Cleats For a Cure update

A little update on the Mother's Day promo.

Saturday MLB sent a memo out to all clubhouses stating that any player wearing pink cleats of batting gloves would be "disciplined"

I can't imagine why this happened. I can only suspect some ulterior motive coming from Reebok having the MLB license.

Nonetheless about half of our players wore the cleats with pride and without hesitation. In fact Jose Reyes, who has a big time contract with the swoosh decided to wear the cleats I made up for him.

Brandon Backe took a little razzing from his teammates, but ultimately kept in mind the great cause. This is an excerpt from the Astros website

Backe's support extended all the way to his Easton shoes. The company sent their clients black shoes with pink trim and laces, in honor of Mother's Day.

"They thought it would be good to make some that were pink, sign them after the game and donate them to raise money for fighting breast cancer," Backe said. "It's another way to try to add on to the collection of money for fighting against breast cancer."

Backe received some good-natured ribbing from his teammates, who feigned disgust at the pinkness of the pitcher's shoes.

"We all love our moms," Blum deadpanned. "But this is bad. There's a line, and he's crossed it here."

Backe was unfazed by the reactions from him teammates.

"I think they're pretty cool," Backe said. "I'm color blind, so it's tough for me to tell. It's obviously for an occasion and for a good cause. I hope my signature with these shoes will raise as much money as possible."

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how it went, Big Z didn't get a chance to wear them because of the crap weather in Chicago, but he fully intended to, and Pedroia managed to flash them on ESPN. I'll keep an update when the auctions become available.