World Series could mar Philly transit negotiations

I know, I know ... There hasn't been much on this blog lately. Please stick in there my 3 or 4 (dare I hope 5?) regular visitors. There will be more to come, hopefully soon. The semester has got me running ragged.

I do, though, have a short post for today. On ESPN.com the front webpage link to a story titled "Strike could mar Philly transit services" reads "Philly sports weekend clouded by transit talks." Don't both the title of the piece and the title of the link reflect something rather profound regarding the position of labor in contemporary United States society. At the very least, they suggest that big-time sports rank higher as a priority. Imagine if these read "World Series could mar Philly transit negotiations" and "Transit talks clouded by Philly sports weekend," respectively ...

I've Often Wondered ...

At the end of most of his Forde Yard Dash columns, ESPN's Pat Forde recommends a place to eat from a town that he visited the weekend before while reporting on college football. I've sometimes wondered, while reading his column, what place in Bowling Green, Ohio, he would pick if he ever did so. Well, this week, I received my answer, since Forde came to the BGSU-Boise State game this past Saturday (which I also attended). As Forde wrote on Tuesday, "When thirsty in the bucolic burgh of Bowling Green, Ohio, The Dash recommends a beer at Campus Quarters (40), an energetic joint across the street from Doyt Perry Stadium and the Bowling Green campus in general. The excessive country music in the place is offset nicely by a good beer selection, and it has indoor corn toss." So, there we have it: Campus Quarters, right on Wooster, just across from the Harshman Quandrangle. I guess it makes sense. It's down by the stadium area, it's a local place rather than a national or regional chain, and it has been around awhile. Now, if only DiBenedetto's hadn't just moved last spring from their same old location a couple doors down from Quarters, maybe my favorite sandwich place would have made the column instead ...

Sports are Important ... Because They're Important.

On Thursday, this story on the Detroit Tigers and the city of Detroit ran on ESPN.com, while this story on how some people in Detroit can’t even afford to bury loved ones who have died ran on CNN.com. I’ve written before on this blog about the ludicrousness of the idea that the success of sports teams translates into some kind of relief to a city or region. While there may be occasional instances in which a sports team or event has some kind of bearing along these lines to a geographical entity, the sports media plays this connection up way too often. In his Thursday column, Jerry Crasnick did exactly that. Yet, really, will the Tigers making the playoffs, or making the World Series, or winning the World Series really do anything to help alleviate problems like the inability of people to afford to bury people or the many other difficulties that a people and governments in places like Detroit faces? No. At best, the playoffs and World Series will cause a little more money to be spent in the city as people visit the city to see the games. Maybe one more big-name free agent will sign to play for the Tigers and, thus, spend a little more of his money in the city. Yet, that money will do little to assist with the economic issues the city faces. At most, taxes collected on income, property, and sales will add a little more into the hopper for the city and state governments. And when I say little, I mean really little. The amount that that will generate is miniscule in comparison to the state and city budgets and the amounts needed to improve living, working, and economic conditions in the city. So, it’s rather disingenuous for sportswriters to make these kinds of claims, and, as I said in my previous post, this all just seems like another example of the sports media justifying the importance of sport. They set up a tautological argument that at its core goes something like this: sports are important because they help geographical regions, and they help geographical regions because they are important signs of a city’s prominence and success.

And, meanwhile, a very similar kind of thing may be happening to the city of Chicago and the United States as whole in regard to the Olympics. Check out what The Agon wrote about this for more.

I love sports. I enjoy watching them. They help keep me going sometimes when I'm driving, when I'm working, and so on. But let's not kid ourselves by overestimating their significance. And let's recognize how self-serving these kinds of stories about the significance of sport can be.

Sometimes You Can't Make It Own Your Own

I became a fan of U2 in the Summer of 1988. Over a year after it came out, on a whim I bought The Joshua Tree, since it had produced three big hits. It was all part of my 15 cassettes for 1 cent or whatever the deal was for a Columbia Record and Tape Club membership at the time. I, of course, knew U2’s major hits at the time but had never been particularly enthused by then. It all changed when I listened to my new The Joshua Tree tape. I was hooked, and by that fall, when Rattle and Hum came out, U2 was my favorite band, which is where they have remained in the 21 years since then.

