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On Friday night I hopped a train to watch the Phillies in their new home with my cousin and her boyfriend. It was my first baseball game of the summer, and I was excited to wash down a hot dog with some watery beer and feel the breeze off the field, under the bright lights.
I love baseball. I remember the first time I walked onto the upper deck of Memorial Stadium and what a brilliant display the diamond seemed from above. It was nothing like the foreshortened pitcher-batter relationship on TV. At that time the Orioles teambase was a Ripken family operation. Two brothers on the field and a father coaching felt comfortable, it felt like something close to small town little league, it even felt heroic. Of course I was only 10 years old at the time.
There is no doubt that Veterans' Stadium needed to be updated from its one-size fits all, seats and cement as far as the eye can see image. And I guess someone decided the war veterans would continue to be honored by the parking lot that now hosts Hummers, BMWs, and pick-up trucks. I now realize I simply wasn’t prepared for the glory that awaited me in Citizens Bank Park—” Philadelphia's spectacular new ballpark.”
The stadium is indeed comfortable, I believe the seats are wider to accommodate the growing size of the average American. I satisfied my hot dog and beer craving and tried to nestle into the game. The first unfamiliar stadium feature I noticed was the neverending row of TVs placed approximately every 5 feet, and mounted to the mezzanine overhang. I suppose that having the actual game in direct view as well as several massive screens for replays and advertisements isn’t enough to accommodate today’s baseball fans.
A few moments later the true focus of this stadium hit me like an F train at midnight. First an onslaught of Independence Blue Cross replays, then a segment of theTurkey Hill Fan Cam, followed by several CocaCola jingles on the big screens and a Fuji Film game recap. The enormous fluorescent Liberty-shaped bell sitting atop the Citzens Bank Park logo began to feel like it was boring a hole into my head and when “Take me out to the ballgame” was curtailed in the seventh inning stretch in lieu of a Turkey Hill Kiss Cam I began to feel truly antsy.
The game came to a close. Atlanta pounded the Phillies with three homers and more than a handful of runs. But the 45,000 red white and blue clad fans still had a fireworks show to look forward to. Advertisements for various other sponsors flew by on the big screens and then finally the bright lights were dimmed for a celebration of good ol’ America. I’ll admit the stadium looked lovely in the low light and the fireworks held my attention for a few big booms while Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown” played (familiar to the public at large as "that song from the Beef commercials"). Then I realized that the hundreds of small TVs hung from the mezzanine overhang were featuring an episode of Dr. Phil.
The music heigtened into Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and Dr. Phil shook his finger at a woman who had an obsession with Brad Pitt, a woman who had cut pictures of Brad Pitt out of magazines and put them in frames next to her bed.
At the next “Cuz there ain’t no doubt I love this land,” I had to leave; I needed some fresh non-patriotic air. My cousin and I wandered out into the acres of parking lot and searched for her car, while most of the redwhiteandblue families cuddled up to eachother under the warm lights of fireworks and Dr. Phil.
We managed to find our car before most of the crowd, yet we sat in traffic waiting to exit the parking lot for nearly an hour and a half. I closed my eyes in the backseat while my cousin explained more of the rules of baseball to her Polish boyfriend. Thirty mintues later I announced that I was officially writing a letter to the city to request more Turkey Hill exits and atleast a dozen Independence Blue Cross cops to guide traffic after the games.
I wish I could articulate the specific sadness that one experiences when you realize that childhood perceptions were either completely naïve or inspired by a very specific and archaic era. In many ways it seems natural that cities change, business ebbs and flows, and money continues to drive many aspects of human life. On Friday night the ebb and flow began to give me a headache, but I tried not to wallow in it. In fact I sat in the backseat of my cousin’s Isuzu Trooper, thought about Dr. Phil’s advice and drank a Coke.
I love baseball. I remember the first time I walked onto the upper deck of Memorial Stadium and what a brilliant display the diamond seemed from above. It was nothing like the foreshortened pitcher-batter relationship on TV. At that time the Orioles teambase was a Ripken family operation. Two brothers on the field and a father coaching felt comfortable, it felt like something close to small town little league, it even felt heroic. Of course I was only 10 years old at the time.
There is no doubt that Veterans' Stadium needed to be updated from its one-size fits all, seats and cement as far as the eye can see image. And I guess someone decided the war veterans would continue to be honored by the parking lot that now hosts Hummers, BMWs, and pick-up trucks. I now realize I simply wasn’t prepared for the glory that awaited me in Citizens Bank Park—” Philadelphia's spectacular new ballpark.”
The stadium is indeed comfortable, I believe the seats are wider to accommodate the growing size of the average American. I satisfied my hot dog and beer craving and tried to nestle into the game. The first unfamiliar stadium feature I noticed was the neverending row of TVs placed approximately every 5 feet, and mounted to the mezzanine overhang. I suppose that having the actual game in direct view as well as several massive screens for replays and advertisements isn’t enough to accommodate today’s baseball fans.
A few moments later the true focus of this stadium hit me like an F train at midnight. First an onslaught of Independence Blue Cross replays, then a segment of theTurkey Hill Fan Cam, followed by several CocaCola jingles on the big screens and a Fuji Film game recap. The enormous fluorescent Liberty-shaped bell sitting atop the Citzens Bank Park logo began to feel like it was boring a hole into my head and when “Take me out to the ballgame” was curtailed in the seventh inning stretch in lieu of a Turkey Hill Kiss Cam I began to feel truly antsy.
The game came to a close. Atlanta pounded the Phillies with three homers and more than a handful of runs. But the 45,000 red white and blue clad fans still had a fireworks show to look forward to. Advertisements for various other sponsors flew by on the big screens and then finally the bright lights were dimmed for a celebration of good ol’ America. I’ll admit the stadium looked lovely in the low light and the fireworks held my attention for a few big booms while Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown” played (familiar to the public at large as "that song from the Beef commercials"). Then I realized that the hundreds of small TVs hung from the mezzanine overhang were featuring an episode of Dr. Phil.
The music heigtened into Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” and Dr. Phil shook his finger at a woman who had an obsession with Brad Pitt, a woman who had cut pictures of Brad Pitt out of magazines and put them in frames next to her bed.
At the next “Cuz there ain’t no doubt I love this land,” I had to leave; I needed some fresh non-patriotic air. My cousin and I wandered out into the acres of parking lot and searched for her car, while most of the redwhiteandblue families cuddled up to eachother under the warm lights of fireworks and Dr. Phil.
We managed to find our car before most of the crowd, yet we sat in traffic waiting to exit the parking lot for nearly an hour and a half. I closed my eyes in the backseat while my cousin explained more of the rules of baseball to her Polish boyfriend. Thirty mintues later I announced that I was officially writing a letter to the city to request more Turkey Hill exits and atleast a dozen Independence Blue Cross cops to guide traffic after the games.
I wish I could articulate the specific sadness that one experiences when you realize that childhood perceptions were either completely naïve or inspired by a very specific and archaic era. In many ways it seems natural that cities change, business ebbs and flows, and money continues to drive many aspects of human life. On Friday night the ebb and flow began to give me a headache, but I tried not to wallow in it. In fact I sat in the backseat of my cousin’s Isuzu Trooper, thought about Dr. Phil’s advice and drank a Coke.
posted by Rebecca at 1:20 PM
1 Comments:
as someone in the ad industry, i want to say that there is going to be a backlash against all this in-your-face marketing. the scarier thing to me is that instead of marketers pulling back from further adulteration of our world, they will continue to get more and more devious...because to reach the point where we aren't even conscious of the fact that we are being marketed to, well that's a really scary thing...please see link: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/82/buzz.html
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