Lookin’ like a fool with yo pants on the ground

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/11/2017 (3185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 

You are going to be extremely jealous to hear this, but it turns out I have far more in common with professional athletes than I thought.

This is especially true in terms of our natural athletic ability to keep our pants in the upright and locked position, if you catch my drift.

I became aware of this sartorial similarity the other night as I lay on my couch watching the Montreal Canadiens battle the Chicago Blackhawks on my big-screen TV.

The Canadiens’ Jonathan Drouin had just scored the winning goal in what proved to be a 2-0 victory when the TV cameras zoomed in on the Montreal bench, and there was Drouin, hockey pants pulled down, frantically wiping his skinny legs with a towel.

What with being a crusading journalist and sports fan, my brain immediately formed the following thought: “Why the (bad word) does he have his pants pulled down like that on live TV?”

It turns out Drouin had a legitimate reason — he desperately was wiping away an excess amount of Flexall, a gel used to treat muscle soreness that also can become a tad warm on a user’s medically sensitive areas.

“Flexall cream — it’s an icy-hot kind of thing,” Drouin told The Canadian Press later. “It didn’t have a good reaction on my skin in the third period, but I definitely put a little too much on that day.”

The flashy forward conceded he watched a few online videos wherein he was shown dropping his trousers at the Montreal bench and wiping his legs. “It was kind of funny but a little bit embarrassing,” he said.

As some of my journalistic colleagues have pointed out already, Drouin’s pants-related moment pales in comparison to the historically embarrassing 1990 incident involving the infamous Steve Lyons of the Chicago White Sox.

Lyons spent nine years in the majors, earning the nickname “Psycho” for his eccentricities, but he is remembered today for one thing and one thing only — tugging down his trousers during a televised game on July 16, 1990, against Detroit in Tiger Stadium.

I have seen this dramatic incident countless times on sports highlights shows and each time I come close to wetting myself. What happened was that Lyons slid head-first into first base to beat out a bunt hit, then hopped up and (why not?) pulled down his pants to empty the dirt out and brush off his shirt tail. When the crowd of 14,000 began howling, Lyons realized what he had just done and quickly hitched up his strides.

“I was in tune with the argument (about whether he was safe) and forgot where I was for a second,” Lyons later recalled. “I guess I thought I was back in the dugout. So I pulled them down. I pulled them down to get the dirt out.”

At the end of the inning, women in the stands waved dollar bills at Lyons, who had been sporting sliding shorts under his uniform, as he came to the dugout. The incident earned him another popular nickname, “Moon Man.” Lyons received maximum exposure for his exposure, doing seven live TV hits and 20 radio interviews.

Sniffed Lyons: “We’ve got this pitcher, Mélido Pérez, who earlier this month pitched a no-hitter, and I’ll guarantee you he didn’t do two live television shots afterwards. I pull my pants down, and I do seven. Something’s pretty skewed toward the zany in this game.”

Before I confess my own pants-related humiliation, I want to point out that, if you did a documentary on Drouin’s and Lyons’s revealing moments, the theme song would have to be Pants on the Ground, a truly horrible tune that became an Internet meme after it was performed during an American Idol audition in 2010 by its creator, Larry (General) Platt.

Here is a tiny taste to get you in the mood: “Pants on the ground/pants on the ground/Lookin’ like a fool with yo pants on the ground.”

 

Speaking of looking like a fool, I feel compelled to share a completely true pants experience that occurred recently while I was visiting my mom in the oceanside community of Sidney, B.C., on Vancouver Island.

Regular readers, especially those taking their prescriptions, will recall that I have a lot of trouble with pants.

My ever-expanding belly, coupled with the force of gravity, exerts an irresistible downward pressure on my trousers, which, unless I maintain a constant death grip on my belt, will inch their way down my legs until they end up puddled around my ankles.

So there I was, about four blocks away from my mom’s apartment, waddling along a busy street after a trip to the grocery store, both arms heavily laden with grocery bags, when, suddenly and without warning, it happened.

As most of you have already deduced, what happened was my stylish golf shorts chose that moment to plummet to the pavement, leaving me standing on the sidewalk beside a busy intersection with my arms loaded with groceries, my pants resting on my shoelaces, and my face sporting a look of abject horror.

Fortunately, several motorists stopped when they saw this, then hopped out and held my groceries as I pulled my pants up.

Ha ha ha. I am, of course, lying. What really happened was several motorists honked their horns and pointed at me in amusement, at which point I plopped my bags down, hitched up my shorts, then began waddling slowly towards my mom’s place.

It took about an hour to go four blocks as I waddled, plopped, hitched, waddled, plopped, hitched all the way home.

Sure it was embarrassing, but like Drouin and Lyons I have put that behind me because natural athletes like us put our pants on one leg at a time… and then we keep them up with a liberal helping of Krazy Glue.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca