J'accuse!

I want to recant something I wrote way back in May when I was lightly sparring with a non-plussed post my homey Gobo wrote on the proposed MLB/ Spider-Man tie-in that got squashed after much public outcry. Gobo's point was that stuff like this might make economic sense as a way of keeping ticket prices down -- and that it's already happening in other professional leagues throughout the world anyway. Here's what I wrote then:

But there's a huge, huge disconnect between what happens off and on the field within the microcosm of the professional sports area -- you could (with some effort) tune out the advertising that's all around you and simply concentrate on what's happening on the field, though that's an impossibility if your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has left his sticky fingers all over 1st, 2nd and 3rd base...I don't like the idea of paying 20 bucks to see a game and having to be subjected to MLB teams padding their coffers in such an overt and repellent way.

Here I was two months ago, accusing Gobo of making a reductive argument -- and then something happened at the White Sox game last night that totally blew my argument out of the water. See, I'm totally inured to stuff like the "Cingular Wireless Call to the Pen" -- before US Cellular grabbed the naming rights to the stadium, Cingular actually paid money to have an annoying cell phone ring pipe through the speakers whenever a pitcher got the hook. Fine. And the Connie's Pizza race (which, I should point out, is always more popular than the game on the field)? Yeah, ok.

But they actually projected a fucking advertisement for Frosted Flakes on the jumbotron last night, in which Tony the Tiger led a group of young children on a training regimen, set to a jingle with a throbbing, hypnotic pulse. Nevermind the fact that the phrase "You can be a Tiger!" should never be uttered outside of Commerica Park -- Tony the Tiger is assembling his own Hitler Youth Brigade! An advertisement on the jumbotron? Not even tangentially related to baseball? Boo. Forget what I said -- bring on the advertising on the bases.

On the other hand, my companions Mark A. and Shawn (well, mostly Mark) were surprised to find out that US Cellular leads all parks in home runs this season. Yep, US Cellular even has a slight edge on Coors Field: teams have combined for 178 home runs on Chicago's South Side, as opposed to 176 in the oxygen-deprived Colorado air. Dunno what's doing it -- though air seems to circulate strangely in US Cellular -- but balls are leaping off bats at an amazing rate. Joe Crede, Carlos Lee and Paul Konerko all hit commanding blasts into the outfield stands last night; Da Sox now have six regulars (not including monsters Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez, mind you) with 14+ home runs on the season, a line-up that compares very favorably to the Yanks' $200 million albatross.