Forget Paris, explain baseball uniforms

I absolutely do not understand the big deal about Paris Hilton. What is it that keeps her in the media spotlight?

I hardly know where to start with things I don’t understand about the puzzling Paris. As far as I can tell, she has not even a modicum of talent. She is a reasonably attractive young lady; but there are a lot of them around. The first I heard of her was when a sex video starring her and a former boyfriend apparently surfaced on the Internet.

I don’t know about you, but where I came from, that would have been called a scandal. Jay Leno and David Letterman kept their late-night audiences laughing as they poked fun at the publicity the video gained for the heiress of the Hilton Hotel family. It seems that the scandal didn’t diminish her star quality.

I just don’t understand why she is all over television and pop culture magazines. As far as I can tell, her major display of talent thus far consists of a TV ad where she was washing a car wearing a revealing costume and eating a giant cheeseburger. The only visible talent is keeping the cheeseburger dry while writhing amid lots of water.

One unique fact about her is that she is reportedly engaged to marry a man who is also named Paris: Paris Latis, a Greek shipping scion. What are the chances that two jet setters, born with silver credit cards in their hands and both named Paris, would get together?

A more challenging question: Who cares? Presumably there are those who do. Go figure.

Even before the recent trial that put the Barnum and Bailey Circus to shame, I didn’t understand the hullabaloo over Michael Jackson. When he was a child performing with his family, his attraction was understandable. To be honest, when he outgrew the Jackson Five, I didn’t understand his enormous star quality. I thought Stevie Wonder, who made the move from child start to adult star, was far more talented. But what do I know?

I really don’t understand his effort to alter his appearance into a Count Dracula look-alike with a fake nose and Morticia Addams wig.

I didn’t understand the trial that mesmerized copious TV watchers and pop magazine readers. The evidence against Jackson sounded compelling until the defense showed the accusers to be every bit as off-the-wall as Jackson was. I know I have been generous with my ridicule of the so-called “innocent verdicts” rendered by California juries in celebrity trials, but the Jackson jury had no choice but to find him terminally weird for sleeping with little boys yet not guilty of crime based on the quality of the evidence. Had I been on the jury, I would have voted for finding everyone guilty.

Another thing I don’t understand has to do with baseball. Why is it that in baseball, the head coach isn’t called a coach but a manager? Baseball has a bench coach, a first-base coach, etc. I’m sure someone will tell me that there is a logical reason for the manager title.

While that knowledgeable reader is explaining the baseball managerial role, perhaps another will know why baseball managers and coaches wear uniforms like those worn by the players; they even have numbers on their uniforms. Because they don’t play, why wear players’ uniforms?

Can you imagine football coaches on the sidelines wearing cleats, pads and helmets? I certainly can’t conjure up an image of basketball coaches on the sidelines wearing the silly-looking baggy pants uniforms the players wear.

Forget Paris and Michael. They are beyond understanding. Your homework assignment, readers: Help me understand why a major league baseball headman is a manager, not a coach, and why he dresses like a player ...

Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.