Hmmm? Isn't it? Banana?

Charge!

Some things at the baseball game struck me as odd, and I meant to talk about them:

Who needs a hotdog/soft drink that big?
Why are you all making random noises at the tops of your voices, despite me seeing no discernable activity to warrant it?
Why do you keep slapping each other's hands in the air? What the fuck did you do to be congratulated? - You're in the crowd!

But the one that I found most inappropriate and utterly bizarre was a little piece of atmosphere/crowd participation that was played over the tannoy system with a matching graphic on the big screens. The idea is that when a batting player only gets to first base, he must get ready to run as fast as he can around the bases next time the ball is struck, so that when the next batter hits the ball and runs, he doesn't overtake the previous player and run him out. So they have a little crowd encouraging thingy to try and help them to make him run faster. They play a little fanfare on a trumpet and cry "Charge!", with the word flashing on the great big screen. The crowd is supposed to shout along. Very nice, yeah?

But. Being as the team is called the Atlanta Braves, with associated heavy Native American imagery - a huge hide drum (15 foot high!) for the cheeleading team, the symbol of the team being a tomahawk, etc - does anyone else find it a bit sick that they try and encourage their players to run by playing the call to charge of the US cavalry?

Run, little baseball player! Or we'll slaughter all your kind, steal your land and let your families die while we feed you rotten meat!

Nice. Very sporting and politically correct. 'Have a nice day' and all that. I mentioned this at the time (nothing but gutsy, me, when surounded by 40,000 americans) and, true to form, every single one utterly failed to see the irony in the situation. Now there's a thing for americans.

posted by Brock @ Saturday, July 08, 2006