Long Beach State University's mascot is the "49ers". However, as those of you that follow this site regularly already know, the baseball team has it's own moniker, "The Dirtbags". As a former member of Long Beach State's baseball team, Evan Longoria, the new face of the Tampa Bay Rays, embodies everything that "Dirtbags" symbolizes. This is why we always refer to Longoria as "Dirtbag".

Well, Jack Curry of the New York Times ran a fun little piece yesterday morning about Longoria and Jason Giambi and their ties to Long Beach State University.

Evan Longoria did not merely call Jason Giambi a fellow Long Beach State 49er. The baseball team goes by a different nickname, a grittier, sloppier handle, so that was how Longoria referred to him. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Giambi swiftly said.

And that was it. Nowhere in the article does Curry actually use the word "Dirtbag". Is "Dirtbag now a "bad" word? Would the New York Times face a fine for the use of what is the mascot for a collegiate baseball team?

We honestly cannot come up with a single reason why Curry would tiptoe around the use of the word "Dirtbag", and yet he will freely use the word "Yankees", which clearly should have been one of George Carlin's "7 words you can't say on television".

Giambi and Longoria Share Root and a Battle [New York Times]