The cry of many a sports fan has been heard by nearly every media outlet over the past few years or so. With ticket prices rising yearly, your average fan feels priced out by teams that are regularly seeing record annual profits. The theory goes that your truly passionate fans, the group of shirtless 40 year old men with “Jets” scrawled across their chests in individual green letters, the effects of the December cold and perhaps a flask of E & H displayed proudly in their red cheeks, no longer are a part of the action because they simply can't afford to be close to it. While the development is troubling, what is often ignored is how the common fan has come to internalize this new role as dispossessed sports spectator.
Personally, I have never seen continually raising ticket prices as a real concern in the world of sports. Inflation is ever present in ever facet of life in this capitalist utopia known as the U.S. I always regarded the increasing cost of a game going up as yet another part of the American way. That was before was before I saw the life-force of the common fan die in the short span of a week.
The “Cheap Seats” section, as its known, in the Metrodome was once an area where you could see the true fan in its natural environs. The noise coming from the upper deck outfield bleachers was louder than anything you'd hear at a Who concert. A few years ago, it was reported that Metrodome staff would turn the air return towards the field during the opponent's half-inning during the 1991 playoff run to knock down long fly balls into outs rather than home runs. I've always felt that this was just the scientific community's attempt to reason out the seemingly physically impossible fact that the fans were loud enough to knock down an object of mass with simple cheers. The air conditioning didn't cause Ron Gant's smash to die before the Plexiglas on Kirby Puckett's famous Game 6 catch; Twins' fans did. This is place where crowd noise was once measured at 125 decibels, very near the human threshold of pain. This is not somewhere one is expected to hear a fellow fan say “Can you keep it down?” And yet it happened.
I cannot personally attest to this occurrence that would have once been unfathomable to me only a few years ago. The source is one I'd consider to be fairly reliable, though: my Father. My Father and I bough season tickets in the Cheap Seats this year, all for the paltry price of 500 dollars for the pair for all 82 home games. Considering the aforementioned current status of ticket prices for professional sports, I'd though it was quite the bargain, even more so when juxtaposed to the Timberwolves current bargain season ticket package that would have run us over two grand. Looking forward to a season of baseball and bonding, its been ruined for me less than two weeks into the season. I gave my ticket to my brother for Sunday's game against the Royals where in the second inning of a scoreless game they heard the line that is now forever etched into my mind: “Can you keep it down?”
My Dad is a fan willing to verbalize his ardent desire for a home team win. He's a fan that will get out of his seat, clap his hands, holler and when he feels the home team needs an extra boost, pull out the dreaded pinkies in the corners of the mouth whistle that will make dogs for miles around perk their ears. To this day I am convinced his whistle was responsible for at least two of Paul Molitor's walk off home runs and this is probably 50% of Molitor's career walk off round trippers, I'd say Molitor owes him at least one of his signing bonuses. With a runner on second in a scoreless game and the Twins' pre-eminent RBI man Justin Morneau at the plate, Dad pulled out the whistle. A young woman in front of him immediately turned around and asked a seemingly innocent question “Are you going to do that all game?” My Dad was confused by a question that seemed so out of place given the location and situation. To clarify here sentiments, the young woman followed up with the knockout right “Can you keep it down?” I would be more than willing to write this event in history off as an aberration and happily live the rest of my life as a fan knowing that not everyone that attends games is a fellow fan. However, this woman was not alone in her feelings. Her husband soon turned around and nodded his head in agreement rather then responding appropriately to such an affront to fandom, which would have been to throw his young wife over the railing and on the Astroturf upon realizing what a horrible choice he'd made in a life partner.