So, it was with excitement that finally, this past Sunday, I got to see them in concert. They kicked off the American leg of their 360º tour in Soldier Field in Chicago Saturday night. I couldn’t make it that night, but my wife and I made it to show number two in the same venue the next night. If you want to read my standard concert review of the show, it’s available here on tunesmate.com. For the purposes of this blog, I want to examine another aspect of the concert.

In particular, I found the makeup of the U2 audience interesting. When I was in high school in the late 1980s, I remember once a friend of mine wishing for a big concert to come to our area. It was a pipe dream and we all knew it, but we still found ourselves pondering it. He was thinking of the likes of Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, etc. Then, he looked at me and said something to the effect of “If it were up to you, though, we’d probably get something like U2.” It wasn’t meant to be approving of the choice, and it reflected, I think, some of the identity of U2 amid the hard rock trends of the late 1980s. That identity was furthered reflected a couple years later when, during my freshman year of college, a few guys in my dorm got into a war of words on one guy’s door that reached the level that the resident advisor had to step in. The one pair of guys might have been categorized as the “frat boy” style, while the other pair might have been categorized as part of the alternative scene. Among other things, at one point the frat boy pair wrote something on the other pair’s door disparaging them for their “U2 mushroom music.” In other words, for as big a draw as U2 had been during the period of The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum, the band wasn’t completely considered the kind of mainstream, stadium-busting rock that would appeal to the popular partying crowd.

The crowd on Sunday seems to have signaled that that has changed. In many ways, U2 seems to be what the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and so on have been—one of the all-time most famous bands who have at times been considered edgy and who can sell out and rock out stadiums of 50,000-70,000 people. In many ways, given their age, their career paths, and their appeals, U2’s latest tour reminds me of the Steel Wheels tour that the Rolling Stones undertook in 1989-1990. Many in the crowd seemed to be there to drink a lot, rock out to music, and just have a good party.

While to a large extent, that’s par for the course on a stadium tour like this, this makeup of the crowd seems to become an issue of particular significance when we examine what might be called the “political” aspect of U2. While driving home from the concert, I heard a DJ on WGN radio out of Chicago talk about how he would have liked more humor and less politics at the shows this weekend, but that he was okay with the politics that U2 interjected, because that was U2; it’s part of their identity. This particularly caught my ear because I wanted them to include more politics into the performance, though I realized full well why they might not have done so. It also got me wondering how effective the political aspects of U2’s performance were.

At one point, the audience was asked to wear masks or hold up pictures of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was elected democratic leader of Burma in 1990 but was immediately overthrown by a military junta and has been under house arrest for the better part of the two decades since. The band played the song “Walk On,” which was written about her, and volunteers wearing masks surrounded the stage. Before the concert, ushers had masks available, so I had one that I had gotten then, and I held mine up throughout the song. Yet, I was clearly in the minority. I noticed one other person in my entire section wearing the mask, a few people in the next section holding them up, and a few others here and there. In fact, even though Bono had just explained who Suu Kyi was, the guy in front of my wife and I turned to my wife to ask who the picture I was holding up was.

Other aspects of the concert linked to political issues, including a message from Desmond Tutu on the big screen leading into the band playing “One” and, toward the end of the concert, Bono offering information about the amount of money that had been raised for AIDS relief in Africa. The themes of these “political moments” tended to be an emphasis on human rights, democracy, and freedom, along with a sentiment, as reflected in the song title “One” and Tutu’s speech before it, that we are all one world, needing to work together. Politically speaking, it was all pretty general stuff. I mean, this wasn’t Bono asking us to support a specific plan for national health care or a view on abortion or something else that might divide the audience in a much readier way. Yet, it is, as the WGN show host’s comments indicate, stuff that’s considered “political” (and, thus, something that is, by that perspective, to be distinguished from “entertainment,” “humor,” and any number of other categories that could be applied to the performance).

And, to some degree, I would assume U2’s efforts have some effect. My wife and I learned more about Suu Kyi during the performance. I’m sure others in the audience did as well. Yet, if the crowd participation during “Walk On” is any indication, that effect was rather limited. On the whole, it’s a rather privileged audience that went to this concert. Tickets were by no means cheap, the price of parking was pretty high, tee-shirts at the concert were $40 a pop, and that’s not even including all of the ancillary expenses that come with making the trip (and given the limited venues that the tour is playing, I’m sure many folks like me were and will be making four, five, six, or more hour trips to see a show on the tour). So, the political messages that U2 offers have potential to reach an audience that might have some money or resources to contribute to the causes of human rights, democracy, and freedom that U2 is espousing. Yet, to what degree is that limited by the audience’s motivation to care? Many of the folks didn’t seem to take particular interest in these aspects of the concert, preferring instead to take this time to get their next beer and wait for the next rocking song to which they could pump their fists and dance. Or they preferred, like the guy on WGN, to view these elements of the concert as a metaphorical mosquito—not a huge annoyance that keeps you from hanging out but just enough of an annoyance that you vocalize your displeasure. Meanwhile, for those of us who did take interest in these parts of the concert, to at least some degree, U2 was already preaching to the choir.

