(somewhere in the midst of that sea of styrofoam, there’s a human biohazard at play)

Atlanta has struggled against Livan Hernandez (7 IP, 5 hits, 5 K’s, 1 walk, no runs) tonight, a circumstance that surely has the few thousand fans in attendance at Turner Field wringing their hands in desperation. Their filthy, disgusting, disease-carrying hands.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Alexis Stevens explains :

A study released Monday found that 87 percent of people wash their hands in public restrooms. That’s up from a slimy 77 percent in 2007, according to the American Society for Microbiology and the American Cleaning Institute.

Researchers discreetly watched the actions of 6,028 adults in public restrooms in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and San Francisco for the study. (They were the ones taking extra time with the combs and lipstick.)

Not shockingly, women continue to be cleaner than men, the study found. And when you take the guys out the ballpark, you may not want to hold their hands.

While 98 percent of women that use the Turner Field restrooms washed their hands, only 65 percent of men did. And, if that doesn’t gross you out, that number is up from the 57 percent who washed up in 2007, according to the study.

Yep, the dirtiest hands in the country belong to the men at Turner Field.