Like many other frustrated, attention-deficit youths, I used to dream about superheroes.
Such figures captured my imagination, fed my insatiable hunger for cartoons and channeled my innate desire to kick everybody else’s ass.My favorite was, of course, Batman.Friends often poked fun at him for being merely human, but I knew this was what made him special. He wasn’t bitten by a radioactive mongoose, nor did he receive mystical powers from carcinogenic ultraviolet light. He was just a billionaire playboy badass with rich psychological defects and an aptitude for face-smashing.As a child I imagined being his sidekick. Believe me, I would have been a great Robin. The job had two basic requirements: help Batman take out Gotham City’s trash and dress like a girl.Between daily chores and my older sister’s awesome “makeup sessions” I was — at an early age — already expert at both.So I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when I saw advertisements earlier this week for the “2009 BATGIRL SELECTIONS.”Score! Well, not quite.This is no open call for crime-fighting heroines. These Bat Girls are “a support squad that contributes to the nationally ranked LSU Baseball Program.” Each year, roughly 30 young women (full-time students in good academic standing with minimum 2.0 GPAs) are selected to perform various ballpark duties: selling game day programs, recovering foul balls, retrieving bats and helmets, answering fan questions, checking on umpires…It’s nearly exactly like crime fighting, except without all the spandex and jock itch.But this is no cake walk. Applicants must first pass a strenuous application process. The encyclopedic single-sheet application (front and back!) even includes a harshly critical self-assessment of the applicant’s “Baseball Knowledge.” Applicants must also assure the Bat Girl position will be their primary non-academic time commitment.Yet if you can make it through all that, rest assured your application will receive due deliberation. None are left out of consideration; diversity is the name of the Bat Girls’ game. In fact, you’ll find more brunettes on last year’s squad than blondes!So step to it, young ladies — the application deadline is tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.My only question is: When do they begin accepting Bat Boy applications?—-Contact Daniel McBride at [email protected]