In the end, then, I think that generally U2’s messages about human rights, freedom, and democracy are on the whole good for the world. At the very least, my wife and I learned something important. At how many other concerts can one say that? Yet, like so many instances involving the confluence of politics and popular music, we need to recognize the limitations of the stadium rock concert as a forum for political discourse. And, perhaps, as part of that, there’s a need for voices that push society to reconsider how it thinks about that confluence. Should it be such an annoyance, and if so, toward what political ends does that sentiment serve? And, if one does listen to what U2 says, where does one go from there? Does one simply think about it, only to put it aside after the drive home, or does one donate money or time to a cause or talk about it with others after the concert? Does one take other actions?

On the back of my Aung San Suu Kyi mask, I’m offered some suggestions for action to take. The mask lists a number of websites to visit to find out how to help, including this one for the United States, this one for Canada, and this one globally. The wording in a circle on the side reads “Wear to work or college, when you’re at home drinking a cup of tea… especially to be worn at U2 shows when the band plays Walk On.” These are contextualized by the bolded quotation from Suu Kyi: “Please use your liberty to promote ours.” So, U2 is asking the privileged audience to act beyond just listening at the concert. Yet, the audience has to be motivated to even care to act in the first place. And that is where I’m concerned that things might be lacking, particularly with the current audience that U2’s tour is drawing. And it’s not that I don’t want U2 to draw this audience, nor that I think there’s no place for concerts to be about partying and listening to good music. After all, I did my fair share of dancing and singing at the show. It’s that I want that and I want more. I want a world where we can all have a good time and learn something about ourselves and other at the same time. Music seems to have that potential, but only if both sides (performer and audience) participate.

The State of Discipline in the College Arena

I have something more to consider for three weeks from now.…

You see, I tend to root for Boise State in college football. I believe that they (along with Utah) are ideally representative of the discrepancy between the six conferences that get automatic bids to BCS bowl games and the five conferences in the “FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision” of Division I college football that do not. Three years ago, Boise State ended up the year as the only undefeated team in the FBS, having defeated Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl, while also soundly defeating Oregon State (which was the only team pre-UCLA to beat USC when USC was discussed as a potential candidate for the championship game before losing to its cross-town rivals). Yet, Boise State did not win the championship; Florida (after defeating Ohio State in the championship game) did. While some actually tried to argue that Boise State was a winner in the BCS system that year because they got the opportunity to play in a BCS Bowl, I would argue and have argued that those very arguments are excellent examples to illustrate one type of hegemony. It’s a case of excluding or marginalizing someone and then arguing, quite the opposite, that those who have been excluded or marginalized have actually been treated quite well (they’re “winners,” after all). I still to this day argue that Boise State was cheated out of their opportunity, and I look forward to them and other schools from the WAC, MAC, MWC, Conference-USA, and Sun Belt running the table and showing again and again that they deserve fairer consideration.

And this year Boise State may again be the team to do it. They’re certainly getting buzz as such a team. Yet, in three weeks, my interest in seeing them run the table will be tested. On September 26, Boise State will visit my alma mater (and current employer) Bowling Green State University, and I am planning to take my soon-to-be-ten-year-old nephew to the game. I started a tradition of taking him to football games last year, getting him a membership in the Falcon Kids Club (see here if you’re interested), which gives him free admittance to most BGSU sporting events, along with a tee-shirt, birthday card from mascot Freddie Falcon, and membership card. I’m hoping he’ll develop a loyalty to the Falcons (which I think he is) and, perhaps, even come to school here someday. (NOTE TO BGSU ADMINISTRATION: Please see this as one of the many things I’m doing and willing to do to promote enrollment.) We went to see Eastern Michigan-BGSU for a football game last year. We’re planning on at least the Boise State-BGSU game this year.

