people in Pennsylvania and their
fascination with twirling towels over their heads?

An epidemic has spread across the country in baseball stadiums everywhere and it isn't pretty.

That's right, folks. I'm talking about the imitation of the Terrible Towel.

Once only reserved for those hardcore Steeler fans of the 1970s, it appears every John Q. Fan with an oversized washcloth has shown up at the ballpark this postseason. The result? Thousands of fans twirling these scraps of cloth, making fans at home have seizures with each passing movement. It's almost as bad as the vuvuzelas of the World Cup.

Unlike its football counterpart — which is where the Terrible Towel was invented — baseball is a calmer game. It is meant to be enjoyed in the comfort of seats — or as comfortable as sitting on plastic for four hours can be. It isn't a game that relies on emotion.

Nobody is quite sure when the Terrible Towel knockoffs started in baseball, and believe me, I've asked. My only guess is that some Pittsburgh fan from the 1970s somehow figured out how to travel through time and ended up at a Phillies game — because we all know he or she would never travel through time for a Pirates game.

Either way, the country is in dire need of something else to rally around besides the rally towels. Remember the Rally Monkey? Or the phrase "Cowboy Up?"

True, baseball fans did have those awful balloonstix — which sounded like clapping a pair of beer cans together and consequently giving off the worst sound known to man until the vuvuzelas made their way to pop culture — but generally baseball has some great celebrations and rally igniters. Just look at the "We Are Family" Pittsburgh Pirates of the late 70s.

Anybody can twirl a towel around their head. Let's hope that one team will figure out a new promotion that baseball fans — who are known to be thinkers — to use their gigantic, stat-filled brains and apparently strong shoulders for something other than looking like a helicopter that's about ready to take off but never will.

That way, those of us who choose not to partake in looking like an idiot on cable television can at least watch the game without worrying about being slapped in the face.