The Giants 'Golden Urinal' trophy might seem ridiculous but it's not a joke
You’ll often hear frustrated fans proclaim their favorite team is, for the lacking of a better term, “urinating the season away” when it goes on an extended losing streak.
The San Francisco Giants, on the other hand, now view urinating the season away as a potential positive, as new tests should help them determine if players are staying properly hydrated.
[Sign up for Yahoo Fantasy Baseball: Get in the game and join a league today]
We’re not kidding about this, and as a way to prove it, we hereby introduce you to the “Golden Urinal” trophy, which is awarded to the best or perhaps most hydrated player on the team.
According to Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News, the M-V-Pee trophy, as many have dubbed it, might seem ridiculous. No one would certainly argue that it looks ridiculous. But it symbolizes much more than you might think. There’s a larger focus in play here, and it’s about keeping players healthy and hydrated, and finding what Giants sports science specialist Geoff Head says are the “physiological biomarkers of fatigue and performance.”
Depending on the results of player testing, Head might have a turmeric-spiced shake or sodium-infused water at the ready. Each of his concoctions are custom-made for the player’s individual molecular needs. It gives team chemistry a whole new meaning.
“Players are looking for every legal advantage, every edge,” Head said. “That’s why the game has started to evolve. You can’t take steroids. They test ALL the time — I feel like that there are testers here every day.
As you’ve probably already decided, there’s way too much science involved for the good majority of us to grasp this process. But we do understand the spirit of competition, and will undoubtedly appreciate how the Giants turned this into a battle for golden urinal bragging rights.
“An area we’re really focused on is hydration. And one of the ways we check players’ hydration daily is through what’s called USG — a urine specific gravity machine,” Head explains.
The Giants value these readings so much that they’ve turned urination into a competition. To be eligible to win the coveted Hydration Domination contest, players must post their best scores before batting practice. The best hydrated player after each series wins an award shaped like a golden urinal. Think of it as the M-V-Pee trophy.
There are really no words to add here, other than to note that the players involvement is strictly voluntary. The Major League Baseball Players Association has guidelines in place that protect players who are not interested or find it to be an invasion of privacy from being forced to participate.
In his article, Daniel Brown notes that similar hydration checks in part led to the dismissal of former NFL coach Chip Kelly during his tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles. There’s a precedent here, and also a fine line that the Giants must be careful about crossing in terms of presenting it to players.
Based on what we’ve learned here anyway, the team seems to be fully on board.
“Definitely,” catcher Buster Posey said. “Geoff has worked his tail off the last year or two in trying to find anything he can to give us an edge.
So there’s that.
As for their fans and the general public, it will at least be good fodder for toilet humor in the short-term. If the Giants have a healthy and successful season though, golden urinals might start popping up everywhere.
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:
– – – – – – –
Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
