The Pathos of the Megatron

Henry Schneider

9/23/09

Eng 1020

“Jeff”

Baseball is my family’s religion, and from a young age I was raised to honor Tiger Stadium as my Cathedral, and more recently, Curtis Granderson as my savior. Many Americans go to the game of their choice and their live stays home, and they can fully immerse themselves in the infinite possibilities any given game can bring. In the confines of Comerica Park I routinely have my heart broken, my dreams crushed, and my hope kindled. In a World full of political turmoil, poverty, drug addiction and civil strife, it is sports that billions of people invest their passion in. The Corporate world as observed this phenomenon and they are sneaking into our hearts and memory. Sports stadiums are where Americans exhibit the most amounts of passion and corporate advertising manufactures nostalgia by thrusting itself into our moments of darkest grief, of highest elation, and in our vulnerable hours they want to be right by our side.

Everyone has a way to escape the realities of everyday life, and baseball is mine. When I go to games, nothing matters beyond the four hundred-twenty foot center field fence. There’s no feeling in the world like watching a home run soar into the city night, as I had the pleasure of doing one fall evening in

2006. Magglio Ordonez sent my beloved Tigers to the World Series with a walk-off three run home run.

It’s one of the happiest moments of my life, and I will forever associate the name “Comerica Park” with that feeling of infinite elation. I am not alone. Millions of Michiganders continue to create happy memories with their families whether it be their first dismal Lions game with their Dad at Ford Field, or by proposing to their future wife with a three-second “Marry Me Delores” clip on Comerica Park’s

Megatron. Memories are being manufactured, but who cares? The Tigers won.

On a global level, America is still doing a good job of limiting the stranglehold advertising has on sports. In Europe for example, professional soccer uniforms are smothered in corporate advertisements and logos. Barcelona, one of the most storied organizations in Soccer history, has its jersey dominated not by the glorious coat-of-arms or Barcelona but by advertisements for Unicef and Nike. If this has happened in the World’s game, what chance does America’s game stand? I hope I never see the day when the Old English D takes a backseat to a GM or Comerica logo. It’s not banks or car companies that have stuck it out with Detroit through thick and thin. Through it all however, that logo has weathered the tempest-tossed history of Detroit.

It’s not just games in person. Even on TV, every single aspect of a given game is sponsored. Each

Tigers game, AFLAC sponsors one impossible trivia question after another. Upon first glance, it might strike a viewer as preposterous that a company would think that sponsoring a daily trivia question would get them business. But alas, AFLAC knows I don’t know who hit three triples in a row on June 4th 1941.

They just want to be in my mind when Miguel Cabrera hits one of his trademark moon shots. I stick with my kitties through thick and thin all year long, and AFLAC wants me to think they do too. That’s a common practice now not only regarding the Tigers but in the context of the economic situation Michigan finds itself in. Comerica has recently run a series of advertisements advertising their “conservative” approach to banking and their long standing commitment to Detroit. Nonsense! In 2007 Comerica Bank abandoned Michigan, and fled to Texas. Not to mention how they took a Federal bailout, just like everyone else on Wall Street. Companies are trying to cater to a sense of Nationalism and loyalty they think Michiganders will find appealing.

College Football has grown more and more commercialized over the years as well. The scene has grown more and more competitive, with each school wanting the best football program to attract the most applicants. It’s a full blown complex. The growing popularity of college football and basketball attract more advertising, and the advertising brings more money into their programs. The money is used to recruit players and generally improve the program. This phenomenon has led to a host of ridiculously named Bowl games, including the Papajohns.com Bowl, the Little Caesars Bowl, and the ever so coveted

Chik-Fil-A Bowl. Imagine years from now wholesome scene where an ex-College football star fondly recalls his epic performance at the Papajohns.com Bowl for his Grandchildren.

The WNBA has proven to be the weakest link in the chain of American professional sports. In

June of 2009, the Phoenix Mercury sold their jersey front to Lifelock, an Arizona based security company. WNBA President Donna Orender had this to say; “We're a ground-breaking league. We're not bound by convention. I think this enhances who we are.” This is of course nonsense on several levels and typical of the heartbreaking optimism we have all come to expect from the

WNBA. The WNBA has done great things for young women in America, but “Team Lifelock” was born out of necessity. In American, only a struggling league would sellout like that. The strongest sports, we can only hope, will remain pure. In 2004 the makers of Spider Man 2 tried valiantly to get Spider Man webs on the bases during Major League games. Thankfully, the campaign was quickly stopped. “I guess it's inevitable, but it's sad…I'm old-fashioned. I'm a romanticist. I think the bases should be protected from this," said Fay Vincent, once a President of Columbia Pictures and baseball commissioner.

Last Fall, Major League baseball took a dangerous step into the world of blogging. In a series of “There’s only one October” advertisements, the commercials featured several different celebrities blogging about which team they want to win. TBS and Fox tried to convince the world that they understand how much we care about our teams, and that they do too. They’re right there with us in the blogosphere, chattering away about how much butt the Tigers are going to kick in the Post Season. “If anyone is exploiting anyone, it’s us exploiting the networks,” Mr.

Brosnan said. “The networks are lending us their talent. We don’t have baseball players standing up and saying, ‘Watch their shows.’ ”

Perhaps NASCAR, despicable as it is, can serve as an omen for things to come. Each and every car is covered from head to toe in advertisements for everything from cell phones to Target to beer and everything in between. Tony Stewart, NASCAR America’s Marlboro Man has recently appeared in masculine, confidence oriented advertisements for Old Spice deodorant. Funny how advertisements have come to catering to the masculinity and confidence every teenage boy craves while simultaneously taming their champion. NASCAR racers like Tony Scott never appealed to me personally because they don’t compete for anything larger than themselves, or at least not on the surface.