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As I was walking to a Diamondbacks game the other day, I was waiting at a stop light when a family of four joined me at the curb and we waited for the light to change so we could continue on our way.
I happened to over hear the dad talking to his daughter, and the younger of the two – she was probably three or four – and was asking her if she was excited to see her first baseball game.
It was then that I realized that I don’t have any tangible mementos of the first big league game I saw — nor can I really recall the first game I ever saw. It saddened me a bit to realize this…
As I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of why I don’t recall this — I went to a couple of games in the Kingdome in Seattle, and I distinctly remember going to a Brewers-Rangers game in Old County Stadium in Milwaukee when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I remember going to some Mariners games when I was in high school – particularly one game in 1993 when I bought the Mariners’ brand new all-navy hat with the new logo at one of the concession stands on the concourse.
I remember watching games on TV at my grandma’s house – complete with Jiffy Pop in the pans you put on the stove and the aluminum foil puffed up into that silver bubble.
But for the life of me, I can’t remember the first Major League Baseball game I ever saw. Which is kind of a shame, because so many people have such fond memories of that game – who they went with, the players, the stadium, the food, and so on. It seems like one of those indelible marks that is made upon almost every American child.
Now, I’ve taken a few people to see their first baseball game, including my girlfriend when we were in college – an A’s-Giants exhibition game in Oakland – as well as her father and some of her cousins. So while I don’t necessarily remember my own, I am fortunate enough to remember the first games of several other people. But I’d still like to have some memories from my first time.
So, parents, keep some souvenirs from that first game that your child goes to – the ticket stub and some photos will more than suffice – and keep it in a place for them to look back on someday. Some day in the future, they just may want to when they see a youngster going to his first game.
I hear the phrase “your (insert baseball team)” quite a lot. When they run out on the field, the public address announcer says “ladies and gentlemen, your Chicago White Sox.”
Or the commercial encourages you to get out and see “your World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies.”
Here’s the thing…they’re not your team. Unless you have invested money in the business as part of the ownership group, they are not your team. No more than Safeway is your grocery store, or Macy’s is your department store, or Apple is your computer company if you’re not a shareholder and decision maker in those companies. Likewise, unless you’re fully paid off on your house, it’s really not your house – it’s the bank’s, and you’re just buying it from them over an extended period of time. Or, if you’re a renter, it’s not really your place, although all your stuff is there. Your home belongs to someone else who is letting you use it for a fee.
Of course, this truth doesn’t go over well when trying to sell tickets, t-shirts and excitement. Teams want fans to feel some ownership in the process, although last I checked no one was consulting fans on personnel moves or marketing plans. No one asked me how much to charge for a beer or whether or not to wear those fugly spring training caps that don’t fit properly.
Semantics are a pain in the ass, and I am a stickler for proper terminology. You can certainly have a favorite team, but they aren’t your team. Unless of course, you own them – then they’re your team.
I was walking around the Peoria Sports Complex a few days ago when I saw a guy wearing this shirt:
Of course, being the ever-critical fan that I’ve been accused of being, I had to take issue with the Mariners defining the fan’s tools of the trade being popcorn, pizza, beer, a hot dog, mustard and ketchup. That’s all that’s needed to be a fan. Why does it feel like something is missing?
They could have put a scorebook, or a rulebook, or tickets. They could have put a book written about baseball, or something to show knowledge of the game, or even a foam finger. But they chose food. Unhealthy, fattening food at that.
While I love the game between the lines – it’s the part of the game that takes place off the field that’s bothering me a lot as of late, and seeing this shirt further irritated me because not only does it not have anything to do with baseball, it encourages the poor eating habits that are transforming our nation into one that is incredibly unhealthy and will pay the price for generations with high health care costs and decreased quality of life due to all the illnesses and conditions that come from eating unhealthy food.
I am critical about this because we can do better and we should do better – both as fans and as teams. Junk food is not a tool of the fan’s trade, and I’m disappointed to see that teams are putting out messaging that leads fans to believe it is.
As I keep my eyes open at all the marketing techniques that teams use to get people to the ballgame, it seems the one group that keeps getting left out is those of us who just want to watch the game.
We don’t need a t-shirt, or a bobblehead, we don’t need all-you-can-eat seats with high-calorie, high-sodium, nutritionally void food available to us for hours. We don’t want a photo with the mascot, or to watch kids in hot dog costumes pretend to race so that it syncs up with a video on the screen.
At first, I thought that there simply aren’t that many of us out there – but then I realized that if you’ve ever been to a game on a cold, rainy night in Seattle, or a hot and humid day in Arlington, or a muggy summer game in Miami, it became apparent that there are a good number of us who want nothing more than to watch a Major League Baseball game in peace.
What became apparent to me is that because baseball fans such as myself don’t need to be marketed to, we’re simply not; instead we have to wade through all the other marketing techniques used to get other people through the door.
All I ask for is a game that features some good baseball, and I’m there. Perks are nice, but aren’t necessary.
I’ve been around baseball for a while now, having held season tickets for several years with two different teams and watching between 80-125 games a year at all kinds of levels. In all that time, I can’t think of a single instance where fans like me who just want to watch the game were the ones being targeted – which is interesting, because we’re generally the easiest dollars to get and seemingly the ones teams would most want to preserve.
That’s my thoughts…what are yours?
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