First, let me politely request the University of Cincinnati change its C-paw logo.

There is a legitimate reason for this. As I see it, this logo might encourage my fellow students and I to claw the face of a random stranger in a random act of senseless violence.

Such violence cannot be encouraged. The C-paw must go.

Now, see how absurd such a request sounds?

Sadly, such actions aren’t as ridiculous in the sport known as Major League Baseball.

The Houston Astros are celebrating their 50th anniversary this coming season, and as part of that celebration, the team decided to wear throwback uniforms from throughout the franchise’s history for its “Flashback Fridays” promotion.

One of those uniforms just happens to be a replica of the team’s first incarnation, the 1962 Houston Colt .45s, which features a smoking pistol leading into the “C” of the Colts’ name.

It seemed like a wonderful nod to the team’s history, until Major League Baseball decided to intervene and tell the Astros that the pistol should be removed from the uniform.

“It was expressed to us that we could wear the uniform, as long as the pistol was removed,” Mike Acosta, an Astros spokesman, told the Astros Daily. “We realize this changes the original design, but we still want to honor the Colt .45s. We are also under an obligation to follow Major League Baseball’s requests. Personally, I can see how in this time period any sports league … would not want a team logo associated with a weapon on their uniform that is broadcast to many people.”

As a child, I grew up watching the hometown Cincinnati Reds — mind you, communists used to be called “Reds” during the Cold War, and not once did it cross my mind to become Marxist and pledge my allegiance to Russian WWF wrestler Nikolai Volkoff.

To be honest, I didn’t care one bit about either the Reds or the opposing teams’ uniforms. I just wanted a hot dog, a frozen lemonade and a home run so I could see fireworks.

In other words, a good time at the ballpark is what I wanted. I imagine that’s all most fans, both young and old, want at games.

Such stupid actions by the MLB continue to suck away at that good time; but then again, I may be wrong.

We, as fans, might be as impressionable as the powers that be think we are; and if that’s the case, I stand by my request for UC to change its C-paw logo … before I claw my own eyes out to prevent my reading about such ludicrous things anymore.

Despite my personal opinion of baseball commissioner Bud Selig — who should be wrapped up in a tight, white jacket package and shipped off to the nearest psychiatric ward for what he’s done to baseball — this move stinks of pure idiocy.

Coming from a league that promotes the Cleveland Indians and their ridiculous caricature of the red-faced Chief Wahoo, the Atlanta Braves and their tomahawk — a weapon, mind you — and the Milwaukee
Brewers who obviously promote — gasp! the horror, the horror! — drinking beer — this effort at being uber-PC just shows, once again, why Major League Baseball is continuing to fall behind other sports in popularity nationwide.

Sadly, it’s not the first time this has happened in the MLB. Last year, the Tampa Bay Rays excluded a cigar from its throwback uniform paying homage to the 1951 minor league Tampa Smokers, due to what it might convey to fans.

“Yep, I’m running right out to grab a box of Cubans and a carton of Marlboros, dear. Watching the Rays play in those Smokers uniforms got me jonesing for some nicotine!”

Is this what our PC-smothered society has stooped to — altering uniforms of sports teams because folks are going to pick up shooting guns and smoking cigars because of them?

Are we that impressionable and feeble-minded?

Major League Baseball seems to think so.

Don’t misunderstand me. I get the whole “sensitivity” portion of political correctness. Obviously I’m not encouraging sports teams to create mascots promoting racism, bigotry or ignorance.

However, I also don’t feel that, in a society rife with violent films, violent video games and violent prime time sitcoms, we need those in charge of sports leagues to neuter the uniforms of a team to protect us from imagined harms such as a Colt .45 revolver.
Just like the Brewers don’t make me down a case of Pabst Blue

Ribbon and the Braves don’t make me want to use a tomahawk as a murder weapon, a cigar on a uniform is not going to make me smoke, nor is a revolver going to make me shoot someone.

If we want Bud Selig to be our protector and to tell us what’s right and wrong in life, we’ll let him know. Until then, he should stick to what he knows best — mutating professional baseball as we know it.