corporate entertainmentseats, everyone in the ground is concentrating on the game, their only diversion being to sing or chant in support of their own team and occasionally hurl taunts at the opposing supporters. There’s a chant here – ‘Let’s go, Mets!’ – but it’s pre-recorded and booms out to a rhythmic beat from the loudspeakers at sporadic intervals in a mostly vain attempt to get the supporters to join in. And parents may approve, but it lacks the irony-laden exchanges familiar to British football: ‘You’re supposed to be at home’, and the retort, ‘We forgot that you were here’, not to mention that Falstaffian old favourite, ‘Your support is fucking shit.’
Here, with seating intermingled, few people in team colours and in fact few travelling fans – understandable for some of the vast distances involved, but this team are from Washington, just down the road – it’s hard to tell who’s who and most people seem to spend more time eating, drinking and chatting to one another than actually watching the game. For a start, for large periods of time not a lot is actually going on down there: the pitcher pitches, the batter bats – or tries to and if he misses three times he’s out, the ‘three strikes’ being at least one concept of this game that has gained global recognition. Innings are short – they need to be, there are nine of them! – and unless you’re avidly following proceedings it seems half the time the teams are changing over, not that I saw anyone avidly following the proceedings for more than a few minutes at a time. How could they? The seating may provide a great view of the pitch but every two minutes there’s somebody waving a huge tree of candy floss (‘cotton candy’) in front of you, or getting in your line of vision with a cool box full of beer cans on their head, or warming tray full of hot dogs around their neck. But even bringing all this food and drink to the punters in their seats isn’t enough to keep most people seated for long: there is a never-ending flow of people wandering up and down the stairs, between seats and out into the concourses. ‘Baseball isn’t a sport, it’s the national pastime,’ my naturalised cousin would tell me later.
And he’s right. It’s more like a shopping trip combined with three hours of eating and drinking with a bit of sport in the background. The pitcher walks up to the mound, assumes that strange, contorted, standing on one leg, other knee raised high, body twisted to the side, both hands polishing the ball and then the loudspeakers boom out, ‘Soft hands, smooth play! Palmer’s cocoa butter’, and a bar of soap appears on the screen behind him, and I fall off my seat laughing, but no one else even notices. It’s as if the adverts were part of the game, an intrinsic part of the whole culture, like eating and drinking, rather than just a way of bringing in revenue that the sport needs but we’d all ratherdo without. I’m beginning to understand how commerce, the business of buying and selling, doesn’t just intrude into every aspect of American life, but actually constitutes the American way of life. This is capitalism in the raw; in Europe we just have a pale processed and pre-packaged version. It’s a bit like offering a cave-aged Roquefort to a supposed cheese fan who’s only ever tasted Laughing Cow. It may be the more genuine article, but the taste takes some getting used to, and I’m not at all sure which I prefer.
The one thing I am sure of is that after an hour or so sitting watching men hit balls and blokes run around trying to catch them with giant gloves to make it easier – at least cricketers use their bare hands – I have well and truly had my fill of baseball. The endless adverts and the smell of hot dogs and beer have worn me down. I know, I know, I haven’t really given it a chance and maybe – just maybe – if I got ‘into the stats’, which is what Laurence in the pub told me is
Here, with seating intermingled, few people in team colours and in fact few travelling fans – understandable for some of the vast distances involved, but this team are from Washington, just down the road – it’s hard to tell who’s who and most people seem to spend more time eating, drinking and chatting to one another than actually watching the game. For a start, for large periods of time not a lot is actually going on down there: the pitcher pitches, the batter bats – or tries to and if he misses three times he’s out, the ‘three strikes’ being at least one concept of this game that has gained global recognition. Innings are short – they need to be, there are nine of them! – and unless you’re avidly following proceedings it seems half the time the teams are changing over, not that I saw anyone avidly following the proceedings for more than a few minutes at a time. How could they? The seating may provide a great view of the pitch but every two minutes there’s somebody waving a huge tree of candy floss (‘cotton candy’) in front of you, or getting in your line of vision with a cool box full of beer cans on their head, or warming tray full of hot dogs around their neck. But even bringing all this food and drink to the punters in their seats isn’t enough to keep most people seated for long: there is a never-ending flow of people wandering up and down the stairs, between seats and out into the concourses. ‘Baseball isn’t a sport, it’s the national pastime,’ my naturalised cousin would tell me later.
And he’s right. It’s more like a shopping trip combined with three hours of eating and drinking with a bit of sport in the background. The pitcher walks up to the mound, assumes that strange, contorted, standing on one leg, other knee raised high, body twisted to the side, both hands polishing the ball and then the loudspeakers boom out, ‘Soft hands, smooth play! Palmer’s cocoa butter’, and a bar of soap appears on the screen behind him, and I fall off my seat laughing, but no one else even notices. It’s as if the adverts were part of the game, an intrinsic part of the whole culture, like eating and drinking, rather than just a way of bringing in revenue that the sport needs but we’d all ratherdo without. I’m beginning to understand how commerce, the business of buying and selling, doesn’t just intrude into every aspect of American life, but actually constitutes the American way of life. This is capitalism in the raw; in Europe we just have a pale processed and pre-packaged version. It’s a bit like offering a cave-aged Roquefort to a supposed cheese fan who’s only ever tasted Laughing Cow. It may be the more genuine article, but the taste takes some getting used to, and I’m not at all sure which I prefer.
The one thing I am sure of is that after an hour or so sitting watching men hit balls and blokes run around trying to catch them with giant gloves to make it easier – at least cricketers use their bare hands – I have well and truly had my fill of baseball. The endless adverts and the smell of hot dogs and beer have worn me down. I know, I know, I haven’t really given it a chance and maybe – just maybe – if I got ‘into the stats’, which is what Laurence in the pub told me is
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