Miller Park Narratives
September 10, 2009
I went to a Milwaukee Brewers game a couple of nights ago and I just realized I didn't know who won the game. We left in the 8th inning with the Brewers up 3-2, but I see from reports that they lost the game 4-3. I've always enjoyed watching baseball.. and I'm sure that's something I'll never lose. But the outcome doesn't mean that much to me anymore. I can enjoy a game for eight innings and not feel an overwhelming curiosity to know what happened. Just to go theoretical for a moment, this could be related to my non plot-oriented enjoyment of books and films. It could also be related to the fact that I have no context for the plot-line of the season.. so the proper analogy might be someone picking up a book and flipping it open to somewhere toward the end and reading a couple of pages, but not being able to "get into" it.
Our American leisure time is dominated by narrative. We watch a television show and thus take in a narrative that has been produced for us. We watch a baseball or football game and we see a narrative unfold in front of us. The rules of the game allow us to "read" the action and find the story. Sometimes the game is a gripping story that comes down to the last pitch thrown, other times the game is a 13-0 blowout. But television shows and movies have about the same ratio of duds to exciting stories. Narrative is the common denominator. Television shows, books, and sports games all hook us by means of it.
And just what keeps us watching a ball game? I would argue two things: plot line and lyricism. Every narrative builds energy by creating a desire to know what happens next. That is what keeps someone turning the page or waiting until the next inning. At the same time the purest pleasure of a narrative comes from the exceptional moments of language or action. In baseball this comes in the diving catch, the perfect double play, or the sweet home run. In books there are moments of poetic language or imagery that make a reader hold his breath. These moments run in counterpoint to the plot-line energy of the narrative. I would define myself as a reader who emphasizes the lyrical over the plot-line, and that habitual manner of approaching narrative carries over into baseball.
To sit in a modern ballpark is to be surrounded by advertising. It is a motley sight, with all kinds of fonts and symbols confronting one and jostling for attention. For an American this high concentration of ads could pass unnoticed, but if we imagine a visitor from outer space in Miller Park, the spectacle would befuddle. Even the between-innings games and trivia have sponsors, so the advertising infiltrates aurally too. In more and more cases the stadiums themselves bear a corporate name (Miller Park, Staples Arena, Minute Maid Park). Narrative is valuable because it draws our attention, and advertising loves to piggy-back on that attention for its own gain.
One of the well known events at Miller Park is the sausage race. Various varieties of sausage (hotdog, Polish Sausage, Bratwurst, Chorizo, and another I can't remember) race around the inside of the stadium. This is of course a running advertisement for particular sausage makers who sponsor this. The sausage race is a nice example of how local color gets into a heavily corporatized event. Much depends upon national corporate sponsorship, but there is a special emphasis on locally based corporations (Harley Davidson). These local corporations may specialize in locally popular products, whose advertising thus adds a local dimension.
Just for the fun of it I'm going to post a video of the sausage race, which has a fair amount of representation on YouTube:
