Colorado Rockies' Father's Day giveaway doesn't target fathers: What the hell?

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Prior to the game, Rockies personnel gave out excellent Troy Tulowitzki jerseys, but not to fathers, much to the bafflement of many papas in attendance.

I was among those attending the sold-out contest, accompanied by my wife and three kids -- my 22-year-old son and eighteen-year-old twin daughters. After passing through the ticket gate, I saw a Rockies staffer pulling jerseys from a box. But before I could reach out to grab one for myself, I heard her speaking to a group of attendees who'd discovered the jerseys were all kid-sized.

One woman asked, "Where are the ones for fathers?" -- a logical question on Father's Day. Answer: There weren't any, because the giveaway was only for kids.

I saw variations on this conversation perhaps a dozen times as I waited for the rest of my family to get through the line. And while the Rockies worker was unfailingly polite, I can only imagine that by the time the box was empty, she was wishing the gift of the game had been a bat, so she could have whacked some people with it -- like the front-office decision-makers who scheduled a kids-centric premium on Father's Day.

Is it possible the Rockies didn't designate a gift for dads only because it might have been seen as discrimination against women -- the sort of argument used to attack ladies' nights at clubs? Not according to Rockies spokesman Jay Alves.

"From our perspective, Father's Day is really a family day as much as anything else," he says. "And that's particularly true on Sundays. So we thought the way to go would be to give something to children who were there with their family."

Did Alves hear complaints about the move? If so, he doesn't mention any. But I certainly got an earful from my daughters, who were covetous of the shirt given to a portly tween sitting near us who was considerably larger than either of them. How come he got a shirt and we didn't?, they wanted to know. After all, we're here with our family, too.

Tough luck, ladies. Getting old is a bitch, isn't it?

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