So, I’m planning to be at the game, but I have to recognize the dilemma that I face by this game. I am, after all, going to root for BGSU. They are the team I follow and support. Yet, if BGSU wins, it destroys Boise State’s undefeated season (assuming it’s still intact when they play each other). I’ll still be pulling for the Falcons to win. (Indeed, maybe BGSU can run the table, though I doubt they’d get the same respect as Boise State if they did, even though the Falcons’ schedule isn’t necessarily an easy one). It seems, though, that after last night, I have one more reason to root against Boise State….

Last night, while working on various things here at home, I listened to the BGSU Falcons defeat Troy on 88.1 WBGU—one of the two campus radio stations here in Bowling Green (and, by the way, kudos to Pat Dougherty and Anthony Bellino from BGRSO on the call). Then, I watched the Boise State-Oregon game on ESPN, which Boise State won to begin its trek toward another undefeated season. I looked up from my work long enough to see the game end, then turned my attention back to my computer screen. When I looked up again, the cameras were following Oregon player LeGarrette Blount, who was being restrained and led off the field by coaches and teammates while he appeared to be yelling back and forth with some Boise State fans who were in the stands. As I later saw on replay, after what appeared to be some verbal exchanges from Boise State’s Byron Hout, Blount punched Hout in the jaw and knocked him to the ground, before being restrained and led out by coaches and teammates. ESPN’s post-game coverage was dominated by this event, from what was shown on-camera to what the announcers discussed to the very first question the sideline reporter asked winning head coach Chris Peterson. ESPN.com’s coverage of the game has also been dominated by the event. Today, the headline for the game coverage read “Punched Out: Oregon's LeGarrette Blount lost his cool Thursday and he might lose more. Should he be punished?” You can even click on that headline and see a replay of what happened between Blount and Hout. The official recap of the game also leads with the post-game event, using the title “Postgame punch mars No. 14 Boise State's commanding win over No. 16 Oregon.” It is then this theme, not the game itself, that dominates much of the recap, with one line even claiming that “Blount’s actions took away” from Boise State celebrating its victory.

Yet, there’s something awfully revealing buried in that recap. To the side of the recap you can click on a photo of fans watching Blount punch Hout on the scoreboard screen at Boise State’s stadium. My question here is “How did the fans know to even heckle Blount as he was being led out?” The answer: they knew because the folks at Bronco Stadium were making sure they saw it happen … repeatedly.

So, here’s the deal. Yes, Blount did something inappropriate. (Though, the context of the sporting event is part of the equation here. A punch like Blount’s would have been business as usual in many a hockey game.) It appears that there’s going to be some disciplinary action taken against Blount, and my point, at this juncture at least, is not to comment on what is or isn’t appropriate disciplinary reaction (as certainly plenty of media members have, like here and here). I do, though, want to comment on who is being discussed as deserving of disciplinary action. Yes, Blount threw the punch, but for what reasons did the folks at Bronco Stadium repeatedly show it on the scoreboard? It certainly seems to have exacerbated the situation by stirring up the fans, who then engaged with Blount as he was led off the field. I would have a hard time believing the Bronco Stadium folks didn’t realize that might happen.

This is then a rather blatant example (among many in American culture, in sports and out of sports) in which individual transgressions are analyzed, discussed, highlighted, emphasized, condemned, and utilized as the basis for discipline, yet institutional and organizational transgressions, including the ways in which organizations and institutions contribute to violence and inappropriate action, not only go without discipline, but also go without critique or even attention.

So, I’m trying to think of ways to try to draw attention to institutional and organizational culpability. My initial thought is that I might make a sign or a tee-shirt or something for the BGSU-Boise State game that reads something like “Welcome Broncos … to a stadium that doesn’t incite fans to provoke violence.” Maybe, though, that kind of technique would just contribute to the problem by being a kind of provocation itself. That is, of course, the dilemma of so much critique—even the means of critique end up, at least to some degree, reinforcing the problem. Yet, maybe, something like this could register in some folks’ minds and at least be a small step to addressing the issue. And, maybe, I’d not only be teaching my nephew to root for the Falcons, I’d also be teaching him some critical thinking skills. Who knows? I’m not sure if I’m going to do anything and, if so, what I will do, but at least I do know I have one more reason to cheer on my alma mater….

Tunesmate

As I'm sure you can tell if you read this blog regularly at all, one of my interests is popular music. I've blogged about it numerous times and will do so again, I'm sure. I'll keep doing so here, but starting today some of my thoughts on popular music will also appear on a blog my buddy (and college roommate) Marc Majers set up recently called Tunesmate. I've linked to it on the side of this blog with my other Links of Interest. If you're interested in opinions on and discussion of popular music, as well as being introduced to or reminded of various artists and styles, you might like this site.

