Friday, August 21, 2009

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."

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Back to Blogging

Summer vacations and other commitments are now over. The new semester is but a week and a half away. So, I'm back to the blogging board. I have a number of things I want to write about, but I just haven't found the time amid the summer hustle and bustle. Yes, that's right: summer hustle and bustle. So, expect more blog volume in the coming weeks.

I've started with something on Ted Nugent that I've been meaning to write for awhile. I've also got something on Richard Marx cooking and something on baseball ready to write.

Let me also take this moment to remember Les Paul, who died today. When I picked up playing guitar (I played bass, not having the patience to learn to play chords on a guitar) in the late 1980s, rumor had it that Paul lived in some rural part of Ohio. After playing guitar with a friend of mine and an elderly man who wasn't Paul who lived down the road from my friend, my sixteen-year-old imagination fantasized that one day I would happen across a chance to play with Paul on his front porch, too. Who knows if the rumor was even true, but rock and roll dreams die hard ...

The Nuge: The Jerk or The Stooge?

I’ve known for while that I don’t agree on a lot of political issues with Ted Nugent (a.k.a. “The Nuge”). For instance, his take on English as a national language clearly differs from mine. However, some of his comments from a few weeks ago demonstrate that, frankly, Ted Nugent is a jerk. While his take on Barack Obama is one thing to address, it’s what this news report later reports him saying that show just how much of a jerk he is. According to Nugent:

There is gluttony and denial in our economy. Basically, it can be most simply understood by the U.S. government and its citizens being credit card pigs. You can't buy another leather jacket when you've already got six. You claim you can't make ends meet and you owe five grand, much less 250 grand, on your credit card, you chimp!? Of course, I'm the bastard for saying it. People are pigs from the blubber that they have intentionally infested ourselves with and then they have the audacity to squawk for health care but not care about our health? How does that work?! If the producers of 'Planet of the Apes' were offered the current American script that was playing out before us, they would turn it down because it's too stupid. It wouldn't qualify for a 'Planet of the Apes' script!

Only the guilty need to feel guilty, but anybody who claims they can't make ends meet is a liar! Anybody that owes money on their credit card is a pig. If you smoke or drink or have blubber, you get no healthcare until you show me you care about your health. You can't stab yourself in the eye every morning and then charge me for your eye doctor! What the f---?!

Nugent is, of course, basing his comments on good ol’ folksy “common sense” kinds of ideas here. You know, it seems wrong for someone who continually doesn’t take care of her or his health to demand that the rest of us keep paying for it when he or she refuses to make changes that benefit her or his health. I mean, sure, that sounds appropriate in the same kind of way that, for instance, I as a teacher don’t just give passing grades or extra credit or makeup opportunities to students who don’t do the work necessary and who don’t seem to want to make changes to study habits, etc. so that they can pass their classes.

And, sure, I’d guess most, if not all, of us can look at what has gone on in this country’s economy and agree that there has been gluttony and denial.

However, Nugent doesn’t stop there. He goes on to include a lot more people in his criticism, saying explicitly that anyone who owes money on a credit card is “a pig” (and, thus, to be viewed negatively, I would assume). And, of course, if any of that debt is attributable to health care, well, then, you’re an even bigger pig, according to Nugent, who, by the way, in the report claims (with a very strange and not really accurate way of defining what it means to be “liberal”), “I’ve done the right things. I've never been liberal so I've got a nest egg. I've always lived within my means."

Again, maybe he has a point. Perhaps there are deeper cultural trends in the United States, whereby we all, even in everyday little things that we do, contribute to the overuse of resources, engage in unhealthy practices, and live above our means. So, perhaps there is need to feel some guilt and, beyond that, to do something to change these ways of life. I’m willing to consider all those aspects of what Nugent says. However, what I am not willing to accept is his high-handed, self-righteous, hypocritical way of discussing this.

First of all, many health developments that happen are not simply a matter of not taking care of oneself. People don’t ask for brain aneurysms to sprout up, lack of work doesn’t cause people to have hereditary conditions, etc.

