They Play Baseball, Too?

31 July 2006



Brewers add Chorizo to Sausage Race between Innings

The Milwaukee Brewers baseball team is not the next baseball dynasty. Operating in one of Major League Baseball’s smallest markets, they are, nonetheless, consistently profitable (thanks to revenue sharing). They also keep bottoms in seats with non-baseball entertainment which has been the bane of the game in recent years. This week-end, for example, they added a fifth racer dressed up like a sausage, this time a chorizo. Baseball is degenerating into a three-ring circus.

Baseball, basketball, football (American as well as real football, soccer) and hockey compete for American entertainment dollars with movies and theme parks, so they have to have a broader appeal than the lager lout bunch. Their venues remain family friendly, and in that regard, they are among America’s more successful cultural phenomena. And despite the scandals over drugs and gambling, there is an entire generation of kids who want to grow up to be just like the players.

However, America’s attention span is not apparently what it used to be. Or rather, the marketing people believe that the fans need constant stimulation. Between innings of baseball, during time outs in basketball, and at halftime of every NFL game, some damned diversion of conjured up that has little if anything to do with the contest. T-shirts are launched into the stands using compressed air cannons, fans get to play name that tune, and guess the attendance.

In Milwaukee, where the sausage is one of the basic food groups, the Brewers have four people dressed as a hot dog (USA), a kielbasa (Poland), a bratwurst (Germany) and a salami (Italy) run around the stadium while everyone cheers for his or her favorite. Chorizo debuted Saturday in recognition of the large influx of Hispanic immigrants to the Milwaukee area, a nice piece of ethnic marketing now that Germans tend to stay where they have guaranteed healthcare and six weeks’ vacation a year.

What the Brewers and the rest have lost, though, is the between-innings analysis, or simple bickering, that made the game even 30 years ago a different experience. Since there was nothing else to do, fans engaged their neighbors in ballpark banter, much of it stupid, some of it inebriated, a fraction of it quite intelligent and thoughtful. Yet there were 50,000 people watching the game together. Now, there are 50,000 people watching the game by themselves. It’s enough to keep one seated during the 7th-inning stretch.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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