Take Me Out
They say that every time you go to the ballpark you have a chance to see something you never saw before. Whoever they are, years of experience and hundreds of ballgames have taught me that this is one of those rare instances where “they” are right.
A few weeks ago on a bright, sunny late summer Sunday the Mrs. and I strolled into my favorite ballpark, Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont. Centennial Field is, as you would imagine from the name over 100 years old though the current grandstand is a bit newer than that having been built in 1922. It’s a nice, well worn old park that really feels like the minors unlike the newer, big-market venues which, while nice feel more like mini-stadia instead of simple ball fields. At Centennial Field there are no video boards, no radar gun scoreboards, and no constantly blaring music that removes any chance of conversation while the game is going on. What is there is baseball, tiny dugouts, a visitor’s bullpen that sits back to back with the fryers and grills of the main barbecue stand (perhaps a portent of the future career path of some of these A-ball guys), the smell of fryer oil, old beer and cut grass and a PA announcer who actually notes the number of runs, hits, errors and men left on base at the end of each half inning.
Centennial Field sits on the campus of the University of Vermont right alongside the soccer pitch and the two are separated by the soccer pitch’s wooden grandstand that sits just beyond the left field wall of the ballpark. This fact is the key to what I saw at Centennial Field that I had never seen before. At Centennial Field, I experienced my very first soccer delay. Not a rain delay, or a bug delay, or a fans-throwing-stuff-on-the-field delay or a lightning delay. All of those I have seen before either in person or on television. No friends, this was a soccer delay. See, the Vermont Lake Monsters game was supposed to start at 5pm. Earlier in the day there was a women’s soccer tournament on the soccer pitch that ran long. Went into a long round of penalty kicks it seems. And, well, did I mention the locker rooms for the soccer pitch were also the locker rooms for the visiting baseball team? Well, you have sweaty college age women changing after a hard-fought match and it the visiting ball team shows up and, well, they can’t get changed until the women are done using the facilities. So it was that over 2,000 fans sat through a 55 minute delay on a beautiful sunny late summer Sunday in Vermont.
Really, it wasn’t all that bad. See, in one of your modern places they would’ve just blared music and videos to keep the masses placated. At Centennial Field that wasn’t an option. What to do? The answer was simple.
Play catch.
It started with some team staff and the team mascot. They came out onto the field with footballs and the PA announcer announced they would be playing catch with the grandstand. The balls were tossed back and forth between the staff and the fans and there was plenty of laughing and jumping and waving even though nobody was getting a free t-shirt or whatever. Then the Vermont players got into the act and soon you have multiple games of catch going and footballs flying back and forth between the field and the stands. At the end of it all as game time drew near all the balls were returned to the players and the team staff, and a fine time was had by all.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen much anymore.
Looking around the field and realizing that next year was probably the final year for this place because it was no longer up to snuff for these very important just-out-of-college-or-third-world-development-program kids made me sad. Progress is inevitable I suppose, and it is naïve to try to connect an enormous 21st century entertainment business with its pastoral roots.
No friends, I have seen the future of the baseball game experience and it exists in the Bronx.
Back in July I lucked into a free seat at the third Yankee Stadium (yes, I count the 1973-1975 renovation at the old address as the second Yankee Stadium even though it was on the same plot of land as the 1923 facility). It is an impressive place with big beautiful concourses and an open-air upper level with views of the field that is a huge improvement over the dank, piss-scented corridors of Yankee Stadium II. The food is pretty good and the staff is, shockingly, helpful which is a 180 degree turn from the surly, arrogant treatment the average fan received across the street. However, there’s one thing that really stood out for me, one thing that exemplifies our brave new world.
That huge television screen.
I mean holy crap, that thing is impressive. And by “impressive” I mean distracting, horrifying, obtrusive, obnoxious, and ruinous to the game experience. Yes friends, they built a big, beautiful new stadium, got all the little touches right and then they turned it into the living room of that one guy you and I all know (actually probably we all know more than one of these guys), the one guy who buys the 100 inch television for his 10 foot wide studio apartment or tiny living room. Bud Light ought to do a Real Men of Genius salute to that guy, “Mr. Buys A TV Way Too Big For the Room”.
As I sat in our seats in the lower half of the upper deck right behind home plate I found myself almost unable to watch the game unfold on the field. My eyes were drawn to the giant monstrosity dominating center field. It was only later when we walked around the place to check out all the nooks and crannies and my view of the screen was blocked that I was able to really enjoy the game. In fact I found my favorite place in the whole park was in the standing area of the bar right under the screen so I couldn’t see it at all, though much to my amusement there were dozens of people standing right under the screen straining their necks to look up at it. I started to comment “Uh, guys, the game is the other way” when I realized that for them it wasn’t. They were full-fledged members of the new order. That tribe of humanity that believes only what they see on the screen in full widescreen crystal-clear HD. We no longer have graven idols to worship. Technology has made that obsolete. Now everyone bows down to the Almighty Screen in all its shapes, sizes and forms. One machine nation, now and forever, amen.
