Barstool Sports partnership would be a terrible look for MLB

MLB talking about hooking up with Barstool is like your rich, terminally ill grandmother announcing plans to marry a 20-year-old man who lives in his van. It’s a cool van, yet there is cause for alarm.

By the way, this column is not about gambling. There will be no moralistic preaching here against sports wagering. Who among us doesn’t have a friend or relative with a gambling problem who needs that little nudge to hit rock bottom and seek help? If MLB can make a buck by bedding down with Big Bookie, hey, that’s the American way.

The problem is Barstool Sports. Problem? MLB calls it opportunity. MLB is desperate to connect (financially) to a younger demographic. Barstool features a younger demo, especially emotionally.

Barstool has a massive social-media following. It prides itself on being a media outsider, flipping a middle finger to the wussy old rules of journalism, taste and manners. To scold Barstool for its disregard for professionalism and civility would be like waving a copy of the Marquess of Queensbury rules in the face of an angry man in a bar who’s coming at you with a (clever reference coming) barstool.

MLB execs must be slapping one another on the backs at the thought of instantly making their sport hipper and edgier by tapping into this vibrant pool of energy.

Or, as Washington Post columnist Norman Chad characterizes Barstool, “an overflowing toilet disguised as a sports blog.”

That’s a bit harsh, I thought, but Barstool not being one of my regular pit stops, I did some research. Chad, typical of him, was delicately understated.

Barstool’s founding guru, a guy named Dave something, once joked that a woman wearing skinny jeans “kind of deserve(s) to be raped.” He said that any Black Lives Matter-type protester who blocks traffic “deserves to die a horrible gruesome death.”

Barstool teeters a bit to the right. Colin Kaepernick and his protests? “Throw a head wrap on this guy, he’s a terrorist,” Dave said, adding, “He looks like a Bin Laden. That’s not racist.”

Barstool ran a photo of Tom Brady’s infant son naked, Dave commenting admiringly of the size of the lad’s ladhood. Dave ran a video of one of his male employees in the shower, against the man’s objections. Dave kind of went to bat for Harvey Weinstein.

What fun. And if Barstool has a signature move, like a wrestler, it is the all-out attack on any critics, especially any critic of the female persuasion. Barstool devotees, who call themselves Stoolies, are an airplane hangar full of attack dogs, waiting to be unleashed on the next target. Barstool is famous for its targeted harassment campaigns. The Cauldron ran a story headlined “How Barstool Uses Social Media as a Weapon.”

It’s not that Barstool is anti-female. It simply prefers “CHICKS,” who can be featured in such Barstool blog posts as “Guess that rack” and “Guess that ass.”

But women in the media who criticize Barstool? You know, those fat, ugly, c-words (Barstool go-to descriptors)? Not so much.

Jemele Hill, the former ESPN commentator, felt the full wrath of thousands of Stoolies tweeting third-grade insults from the comfort of their mothers’ basements.