Since 2003 my wife and I have made an annual pilgrimage to Boston, USA to visit our elder son, our daughter in law and (now) our two Bostonian grandchildren. In the process we have been inducted into some of the ways of sport in America.
We have been to Fenway Park for the Red Sox, to Gillette Field for the Patriots (‘the Pats’) and to The Garden for the Celtics. To date we have not been to a Bruins game and, frankly, it is not on our bucket list. Silly bloody “sport”!
We love the rituals associated with the Sox and the Pats.
Fenway Park is both the oldest and the smallest ballpark in the USA, from memory holding around 37,000. Its seats would have to be the hardest anywhere in the world.
The stand opposite the plate is called The Green Monster and it is every player’s wish to hit a home run into the Green Monster.
The Sox play about 150 games a season, perhaps half of those at Fenway Park.
Before the game we wandered in the adjacent street which had been closed off. We ate an Italian sausage sandwich with fried onions, washed down by a can of Budweiser (‘Bud’) while listening to a jazz band and watching a clown on stilts entertain the crowd.
Halfway through the 7th the game stops while the mob sings “Take me out to the ball game”. I believe this is common in baseball in the States.
Halfway through the 8th the Fenway mob sings “Sweet Caroline” with standardized hand gestures.
Jonathan Papelbon is currently the so-called “closer pitcher” for the Sox. His mission is to restrict scoring by the opposition towards the end of their innings.
When Papelbon goes to the mound the tune “I’m shipping up to Boston”, from the movie “The Departed”, is played through the sound system. We’ve seen little old ladies dancing in the aisles to this music.
When the Sox eventually broke “the curse of the Bambino” (a great story) to win the World Series, Boston went nuts.
Some people placed notes on the graves of parents and grandparents, typically worded to the effect: “The curse has finally been broken, Grandpa”.
The Patriots’ home ground is Gillette Field, about 45 minutes out of Boston. It holds around 85,000 people and has a truly massive car park. We were fortunate to be guests in a corporate box on the halfway mark so we had a good view. It really was amazing to see something like 44 players from each side run onto the field.
The Pats game that day was the main game on Fox TV. We were astounded to see the game stopped by the head umpire at the direction of the television producer when he called ad breaks.
I remarked to our host that an Aussie crowd would trash the grandstand if that happened. Mind you, the AFL has become coy about restarting a game after a score.
Hours before game time for the Pats thousands of people rent car spaces in the car park ($30 a space on the day we attended). They park cars, pickups, even trailer homes in their spaces and set up barbecues, even four hours before kickoff.
When we arrived at the ground there would have to have been perhaps 8,000 barbecues operating, all kinds, simple to complicated. All but the designated driver doing some ‘drinkin’, naturally. This practice is called ‘tailgating’. Lots of fans continue tailgating after the game.
When the Pats score a touchdown a line of Minutemen, dressed in traditional farmer costume from the eighteenth century, fires a volley of shots from muskets.
Boston, of course, was the seat of the American War of Independence, and the Minutemen were among the early exponents of guerilla warfare, in the thick of the early action. The ‘Minutemen’ are another great story.
I’m not sure about the numbers playing junior baseball, footy or basketball but I have observed the incredible popularity of soccer, among boys and girls of school age in America.
Lorry
Guest
Yes, they have beers and bbqs in the carparks of Brazilian soccer stadiums too, it's great and we should do it here! Drinking is not allowed inside Brazilian stadiums, however (as far as I can see that's the only place and time it's banned in the whole country!) Of course, I can't see the alcohol regulations liberalsing here, it just seems to get tighter and tighter. It's embarrassing actually- all my foreign students can't believe how strict it is here. Certainly in my experience we have the toughest alcohol regulations in the world (yes, tougher than the US!), apart from countries where it is illegal... The reason that the wowsers always give is that "Australians drink too much"... well, that may be true but so do Brazilians, Russians, Argentinians, Mexicans, Czechs, Germans etc etc but their regulations aren't anywhere near ours...
Tom
Guest
I with the OP, a lot of the American strips look fantastic without advertising, along with the fact they try and keep the jerseys the same year to year. However, it is just impractical in a market as small as Australia. The US has 310 million people; there is enough advertising money that they can afford to not have advertising on the jerseys and fields. In Australia, we need all the money we can get.
Jay
Guest
The NBA seem to do it...
johnb747b
Guest
Paddy, I saw the hit by the Bruin on the Montreal Canadien and it served only to make me content with my life as it is. Mind you, I've seen worse hits in ice hockey. This poor bastard had the misfortune to hit a plexiglass extrusion. Agree with you, Jay, about sponsors' names and logos. We just need to find some billionaires. The fellow who owns the New England Patriots, for example, also owns the soccer team (the Revolution) and - wait for it - also owns Gillette Stadium. The owner of the Red Sox has purchased Liverpool club in England. I'm delighted to learn, Rob, that there is civilised pre-match socialising at AAMI Stadium. What is astounding at Gillette Field is the sheer scope of tailgating. I estimated 8,000 bbqs at 90 minutes before kickoff. One could not conceive a bigger range of cooking facilities and seating arrangements. Spit roasts, sausages on a simple gas-heated plate... and everything in between. The atmosphere is good-natured, groups keeping pretty much to themselves. Not a sign of alcohol-fuelled belligerence or ill-will. A lot of these groups have been doing this for years, one should remember. It is part of their everyday lives. Many of them hold season tickets, acquired a year in advance. I was told that the food and drink in 'our' corporate box cost $3,500 on the day. With 80 or so corporate boxes, that is real hay. The wine was OK but the food was pretty bloody ordinary at that price. Once the fresh prawns had disappeared it was not much more than spring rolls. We were fortunate in seeing Tom Brady at his best on that day. I don't think Cleveland took him out once. Some of his passes were simply sublime. I'd love to see the quarterback type pass come into AFL, to supplement handballing. I doubt its use would exceed 5% of all passing in a game but it would be exhilarating to see a 30m pass drilled into the chest of a man on the run in space.
PaddyBoy
Guest
Go to a hockey match. It will change your life.
PaddyBoy
Guest
The NFL has ample time to advertise due to frequent stoppages, as does baseball, hockey and basketball. There are less stoppages and hence you have to advertise during the game in Rugby, League and Aussie Rules. If the NFL was free-flowing, the advertising would be there.
Rob McLean
Guest
GC, head to an AFL match at Adelaide's AAMI Stadium and you will see plenty of people enjoying a family bbq before the big match. Very much a tradition here. But yesx, it is hard to find that sort of situation anywhere else, from what I understand.
Jay
Guest
Another thing about American sports, which to me Australian sports severly lack, is the lack of commercialism of teams and the event. There no painted adverts of Toyota or Telstra on the pitch, no sponsors on jerserys (other than the sporting manufacturer) - just like teams at a world cup. Those two things id love to see adopted by Australian sports.
GC Bulletin
Guest
Had always wanted to go too an NFL game and loved every minute of it, but it was the Tailgate party that blew me away! Everyone likes to stick it to the Americans about how PC and litigation happy they are but can you imagine if you tried to have a BBQ and beer in the carpark outside a game in Australia? You would need 3 different OH&S certificates for the BBQ before getting chucked in a paddy wagon and lambasted for contributing to Australia's bing drinking epidemic for the beer.