Want to have a game of catch? Better go buy a Wii. Who even uses a real ball anymore for chrissakes, somebody could get hurt!
A few weeks ago on a bright, sunny late summer Sunday the Mrs. and I strolled into my favorite ballpark, Centennial Field in Burlington, Vermont. Centennial Field is, as you would imagine from the name over 100 years old though the current grandstand is a bit newer than that having been built in 1922. It’s a nice, well worn old park that really feels like the minors unlike the newer, big-market venues which, while nice feel more like mini-stadia instead of simple ball fields. At Centennial Field there are no video boards, no radar gun scoreboards, and no constantly blaring music that removes any chance of conversation while the game is going on. What is there is baseball, tiny dugouts, a visitor’s bullpen that sits back to back with the fryers and grills of the main barbecue stand (perhaps a portent of the future career path of some of these A-ball guys), the smell of fryer oil, old beer and cut grass and a PA announcer who actually notes the number of runs, hits, errors and men left on base at the end of each half inning.
Centennial Field sits on the campus of the University of Vermont right alongside the soccer pitch and the two are separated by the soccer pitch’s wooden grandstand that sits just beyond the left field wall of the ballpark. This fact is the key to what I saw at Centennial Field that I had never seen before. At Centennial Field, I experienced my very first soccer delay. Not a rain delay, or a bug delay, or a fans-throwing-stuff-on-the-field delay or a lightning delay. All of those I have seen before either in person or on television. No friends, this was a soccer delay. See, the Vermont Lake Monsters game was supposed to start at 5pm. Earlier in the day there was a women’s soccer tournament on the soccer pitch that ran long. Went into a long round of penalty kicks it seems. And, well, did I mention the locker rooms for the soccer pitch were also the locker rooms for the visiting baseball team? Well, you have sweaty college age women changing after a hard-fought match and it the visiting ball team shows up and, well, they can’t get changed until the women are done using the facilities. So it was that over 2,000 fans sat through a 55 minute delay on a beautiful sunny late summer Sunday in Vermont.
Really, it wasn’t all that bad. See, in one of your modern places they would’ve just blared music and videos to keep the masses placated. At Centennial Field that wasn’t an option. What to do? The answer was simple.
Play catch.
It started with some team staff and the team mascot. They came out onto the field with footballs and the PA announcer announced they would be playing catch with the grandstand. The balls were tossed back and forth between the staff and the fans and there was plenty of laughing and jumping and waving even though nobody was getting a free t-shirt or whatever. Then the Vermont players got into the act and soon you have multiple games of catch going and footballs flying back and forth between the field and the stands. At the end of it all as game time drew near all the balls were returned to the players and the team staff, and a fine time was had by all.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen much anymore.
Looking around the field and realizing that next year was probably the final year for this place because it was no longer up to snuff for these very important just-out-of-college-or-third-world-development-program kids made me sad. Progress is inevitable I suppose, and it is naïve to try to connect an enormous 21st century entertainment business with its pastoral roots.
No friends, I have seen the future of the baseball game experience and it exists in the Bronx.
Back in July I lucked into a free seat at the third Yankee Stadium (yes, I count the 1973-1975 renovation at the old address as the second Yankee Stadium even though it was on the same plot of land as the 1923 facility). It is an impressive place with big beautiful concourses and an open-air upper level with views of the field that is a huge improvement over the dank, piss-scented corridors of Yankee Stadium II. The food is pretty good and the staff is, shockingly, helpful which is a 180 degree turn from the surly, arrogant treatment the average fan received across the street. However, there’s one thing that really stood out for me, one thing that exemplifies our brave new world.
That huge television screen.
I mean holy crap, that thing is impressive. And by “impressive” I mean distracting, horrifying, obtrusive, obnoxious, and ruinous to the game experience. Yes friends, they built a big, beautiful new stadium, got all the little touches right and then they turned it into the living room of that one guy you and I all know (actually probably we all know more than one of these guys), the one guy who buys the 100 inch television for his 10 foot wide studio apartment or tiny living room. Bud Light ought to do a Real Men of Genius salute to that guy, “Mr. Buys A TV Way Too Big For the Room”.
As I sat in our seats in the lower half of the upper deck right behind home plate I found myself almost unable to watch the game unfold on the field. My eyes were drawn to the giant monstrosity dominating center field. It was only later when we walked around the place to check out all the nooks and crannies and my view of the screen was blocked that I was able to really enjoy the game. In fact I found my favorite place in the whole park was in the standing area of the bar right under the screen so I couldn’t see it at all, though much to my amusement there were dozens of people standing right under the screen straining their necks to look up at it. I started to comment “Uh, guys, the game is the other way” when I realized that for them it wasn’t. They were full-fledged members of the new order. That tribe of humanity that believes only what they see on the screen in full widescreen crystal-clear HD. We no longer have graven idols to worship. Technology has made that obsolete. Now everyone bows down to the Almighty Screen in all its shapes, sizes and forms. One machine nation, now and forever, amen.
Want to have a game of catch? Better go buy a Wii. Who even uses a real ball anymore for chrissakes, somebody could get hurt!
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