Ballpark Names

Like last summer, this summer I went to New York City. Unlike last summer, this summer I did not go to a Mets game. While visiting with my wife and her sister last month, we did have one evening in which we could have hopped the subway out to Queens to go. The Mets were even in town playing the Rockies, and, given the Mets' season, I doubt it would have been hard to get tickets. I mentioned going and my wife even talked about going, but in the end we didn't go. If I had even shown just a touch more desire to go, I'm pretty sure we would have gone. Yet, that desire wasn't there.

That lack of desire has nothing to do with the Mets' play this year. Indeed, I've often argued that a true Mets fan enjoys the team when it's underachieving or even just plain bad. That, to me, is part of the fun and identity of being a Mets fan.

Rather than that, my lack of interest in going to a game this summer had a lot more to do with a lack of interest in going to the Mets' new ballpark. Last year, I wanted one last game at Shea Stadium. This year, I feel little interest in visiting the new stadium, CitiField, which is named after a corporation that was recently bailed out by the government, yet retains the naming rights it paid millions of dollars to have on this stadium. The situation has even caused some to suggest the stadium should be called "Taxpayer Stadium" or other names of that ilk, and I guess I tend to concur, since I routinely call it "Taxpayer Field" when talking about it.

Now, I'm not one who decries the loss of sports to commercialism. I recognize full well that those deep ties were established well over a century ago. Wrigley Field, for instance, may be one of the great sites of baseball public memory, but the stadium still bears the name of the team's once-owner, who also happened to sell gum named "Wrigley's." Or, just read the book Albert Spalding and the Rise of Baseball: The Promise of American Sport, by my former advisor at Michigan State University, Peter Levine, as one example that illustrates the many commercial manipulations that occurred as major league baseball developed. So, naming the ballpark after a corporate entity is not the horrible new practice that's destroying baseball that some might have one believe.

My problem here is that I'm tired of the ballparks changing names all of the time. It's awkward, for instance, to have to call the Diamondbacks' stadium Chase Field after knowing it as Bank One Ballpark for years. I understand that Bank One no longer exists, since it merged with Chase, so that is a different situation than a company being bailed out by the federal government. Additionally, I suppose most, if not all, of us can understand the reasoning for changing the Astros' stadium from Enron Field to Minute Maid Park. So, it's not like changing stadium names isn't without merit, and I doubt selling naming rights is going to change any time soon. However, I tire of it, and, while driving my dad to the airport the other day, we hit upon an idea for how we are going to deal with it.

From now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort to call the stadium the team's name. So, rather than CitiField, I'll call the new home of the Mets "Mets Stadium." The Diamondbacks' home will be "Diamondbacks Stadium." To me, the San Francisco Giants, whose stadium once had three different names in four seasons, play in "Giants' Stadium." I'll do this in other sports, too. The Cleveland Cavaliers play in "Cavaliers' Arena." The Detroit Red Wings (and their annoying fans) go to "Red Wings Arena" (though, to be honest, this is a harder one to change, since "Joe Louis Arena" has a little more gravitas to me). And, in a case that is perhaps one of the biggest joke stadium names of all, rather than calling the home of the Arizona Cardinals "University of Phoenix Stadium," I'll just refer to it as "Cardinals' Stadium." (Remember that this is a team that wanted to get away from having to play at a college team's stadium, after playing in Arizona State University's Sun Devil Stadium for years. So, they moved out of there, only to sell their naming rights to another college, making it sound like they just swapped college homes.)

This new practice is not without limitation. If, for instance, I call Jacobs ... I mean, Progressive Field ... "Indians Stadium," I'm still perpetuating the politics of naming a team after Native Americans by referencing the name. So, perhaps, I'll just call that one "The Cleveland Baseball Stadium." Ditto the football stadium in Washington. Additionally, in cases where teams have the same nickname as another team, it could be confusing. Of course, in one case, at least, I can just call the home of the New York football teams "Giants/Jets Stadium."

And, of course, the beauty of all this is that my favorite place to watch baseball of all the ballparks that I've visited won't really have to change, but for an "s" that would get morphed into another "s" when saying it anyway. After all, "Dodgers Stadium" is already called "Dodger Stadium."