Have fun at the game -- or else

Just try to get bored at a sports event these days. Booming, buzzing electronics tell us when to clap, when to boo, when to be elated.

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 5, 2001

Time was, a home run was enough. Or a single, a basket, goal, first down, blocked shot. . . .

Time was, a time out, or the time between batters, pitches or plays, was the time to consider and discuss -- even if only for a moment -- what had just happened and what to do next.

Time was, fans knew instinctively when to cheer, make noise, boo and -- with nothing of consequence happening -- when not to.

Time was, the game was enough.

Times change.

The public address system at just about every sports venue once was used to address the public.

Now it assaults us. It's what the laugh track was to television in the '50s -- artificial joviality.

Go to the Devil Rays game today and you'll see. You'll get three hours of bells and whistles and incessant commercials -- and on the electronic message board, animated hands telling us to clap.

Some things even Mike Veeck, the Barnum of baseball, can't stomach.

"It's absolutely the dumbest thing going," Veeck says. "Fans get it. They know what to do. The entertainment is fine until it becomes contrived." This from the man who, as Devil Rays marketing director in 1999, gave us Dave the Dwarf.

Comiskey Park's exploding scoreboard to celebrate a White Sox home run? Terrific. It turns up the juice a little higher. (It was the 1960 brainchild of Bill Veeck, Mike's father.) Tropicana Field's strobe lights and make-believe orange juice spurting through a straw? Be honest; have you even noticed them when a Devil Ray has hit a home run?

Steve Schanwald, Chicago Bulls vice president of marketing, is credited with (or blamed for) making the arena as much of an attraction as the game. And he's not apologizing. "Our games are 48 minutes long," he says. "The people are here for 2 hours, 15 minutes. That's an hour and a half of dead time. . . . If you don't need anything more than the game, great. But if you want a total entertainment experience and don't want to sit on your hands when there's no basketball, we've got that, too."

The growling panther after every decent play by Carolina, the plaintive horn when the Vikings do the same, the clanking sound effect after an opponent's missed foul shot, glass shattering for a home team's slam dunk, race-car noise while the ball is in play at Pacers home games -- these are ways teams tell you the game no longer is enough.

Who Let the Dogs Out? is another.

So are We Will Rock You, Cotton-Eyed Joe, Pump It Up, Whoomp (There It Is), Hava Nagila, Get Down Tonight . . . the clapping hands, the bugle charge, and sometimes even advertisements and upcoming promotions between pitches, snaps of the ball, out-of-bounds plays.

"The stuff that happens between pitches we just try to throw in there to maybe heighten the drama if it's a close game," says Johnny Franzone, the Devil Rays director of event production. "Our crowd isn't a Yankees crowd, a Cubs crowd, a Red Sox crowd, riding on every pitch. We're in an industry, at least as far as the in-stadium show goes, where you have to try to be all things to all people."

There was a time when the parent turned to the child to tell him what happened and why. "Unfortunately," Franzone says, "because of the Jordanization of sports, a dad'll turn to his kid and say, 'That play will be on SportsCenter.' It's an ESPN world now."

And so, like it or not, we listen to Thank God I'm a Country Boy, the Macarena, Day-O, Start Me Up, The Chicken Dance, Y-M-C-A. . . .

It's Jock Jams I, II, III and so on.

In other words, contrived.

"Forcing fans to do something, to see it your way, ridiculous," Mike Veeck says. "My dad used to say nobody was smarter than the fans and they knew exactly what to do." His dad also planted the ivy at Wrigley Field, pioneered ladies' day, giveaway days and myriad other ballpark promotions and stunts, including the signing of 3-foot-7 St. Louis Browns pinch-hitter Eddie Gaedel.

"I love the sound effects, stuff like that," Mike Veeck said. "But in moderation. All that stuff gets overused. Wretched excess is never attractive."

The Brooklyn Dodgers Sym-Phony used to play Ku-ku (better known as the Laurel and Hardy theme) in step with a visiting pitcher walking to his dugout after being replaced. Now it's Hit the Road, Jack.

Nothing wrong with that.

Fireworks when a team is introduced; John Belushi as Bluto Blutarsky, trying to rouse his fraternity brothers in Animal House; cannons when the Buccaneers reach the other team's 20-yard line; Sinatra's New York, New York when the Yankees win another one -- fine.

Like the exploding scoreboard, they highlight a specific moment in a game.

Even mascots have their place. Two of them, the Famous San Diego Chicken and the Phillie Phanatic, successors to clown princes Al Schacht and Max Patkin, are (almost) worth the price of admission.

On the other hand, Fredbird (St. Louis Cardinals), Carlton (Toronto Maple Leafs), Rocky (Denver Nuggets), Raymond (Devil Rays), ThunderBug and LadyBug (Lightning), Mr. Met. . . .

Lame.

Barney lame.

But at least we can ignore them.

Now the ultimate question: Do we really want to ignore them?

Mike Veeck is president of the Charleston RiverDogs, a Devil Rays farm team. He's going to try a little experiment this season, he said.

"Traditionalist Tuesdays, like the '50s, before (the music, fireworks, mascots and sound effects). It's going to be a litmus test to see how many fans really wish things could be the way they used to be.

"My early prognostication," Veeck said, "is that I'll be very lonely on Tuesdays."

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