The Orioles Just Sent One to Jeffrey Maier, Gratis

Thanks to the folks over at Deadspin for alerting us to the latest, um, show of support:

For the baseball fan who has everything in the here and now, how about a team-licensed urn for his ashes in the hereafter?
Yes, Yankees fans [It's a New York Times story, folks; don't fret, they make 'em for you Royals fans too - ed.], an aluminum urn with pinstripes, the interlocking NY logo, a place on top for a ball that you might have caught at the ballpark and a personalized name plate — all resting on a tiny home plate.

Which does not help dispel the notion that MLB's demographic is creeping toward the Bob Feller line. Hell, they're practically falling over themselves in favor of it:

...Clint Mytych, the president of Eternal Image, the supplier of the urns...said [MLB] had little resistance to the idea....“We sold baseball the deal over the phone and never met in person. All they saw were concept drawings.”

Wouldn't be surprised if they thought they were for cigarette butts, to tell you the truth. Although the price seems a bit steep:

Mytych said that fans cannot directly order the urns, so they are unlikely to be hoarded by ghouls looking to get them signed and sell them on eBay. [Comforting, that.] The $699 urns will go on sale opening day, a note of finality, of sorts, to start the season, and can be bought only from funeral homes. (Pet owners can order cat and dog urns from Mytych’s company.)

We assume the Fido-sized receptacles will fit clubhouse mascots, too, although that's just a guess. All morbidity aside, though, it's good to see fine American entrepreneurship alive and well in this increasingly outsourced economy of ours:

“We feel the creativity’s been bred out of the funeral industry,” [Mytych] said. “Some of the Big 3 [...there's a Big 3 of urn makers? Do they have Mafia-riddled pension funds too?] in the industry have been around since the 1880s, and they never tried a branded product.”

Which is a shame, as presumably one could look back and shake one's head over the squandered opportunities to get people planted into their very own Cincinnati Red Legs jars.

“If your uncle dies and he was a passionate Red Sox fan,” [Mytych] said, responding with a rhetorical question, “is it really more fitting to have him cremated and just put him in a regular urn, or one like this that supports his passion, makes the remembrance that much sweeter?”

Knowing more than several fans of this nature, it's best if comment remains withheld.

The Red Sox and the Yankees are in the first group of team urns, along with the Braves, the Cubs, the Tigers, the Dodgers, the Cardinals and the Phillies. [Again, the small-market teams get screwed.] Coffins for those who want to follow those teams into the great beyond will be on sale for the stretch run of the pennant races.

And that's really how it should be. Because, let's face it: if you Devil Ray your favorite uncle into Hell, he's gonna haunt you good.