May 22, 2022

"It was sometime during the 2012 season when Alcides Escobar of the Kansas City Royals grabbed a bottle from his locker and sprayed some of its contents..."

"... onto Salvador Pérez. Caught off guard, Pérez warned his fellow Venezuelan and close friend not to mess with him, punctuating his emotion with some colorful language in Spanish. Hours later, though, Pérez was far from bothered. He collected four hits that day and smelled great in the process. The mysterious substance in the bottle, from his point of view, had become a performance-enhancer: women’s perfume. 'From then on, I bought all the Victoria’s Secret there was,' Pérez recalled recently in Spanish.... 'If I don’t have perfume on, I feel strange,' said Seattle Mariners third baseman Eugenio Suárez, a Venezuelan.... Even though most players are often several dozen feet away from each other on the field, Suárez said he likes hearing that he smells good. Pérez said he can sometimes pick up the aroma of Luis Severino, a Dominican pitcher for the Yankees who uses a women’s body splash, despite Severino being 60 feet 6 inches away when facing him. 'I’m a catcher so I sweat a lot,' Pérez said, pointing to all his gear. 'So a little perfume helps. The umpires say, "Oh Salvy, you smell good." I say, "Thank you. Give me some strikes."'"

From "Look Good, Feel Good, Play Good. Smell Good? Baseball is full of traditions and superstitions. For numerous players, a heavy dose of cologne or women’s perfume is the unlikeliest of performance enhancers" by James Wagner (NYT).

I don't know what the "colorful language in Spanish" was. Something not fit to print. But what was the Victoria's Secret perfume? I'm guessing Bombshell. But maybe it's Amber Romance perfume. I see something from 2019 about the LSU baseball team and their use of Amber Romance to repel gnats. (And, yes, I know there's an MLB team called The Gnats.)

ADDED: "Amber Romance" — I'm not picturing hurled baseballs but hurled vodka bottles that shatter and cut off your fingertips.

18 comments:

Quaestor said...

The next Victoria's Secret fragrance: Line Drive Down the Left Field Baseline.

Art in LA said...

The Gnats-Dodgers rivalry can get pretty nasty, LOL.

mikee said...

The late 70s and early 80s are making a comeback! Where is that old bottle of Aramis? And I think there are still some 4 inch wide pester ties in the back of my clothes closet! We'll be at peak retro when leisure suits reappear.

Quaestor said...

Althouse writes "And, yes, I know there's an MLB team called The Gnats."

Too bad for the nameless former Washington Redskins that The Gnats is already taken, being so evocative of that pointlessly irritating and destructive controversy ginned up by self-appointed non-Indians guardians of real Native Americans who generally don't give a shit. The Washington Plague Rats is the next best choice.

Avon's Skin So Soft works as an insect repellent primarily due to its fragrance additives. In fact, just about any aromatic hydrocarbon tends to confuse and deter biting insects that find their prey by homing in on their exhailations.

PM said...

So baseball. xlnt.

Iman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bender said...

The Gnats are more into songs for babies, i.e. Baby Shark, and bobble-head presidents running around the field. Won them a World Series.

Jamie said...

I'm put in mind of Bull Durham, in which Susan Sarandon's character makes Tim Robbins' character wear women's underwear whole pitching, to get him out of his head. And smell is the sense that's most primal. I can dig it.

farmgirl said...

Pheromones enhance everything :0)

Skeptical Voter said...

Ah women's products with unintended uses. Avon makes "Skin So Soft". Works great in two hobbies of mine.

Fly fishermen use it as an insect repellent. Works at least as good as Deet and smells good.
I also build model airplanes and use a lot of cyanoacrylate glue. You wind up getting that stuff on your hands and it dries to a crackly crust. It also is hard to remove--there is a reason they call it "super glue" and use it to seal surgical wounds. But a bathroom sink full of warm water and a good glug of Skin So Soft and the CA crust is much easier to remove. I think it works because the oil in it gets under the CA crust.

I doubt it will do anything for Stephen Curries 3 point shot though.

GrapeApe said...

I’m an LSU guy. Never before heard of this re: the Tigers. Amusing at least. Baseball has some funny superstitions that somehow gain traction. But, guys get sweaty and smelly. Maybe the floral stuff helps in the dugout. Armpits and ass. Dunno.

Blair said...

*I don't know what the "colorful language in Spanish" was.*

Every insult I've heard in Spanish has something to do with the sexual proclivities of the subject's mother, so I would be surprised if there was any novel deviation from that.

Narr said...

Slap-ass!

Slapassslapassslapass.

Yisroel said...

So that explains this https://www.businessinsider.com/fiona-hill-putin-smelled-odd-didnt-eat-drink-at-dinner-2022-5

Bunkypotatohead said...

Someone once told me my favorite cologne smelled like mosquito repellant. Up until then I had never noticed it. Now I can't unnotice it.
And it doesn't even keep the bugs away.

MadTownGuy said...

Anecdote from my high school days. A classmate was pranked in the gym showers with pretty much a whole bottle of cologne, heavy on the patchouli. He tried to shower it off and walked in, late, to Drafting class. Apparently there's something in the patchouli that reacted with the ammonia in the blueprint machine; the minute he stepped in the door a new and altogether unpleasant chemical odor made every head in the room pop up and look his way, especially the teacher's.

Teacher quickly told him he was excused to go home and wash it off. "See you tomorrow."

Next day, he walked in. Same result. Sent home again to scrub and shower. Finally, on the third day all was good. I've never experienced such an instant reaction in such a large room.

ndspinelli said...

You know Alcides used "maracon" in this incident.

Narr said...

"007" cologne, circa mid-1960s, contained alcohol but was not for internal consumption.

A friend learned that the hard way.