Do you think Terrence Mann was watching I love Lucy in the Cornfield?

Take me out to the ballgame,
Take me out to the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and ten dollar beer,
I dont care if I dont have rent for a year.
Let me soak, soak, soak in the advertising,
If they don't win at least I'm numb.
For it's one, two, three giant screens to choose from,
At the old highly driven by technological media and invasive corporate in your face marketing ball game!!!!

So I scored tickets to the RedSox/BlueJays game on tuesday night at an incredibly sweet half price deal from the recent silent auction at the charity golf tournament in Vaughn that I was recently a part of organizing. These tickets were great, for it was the first time I had ever sat in a seat right behind third base able to reach out and touch the lawn (sorry, new age turf) that the Rogers Center now offers their players feet to play on.

It was a good game, featuring a couple home runs, an excellent view of infield activity, and a guy busting his achilles on a home run trot creating probably the most lame sports injury of all time. *read here. We had a couple pints and soaked in the majesty that is sitting in the vastness that is a major league stadium like the Rogers Center.

But MAN O' MAN did my media critical self soak in a sore spot for professional baseball that night. I have had a great summer taking in a few games courtesy my employer at no cost to the self other than the gas that it took to drive into the city: so like 145 bucks.

But on this night, in the presence of the world champion redsox, and what could be considered one of the most heritage rich teams in "America's favorite game" I saw the innocence of the baseball fan stripped of all that is the novelty of going to an outdoor ball game as a form of modern and unique escapism. How pretell, was my Field of Dreams raped and pillaged asks you? Well it happened when between innings as a 45 second promo for The Corpse Bride and Pontiac was flashed up on the jumbo tron and associate digital imaging station now located on the newly revamped for theatrical production Rogers Center.

Ted Rogers of Rogers Cable bought the Skydome last year for like 25 million bucks, roughly ten percent of initial cost of building the skydome ten or so years ago. With the extra loot, Rogers dumped a mediated utopia into the old Skydome effectively making it a movie theater uncomparable to any modern cineplex. The stadium now features, a classic jumbo tron in center field, two digital screens on the outfield wall (one of which cut up a players arm pretty bad earlier this season), digital screens lining the second deck of the stadium, 4 off center screens to either side of the jumbo tron, and copious amounts of traditional billboard advertising throughout the entire arena. Not to mention the Pontiac Home run Challenge area which features a plastic encased pontiac that if hit by a homer is given away to a member of the crowd

My baseball innocence was massacred during the commercial for Johnny Depp's new movie, where as opposed to subjecting myself to staring at the massive commercial in center field I decided to look at the 20 some odd thousand people all staring up fixed on the ad as if it was 7:58 on sunday night and the simpsons were about to start. It was like everyone was at home watching a commercial break on their TV.

At this point I vomitted a little in my mouth, noticing just how media fixed our culture is, where even at a rare spectacle that is a professional sports game, people were socially fixed on not talking to one another but watching a giant screen telling them whats good to buy for the fall. puke on me, puke on you, puke on our whole damned system.

We're so subjected to the power of digital media that even when in an environment that should excite the need for communal conversation, screaming out to ball players, doing the wave throughout the crowd, waving foam fingers and signs, and tossing pop corn at Redsox fans has been replaced by advertisements of Jimmy Fallon's RedSox inspired movie showing us pictures of him doing all the things were supposed to be doing.

PLEASE PLEASE do not subject yourself to the power of that which that damn television has engrained in our big brother doe eyed in the headlights subconcious. I really was grossed out by the image, and I plead to you, next time you choose to entertain yourself with an event which at its fundamentals is supposed to remove you from your living room experience PLEASE look away, or at least buy a foam finger and wave it around while you watch.Shoeless Joe is Crying in the Corn Field

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Friday, September 16, 2005