Two phenomena about attending professional sporting events fascinate me (and not in a good way): how excited adults become when team personnel give away t-shirts and how excited adults become when there is a possibility that they may be appearing on TV in the crowd. I can see why kids and teenagers would become overjoyed by both prospects, for they don’t know any better. But, adults? Honestly, is a lousy $5 t-shirt – a t-shirt that likely won’t fit you and that likely wouldn’t be worn more than twice even if it does somehow fit you – really worth jumping up and down like a fool when the t-shirt cannon or t-shirt sling shot comes out? Is it really worth fighting another adult over that t-shirt?
It blows my mind even more what some young and inebriated college –aged women will do for a t-shirt as well (NSFW), but that’s a far different discussion.
With t-shirts, at least there’s a tangible benefit (though it’s a quite lame one), but I have no idea what is so enthralling about appearing on TV as a face in the crowd. Is there some secret memo that I missed detailing how a grand prize will be eventually awarded to one lucky fan that has appeared on TV in the background of a ball game? I don’t know whom I find more annoying and pathetic: the people who are on their cell phones and start going ballistic when their friends on the other end tell them they are on screen or the 100 fans who start waving and looking for the camera whenever the action in the game come nears them. Someone needs to let these fans know a little secret: the only people who get excited about seeing you on TV are people who see you all the time in real life: your friends and family. No one else cares one bit that you were one of ten fans waving for the camera when your team’s first baseman caught a pop-up in foul territory right near where you were sitting. Not a single other person.
I have a little more respect for the people who make signs with the purpose of appearing on TV. First off, if you’re appearing on TV due to a sign, you actually get some significant time on screen, usually in the range of five to ten seconds and often with a close-up. In contrast, foul ball waivers get a second or two on the screen and they are just one fan among many others. But more importantly, TV producers generally don’t show the banal signs, so it requires some creativity to make it onto a telecast due to a sign, and in many cases, the signs are actually funny or witty. Except, of course, when the sign is ridiculing an admitted or widely-suspected steroid users for steroid use, and then even the lamest sign makes it on the telecast. But, as with college-aged girls going wild, that is a story for a different day.
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4 comments:
Ah, I thought you were going to link to a pic of your fave sign: the D-fence
You are indeed correct that the lamest sign is the "D" followed by a cutout of a fence.
...or its lesser known but equally lame cousin, the off switch paired with the picket fence.
i would suggest, however, that fans who wind up on TV or the jumbotron when NOT trying to be noticed are the best kind. they usually fall into one of 5 categories:
1) uber-fans: decked out in full fan gear, most often are actually watching the game
2) face-stuffers: going whole hog on some sort of ballpark fare
3) free spirits: performing some kind of interpretive dance, likely to the beat of their own drummer
4) adorable kids: like kittens and sunsets, hard to find one that's not screen-worthy
5) hot chicks: no explanation necessary
oh, and the grammar geek in me just can't let this slide- phenomenon is a singular word. two of them would be phenomena.
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