What do MLB's see-through pants and the Clippers' boring new logo have in common?

They both exemplify our shitty current reality — but I want to believe there's hope.

Thank you so much for reading The Wilder Things. To read every post, please consider becoming a paid subscriber! $5 a month gets you every single newsletter, the ability to comment, and access to the archives. Also —if you get even just three people to subscribe, you get a discount! So smash that subscribe and share button. I am so grateful for your support.

Spring training is upon us, and so are pictures of professional baseball players’ genitalia.

Not because the athletes want us to see their dongs. I don’t think many of them do. I won’t say none of them want us to see their dongs, because you can’t say that about any organization involving lots of men. But the reason we are seeing their dongs has nothing to do with them. It’s because Nike and Fanatics made them pants that are see-through.

For the most part, I’d venture to say that athletes usually want their pants to be opaque enough to hide their private parts. In fact, uniform pants sort of have one job: not to be see-through. That’s it. They can be skin-tight, they can be baggy, they can be hideous in color, they can be old, they can be new. 

But the one thing they should not be is see-through. The New York Post (the New York Post!!) couldn’t even run this photo of Giants infielder Casey Schmitt without a censored thingy across his dong. Most of the really revealing photos have been taken off the internet now, but still.