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Forget his .251 career batting average, his three years of front office experience or his Ivy League pedigree.
In some eyes, Brad Asumus' most important asset apparently may be his hotness.
“He’s easy to look at. I’m going to have to get a bobblehead,” Christy Gray of Rochester tells The Detroit News in a feature headlined "Ausmus could be big hit with female fans / There's buzz around Comerica for more than baseball skills."
Related coverage: 'Hey Girl, Brad Ausmus' Knows What The Ladies Like
The Free Press catches up Monday afternoon with a report, if that's the right word, under the head "Detroit Tigers' Brad Ausmus too sexy for his jersey."
A certain segment of the Detroit Tigers fan base is a bit more interested in the team now.
New manager Brad Ausmus is one fine-looking dude, according to a bevy of heart-fluttering tweets posted since his hiring Sunday.
TV news anchor Chivron Kloepfer on Sunday told WLNS viewers around Lansing: "Well, he’s certainly good-looking!”
Others are abuzz on Twitter, including a Rochester Hills motion graphics artist :
I don't know if we're looking for a new manager or America's Next Top Model but either way, welcome to Detroit, #BradAusmus! #DetroitTigers
— Nicole Novak (@nicolenovak) November 4, 2013
Though there's doubt the Tigers' new 44-year-old manager is a major league looker. some social media posts suggest it demeans Ausmus and women to link his sex appeal and interest in the team among fans of either gender.
Pat Anstett focuses "on what Brad does with our beloved team," the retired journalist posts online.
"Enough about the new Tiger manager as eye candy. ...The eyes here will be on what Brad does with our beloved team." former Free Press reporter Pat Anstett posts on her Facebook page. "Yes, hope he can do the job he was hired to do," replies Rita Whitlock-Somers of West Branch, Mich.
Julia Merulla, a newspaper editor in upstate New York, says: "There are a lot of attractive athletes across all sports. I don't get why this particular guy warrants an article like this," referring to The News' feature in a Facebook thread I started.
"Yes, the premise is ridiculous," Detroit writer Anna Clark posts in that discussion, which also includes this from Susan Thwing of Rochester:
It is very insulting to imply that a woman would choose to attend games because of a "cute" manager. . . . Women like sports. We don't need a cute face to go watch.
While it's hard impossible to imagine Ausmus minds the attention or feels like a victim of sexism, the focus on a quality unrelated to his job is reminiscent of responses to some other sports professionals.
"Sports blogs dubbed me the 'Sideline Barbie,' the 'Sideline Princess,' " Fox Sports host Erin Andrews recalls in an August roundup compiled by The Hollywood Reporter.
Men's Fitness this year ran a photo feature on "40 hottest sports reporters," with a subhead that begins: "No athlete would mind being interviewed by one of these sideline hotties." This is the magazine's second sentence:
Some of the most attractive and charming women in the country are filling up the sidelines with awesome commentary and interviews -- though we are often too distracted to notice.
In a May roundup titled "Sports journalism's beauty curse," Chicago radio sportscaster Sarah Spain tells The Daily Beast:
“Society’s first way of valuing women is beauty. . . . You can’t win either way. Either you’re too beautiful and you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re too ugly and I don’t want to watch you.”
The last words here come from Detroit, where music writer Adam Graham of The News joins my Facebook conversation:
The guy's good looking. Let's all move on with our day.
