This news report from the 2010 World Series, when the San Francisco Giants took on the Texas Rangers, focuses more on the antics of San Francisco fans than on the World Series itself, though I think it’s good to put a little focus on the fans once in awhile. Without the fans, professional baseball would not exist, because there would be nobody to pay to see the games.
Granted, baseball began as a “gentleman’s game,” and fans used to dress up to go to the ballpark. By the way, this isn’t meant to knock on San Francisco fans, because honestly, you see this kind of behavior in any ballpark, and really, at any sporting event these days. I guess that’s evolution for you.
Maybe baseball should still be a gentleman’s game. Maybe people should get dressed up to go to the ballpark. Maybe someday we’ll evolve back to a simpler game and a better time….
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
One can only hope. 🙂
The nostalgic, lover-of-all-things-history part of me thinks this would be a grand, grand thing to have happen :). But then I think about sitting in the sun at the K when it’s 110 degrees and humid, and the other part of me is grateful that I can attend games in tank tops and shorts.
Who knows? Maybe we will find a way to bring back some dignity to the game without having to sacrifice that bit of comfort.
Going to the ballpark is a much better experience than it was thirty or so years ago–at that time, MLB thought security and enhanciing the “fan experience” was keeping the fans off the field (unless you were Morganna, of course.) I went to the Yankees opener in ’81, and it was like a Hieronymus Bosch painting–fans were smoking weed, they were just doing it in the field-level seats.