Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

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Can We CGI the Outfield As Well?

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Is it any surprise Americans can’t seem to face so many unadorned and troubling truths right now?

I happened to catch part of the telecast of a baseball game played in Philadelphia last Sunday between the Phillies and Mets. And it was an interesting moment: less so for the game than for what it may say about us. The only folks visible at Citizens Bank Park seemed to be the those scheduled to play, unless we include cardboard cutouts of fans in at least several thousand of the seats in the lower tier. The two men calling the game for SNY network seemed to be in a studio offsite. The only viewer in the stadium appeared to be the Phillie Phanatic, unless he was created virtually using Computer Generated Images. To be sure, he was disturbingly green.

All of this went off as planned for what is going to be a shortened season. What was odd, however, were the attempts to normalize the game by augmenting the audio.

Denial Was Not an Option

The stadium is loaded with 1400 loudspeakers, and it sounded like they were busy smothering the empty seats in sound. Music showed up between almost every pitch, along with boisterous introductions of each batter by the stadium announcer. There was also a generous degree of crowd noise and the noise-makers spectators would normally bring with them. I could be wrong, but none of this faux-life appeared to come from network sources, other than the mics picking up all the stadium ballyhoo to know one. Citizens Bank Park must have its own sound designer.  All of the racket seemed to have the purpose of not letting viewers see the game as it happened, but as they might wish it happened.  The Park is known for creating a lot of noise. But this all struck me as evidence that we are a society that needs to be entertained even under fraudulent circumstances.

As any minor league player moving to the majors knows, a promotion is often called “moving to the show.” Fair enough. But the phony normalcy seems unfair to the players and field staff who are taking risks to play, and a bit of a con on the television audience.  In entertainment terms, the game was more or less the equivalent of a sitcom filmed in a studio, with an audio effects guy “sweetening” the whole thing with “canned” applause and laughter. Apparently baseball and some of the networks desperate for sports content need the fakery to sell to their audiences.

Is it any surprise Americans can’t seem to face so many unadorned and troubling truths right now?  Some colleges have already sent their students back home because of the virus.  But not the football team.  For too many Americans wearing a face mask or staying out of bars or not watching contact sports is unimaginable. Many prefer the magical thinking required to have sports seasons this year. Forget the harder realities of the moment.

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Sturgis or Bust

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We were clueless about the long tradition of the rally that has continued all these years, even through the Covid-19 scare.

When I was a young parent I remember an August trip through the West revisiting spots I had seen when I lived in Colorado.  South Dakota had to be on the list.  I was anxious for my family to see Mt Rushmore, and the narrow “pigtail” roads that wind their way through the mountains on the western side of the state. The Black Hills National Forest always had a different look than the forests further south. The usual pattern back then was to leisurely drive along the picturesque roads to dusty Deadwood to the north, then Mt. Rushmore a bit south, and then look for a place to spend the night on the edge of the forest.

Looking at the map, our spur-of-the-moment choice in the 70s was the sleepy village of Sturgis. To be sure, the day before we stopped we commented on all the motorcyclists on the highways. But then, who wouldn’t pick a nice spot to tour via twisting but smooth mountain roads?  Needless to say, we were ignorant of what was around the next corner.

We must have looked like deer in the headlights as we slowly inched our way by parked and double parked motorcycles along Junction Avenue, now anchored at one end by the well-named “Loud American Roadhouse,” and at the other by “Red’s Grill and Pub.” All the riders we saw in the last few days seemed to have found their way there as well, swelling the edges of the road with their two-wheeled machines.

At first we thought there must be at least a few hundred.  Wrong. There were thousands. We somehow missed the memo about the long tradition of the rally that has continued all these years, even this week through the Covid-19 scare.

The press has been reporting that about 250,000 have showed up, swelling the town’s normal population of 6500, and no doubt putting the staff at the small Sturgis Hospital across from Red’s on its own red alert.

Against all odds, and after sheepishly explaining we didn’t know about this annual siege, we actually found a couple willing to let us use a nice basement room for the night. I think this was the last time that I traveled without making reservations in advance.

Dinner for the family was in one of the roadhouses, which offered steak and potatoes or nothing. Needless to say, it was an easy menu to ponder. It felt like we were eating in the dining hall of a mining camp.

I know my way around a library, but I was surely out of my league with the motorcycle crowd. In fact, the only other memories that remain is the deafening noise. Back then, some of the folks that  had come to town looked down on their luck. But a rider of a “hog” can at least claim the honor of sucking up everyone else’s sonic airspace for at least two blocks.