Secondly, credit card debt is not simply a matter of gluttony. Sometimes, it’s a financial risk taken in hopes of paying off in the end. For instance, a person might go in debt some now in order to go to school or work a lower paying job or pay for professional development opportunities in hopes that these will, in a few years, land that person in a position where he or she can pay that debt off. Isn’t that, in fact, the kind of personal finance risks that many conservatives who are the political buddies of Nugent would say helps make the United States great? Additionally, many of us out here didn’t choose for our houses to need unscheduled maintenance or for our cars to break down or other such cash-guzzling emergencies that afflict everyday people every day.

So, Ted, you’re wrong to generalize the way you have about why people have to spend money on health and why people have debt. Additionally, you’re wrong to act like you are above all of this.

I ask you, Ted, how did you get where you are? Can you really tell me that throughout your entire career none of the promoters, companies, agents, media networks, and other individuals, groups, and organizations that helped build that career did so on credit? I find that possibility at best unlikely and—more to the point—ludicrous. I would challenge you to show me otherwise. If you can fully and legitimately show that, then I’ll gladly retract this. But that just does not seem possible, given the numbers of individuals, groups, and organizations you have had to work with to sell you albums, go on your tours, and produce your reality television shows, let alone any other endeavors you have. All I need to look at is Viacom, which owns MTV Networks, which owns VH1 (the network that hosted your previous reality shows) and CMT (the network airing your reality show that starts this month). Viacom didn’t make it to where it is today as a media conglomerate without going into debt. (See, for instance, here and here.)

Additionally, can you really say that you haven’t been involved with anything that contributes to health problems? There are many ways that the “horsepower” that you advertise on your own website contribute to smog and other environmental conditions that affect the health (and, thus, the pocketbooks) of many people who are not even involved in these activities. Also, many meats featured in your own publicly sold cookbook Kill It and Grill It have health issues that correspond with their consumption. Furthermore, for as much as you rail on drinking and smoking in your comments, you are still fine with attending and advertising for a 2007 Washington, D.C., event featuring plenty of alcohol and tobacco products as parts of the night’s perks.

You see, one of the big problems with the kinds of discourses that you and so many others (especially, though not exclusively, in conservative camps) promote is that they’re based on arguments that chastise those who take part in the very same institutions and practices that have made you who you are. It’s as if you forgot, you ignore, or you are too ignorant to recognize that your success is not entirely your own doing and that to achieve your success you’ve had to rely on many of the same things against which you rail.

So, yes, I’d agree with you, Ted, that there’s plenty of denial in the United States today. I’d add, though, that there are many different forms of denial, and your comments suggest that you live with one of the most insidious, selfish, and mean-spirited forms of denial.

Of course, maybe you’re not in denial. Maybe you realize that plenty of your fans probably aren’t in much of a position to pay for their health needs, to pay to fix their simple everyday appliances, to pay to fix their homes, etc. So, they can listen to you, never invest in their futures, live meager existences until they die earlier than they had to die … and the divide between the rich and the poor will remain or, in all likelihood, grow. It’s hegemony at its strongest, keeping the working classes from making gains in society by ideologically convincing them to stay poor, while you benefit off the same things you’ve convinced them not to pursue.

If it’s this latter option, then you are, as I said above, a jerk. You know what you’re doing and you’re laughing maliciously in the faces of the people on whom you trample. If it’s the former option, then you’re still a jerk, because you’ve chosen to forget about or ignore all of the things that helped you get where you are and would help others do the same.

There is one other option. In this option, you’re not in denial and you’re not maliciously and knowingly using people. In this option, you simply don’t realize the implications of what you are saying. You don’t recognize that your career has been built off these things and that many of the things that you support have implications that help produce the things against which you complain. I really don’t think this is true. I think you’d have to be pretty damn dumb for that to be the case, and, frankly, I don’t think you’re that stupid. However, if by some chance you are, then you’re not a jerk. No, in that case, you’re not just “The Nuge”; you’re a Stooge.