Picture the Dodgers uniform, the road gray, script blue lettering on the front, large blue number on the back, smaller red number on the front, all tied together with a Dodger blue cap with the classic interlocked LA logo in white. The uniform is elegant and complete. A man wearing this uniform is a Dodger, at a glance.
Change the cap to red, and the LA logo to a mash of red and white and stars and blue, and the uniform is broken. Stick a horn on a horse, and the noble beast is gone, replaced by a garish fantasy creature. Make the Dodgers wear red caps, and they are the unicorn Dodgers.
How is gaudiness a tribute? Why would anyone think making the uniform ugly and jarring honored anyone? It's a sacrifice --- but a pointless one.
Bud Selig pays tribute with a sledgehammer. Everyone will wear 42. Everyone will wear a red cap for a day. No, everyone will wear a red cap for a whole series. Frank McCourt follows his lead. God Bless America, every game! Soon Bud will mandate that every team sings God Bless America in the seventh inning stretch, and that every team wears ugly camouflage jerseys on Sundays. For Commissar Bud there is nothing that can't be improved by making it everywhere and all the time. And if you want to pay tribute? Just stick a horn on it and call it majestic.
2 comments:
Just returned from some vacation and read through the posts I missed. Seems like you are really flowing now, with even a bit of sting with your swing the last few days.
And magic? Perhaps they have moved from magic to majestic, where they win with power and grace. And throw a few bones to the dogs every once in a while with their losses. (I don't have that metaphor just right, but I will leave the word play to the experts!)
The red caps are ugly. I never realized how much I look at cap colour when determining what team a guy is on until this series.
I didn't mind so much when just the team logo on the cap was star-spangled. It didn't look that bad on the Dodgers since it didn't clash with the team colors. ( Hey, so why is the Yankees America's team if it is the Dodgers [ and fine, other teams too ] who wear the patriotic colors? Or is the Yankees' pinstripes, symbolic of the pinstriped suits on Wall Street and everything that is supposed to be good about greed, more fitting? )
If Bud wants to use a sledgehammer, I would suggest he at least tries for something that doesn't do a disservice to what he's paying tribute to. Such as, go the whole hog, try to make it look nice. Have two sets of uniform jerseys, one home top that is white and has red and blue detail on it, and one gray with the same. The gray uniform gets blue caps and the road uniform gets red caps. Heck, change the team name for the day - everybody is "United States" at home and "America" on the road. And every team wears the same jersey on the holiday. At least they won't look jarring on camera, even if every game looks like a split squad match for the World Baseball Classic.
The red caps are ugly. And worse - they're cheap. I don't know that Bud would ever go with the jersey idea - it is more expensive to outfit every player on every team with a jersey that fits. The caps stretch to fit, whether it is Pierre's diminutive dome or ( back in the day ) Bond's melon. Just slap a different logo on front and done.
And the teams probably wouldn't want to not wear their names on front. Not to mention that the fans wouldn't want the uniform swapped out like that - as it was said, you cheer for laundry when you cheer for a team. So - not even for a day, not even to honor the single country everybody is a part of, not even to be united for a day.
So maybe Bud has the right idea after all. Make the caps ugly. It fits.
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