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MINOR
TRANSGRESSIONS
Or : Who was that masked budgie ?
by
Paul Davidson
Those
of you that know me will know that , along with several other Boro
fans , I like to spend part of the summer in the States watching
American sports. The favourite of these sports for myself and my
long suffering companion Carol , is baseball.
Although
many comparisons have been drawn between baseball and cricket ,
I believe that many of the innovations used by our cousins across
the pond , could be used , not only in football in general , but
maybe the Boro in particular.
Firstly
, let me give you a brief insight as to how baseball is organised.
There are 30 Major League teams , which is where all the big stars
play. Like us in football , they all have reserve and youth teams.
The big difference is how these lower level teams operate. The best
of the players not rated up to the Major level , play at what is
known as "triple A" level , the next best at "Double A" and so on
down. All these teams are known , collectively , as the Minor Leagues
and this is where the resemblance with us can be found.
These
minor league teams operate , usually in the smaller towns and cities
of the USA and have as much trouble convincing the local sports
fans to go to their games as we have. To this end , anything and
everything seems to have been tried to get people in , from giving
people free haircuts during the game ( although tying a barbers
chair to the roof of the clubhouse and keeping it there during a
February gale could be a problem ), to employing people known as
"Morgana the kissing bandit" and "The Famous Chicken".
Basically
these people dress up in strange costumes and make fools of themselves
in front of the crowd. We have obviously decided to try this , but
having released Ian Rutherford ,we have come to the conclusion that
this particular experiment will not work. ( This was written before
this seasons Aylesbury game ! ) It is compulsory for these teams
to have ridiculous nicknames and a mascot to match.
The
Hickory Crawdads , for example , have someone dressed up as an enormous
lobster ( a Crawdad is apparently a type of crayfish , a strange
choice of name for a town famous for making furniture , but I suppose
the Hickory Wardrobes just does not sound the same ) , or Carols
particular favourite "Wally the Warthog" , mascot of the , believe
it or not , splendidly named Winston-Salem Warthogs. They dont even
have to be creatures , the San Antonio Missions actually have a
man dressed up as a "Puffy Taco" , a type of large Mexican crisp.
For
some reason , these characters seem to love me and I have been attacked
by a variety of them , from a bright green swamp monster in Cleveland
, to a huge black bat , in Greensboro , who snatched off my baseball
cap , threw it on the floor and jumped on it. ( I had bought it
the previous evening at the home of their local rivals. ) Every
team in the minors has these mascots and if not able to dress up
as the teams nickname , then they usually resemble a famous , or
not so famous cartoon character.
These
mascots keep the children ( and the good ones , the adults ) in
the crowd amused during breaks in play. Now here is something that
I am sure the Boro can benefit from. Just imagine our vice-presidents
Tony Venus and Denis O'Leary dressed up in giant Sylvester and Tweety
Pie suits and staging mock fights on top of the dugouts when the
ball flies out of the ground into someone's garden.
Like
the famous "Phillie Phanatic" ( an 8 foot purple aardvark ) , Tony
Venus could ride a motorised trike around the pitch berating the
referee when decisions go against us. Add this to the tremendous
increase in revenue from programme and golden goal ticket sales
as these two loveable characters greet spectators at the main entrance
and I am sure we would be on to a winner.
However
, the greatest innovations made at minor league baseball are undoubtedly
the spectator participation games they have between innings. I am
sure some of these could be modified to keep us all amused during
half-time. The most famous of these is the dizzy bat race , where
two , usually semi-inebriated adults are spun round in circles ,
whilst bent double with their heads resting on a baseball bat.
After
several spins , they are then released to career up one of the lines
of the pitch in a race against each other. I can just imagine the
laughs now as a couple of old soaks are dragged out of the bar and
made to run up the touchline. Of course , some of them will crash
over the wall and onto the terracing , causing various injuries
as they collide with the concrete , but that would be all part of
the fun.
The
most entertaining of these games I have seen has to be "Human Skittles"
, where a grown man is forced inside a large framework ball and
rolled off the back of a jeep into a set of enormous skittles ,
getting prizes for the amount he knocks down. I can see now our
own Keith Loddy , stuffed inside a huge football and being rolled
off the back of an old Ford Transit , into a stack of motorway cones.
If that doesn't bring the punters clamouring in then I dont know
what will !
Your
world roving correspondent and occasional mascot grappler.
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