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R.I.P. with MLB
07/03/06
by Clay
Is there anything more important than making sure that people who attend your funeral know how much you love your favorite Major League Baseball team? The answer, of course, is no. The only thing worse than dying is dying without the ability to be buried in a Yankees or Red Sox casket. Egyptian pharaohs had their favorite slaves slain alongside them, Australian aborigines left their dead in the branches of trees, Eskimos buried their dead in igloos where they froze forever unless polar bears ate them, and now you can lie six feet under for all eternity in a casket with pinstripes. America is truly grand and thanks to Eternal Image, Inc. your funeral can be your own personal grand slam.
A pensive polar bear contemplates eating an already dead Eskimo. (Ed. note,
this appears to actually be an alive baby as opposed to a dead eskimo).
Of course caskets featuring your favorite major league baseball team are not for everyone. That’s because according to the beautiful language on Eternal Images, Inc.’s website: “For many people, plain is just fine. Vanilla ice cream, generic coffee, basic black, a pine box. For the rest of us there needs to be more – a form of self-expression that reflects a life well-lived.” This slogan is pure brilliance. Nothing can cancel out a life of boredom spent ordering vanilla ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery or brewing your own generic coffee rather than stopping by the neighborhood Starbucks like buying a casket in the putrid brown and orange colors of the Baltimore Orioles. Put me down for two.
Imagine how confusing this will be to archaeologists in a thousand years time when your body is disinterred to make room for a new Galactic Wal-Mart and the Milwaukee Brewers have long since stopped playing in Milwaukee and are now based in Bogotá, Columbia and renamed the Bogotá Blowers. Because while your eternal slumber may be everlasting, rest assured the likelihood of your team staying in the same city for all eternity is low. Especially with thirtieth century salaries. If these caskets had existed even sixty years ago, Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants fans would literally be whiling away the ages locked in a one-way fandom embrace. The last relic of a no longer extant team name would be the tombs of the dead. Somewhere Edgar Allen Poe would giggle if he weren’t so morose…and dead.
Rumor has it that Edgar Allen Poe is the only person in recorded history to
live his entire life without laughing. Here he models his trademark somber ghoul
look.
Surely, Major League Baseball must have been paid a princely sum indeed to put up with this mockery. I mean, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays can’t be planning on much money coming their way can they? Surely, like the cashed check of an old uncle who died and you didn’t remember until you found out you were in the will, this was essentially found money. You might think this, but you’d be wrong. That’s because Major League Baseball is partners with Eternal Image, Inc. For every casket that the company sells, MLB will pocket a percentage of the proceeds. Yep, MLB can get you for money when you are living, assist in killing you with overpriced beers and eight dollar bratwurst, and still fleece you even after you are gone.
Eternal Image, Inc. is even a public company whose stock currently trades at the robust price of .12c a share and carries this lilting business slogan: “Designing Brand-Name Funerary Products.” This replaces their previous two business slogans of, “We Sell to Dead Idiots” and "Make Your Wife Cry Even Harder." At a stock price of .8c a share your family could either buy the MLB casket (which will presumably retail somewhere north of the $3250 average casket cost today) or buy 40,625 shares of Eternal Image, Inc. shares, mummify you, and wrap you in a stock certificate shroud prior to lowering you into the open earth.
Ankara reacts to her husband's decision to be buried in a Tampa Bay Devil Rays
casket.
Perhaps I am being unkind. After all, the Vatican has also licensed itself to Eternal Image and presumably death is too late to make a difference in your heavenly standing. So maybe there is some logic in pledging your allegiance to a team or a cause even after your death. Certainly I’d rather be buried inside the MLB casket of any team than left in the top branches of a tree or inside an igloo. Maybe this trend will even continue to expand. Perhaps we’re not very far from the Knight Rider inspired K.I.T.T. casket or the Dukes of Hazzard inspired General Lee casket. Both would have some appeal for me. Especially if the theme song played when you opened or closed the casket. But in the end, I think I’ll opt for a quaint and traditional burial in a quaint and traditional casket.
Unless, of course, the University of Tennessee starts to license caskets. Then, all bets are off. Strap me in and lower me into the sweet hereafter in the most garish orange casket you have ever seen. At the very least thanks to the garish orange, should my casket be raised in the future, no hunters will mistake me for a deer.
Safe for all eternity from this man.
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