Now It's personal (Apparently)
I tried to post this in a lengthy entry last night, which was lost. One of these days I'll remember to copy before I post. Anyway, I want to get this up before I go to work, so if it's a bit too brief, I'll flesh it out later.
Below is a copy of an e-mail I sent to Greenville News sports columnist Bart Wright, whose in his column in Monday's edition singing the praises of the new downtown ballpark invited criticism of the new park and comparison to the old. The letter I sent him is unremarkable in itself. In fact, most of it is a condensation of the "Highway to Hell" entry on this blog that describes my unpleasant experiences at West End Field and why I liked the atmosphere of the old ballpark better.
What is remarkable is Mr. Wright's nasty reply to my message. Anyone reading both letters can see that I was nothing but a gentleman to Mr. Wright, and never attacked him personally. He, on the other hand, treated me like something he had just scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
Mr. Wright chose to dismiss my specific criticisms of the new ballpark as the product of a "grudge" that is "political in nature," an increasingly popular means of discrediting an argument with which one does not agree. But what I cannot figure out is what side he thinks I'm on. Am I a ranting redneck or a filthy hippie? It's hard to tell from the tone of his message.
Looks like I hit a nerve when I criticized the downtown business elite. Which is understandable; after all, he works for their booster organ. To be fair, he does make a couple of good points; but they are obscured by the arrogant, condescending tone of his message -- not to mention a host of typos. One thing I do wish to clarify right here, right now is that I DO like downtown Greenville -- which is why I don't want to see these assholes fuck it up.
By the way, one would think that a professional writer would proof his messages better.
Dear Mr. Wright:
I read with interest your column in Monday's edition entitled "West End Field Meets Expectations," in which you touted the financial success of the stadium and promised to inform your readers when "somebody writes to say the old ballpark was better." While it is true that the old ballpark had its problems and was in dire need of refurbishing or replacement, and that the new park downtown is far from aesthetically displeasing, I will state without reservation that baseball in Greenville has suffered greatly as a result of the G-Braves' departure. Nothing could have reversed the damage that this move caused, and while the initial financial success of the new team would appear to bode well for baseball in Greenville, I believe that this success is illusory and may well be short-lived. If the city's recent track record with regard to minor legue sports is any indication, the end will come sooner rather than later, and will be quite ugly.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, I am still quite bitter over the departure of the G-Braves, whose games my wife and I had attended ever since our arrival to the area in 1994. Nevertheless, we were willing to give the new team a try, attending three games the first season and one in the new ballpark this season. And while I no longer inclined to say "never" about anything, I can say without reservation that I have no plans ever to return to West End Field.
Although I am not a lifelong resident of the area, I have become quite familiar with the history of Greenville and am aware that the downtown business elite has tended to look down upon baseball as a pastime associated with mill culture -- that is, until they realized that there was money in it, and that a downtown ballpark would make a fine centerpiece for a lavish spread of real estate development. Then the game was on. Don't get me wrong: I do not hold the Braves blameless for what happened. This is perhaps as much their fault as it is the city's. Yet from what I know of the circumstances surrounding their departure, it appear to me that a crucial step for the downtown business elite in wresting baseball out of the hands of the mill people was to get the Braves out of the picture. Obviously, they succeeded, and they got their downtown ballpark. Yet it is equally obvious from my recent visit to West End Field that they quite simply do not know how to do baseball, and quite likely do not care. Frankly, the financial success that you cited indicates that they do not have to care.
Funny you should mention the scoreboard, for that is one of the first things my wife and I noticed upon our arrival at the ballpark. I am familiar with the scoreboard at Fenway, and I believe that duplicating it is a nice touch -- or would be, anyway, had the person hired to operate it actually kept up with the game. As it were, one had to devote one's entire attention to the game to know the number of outs, the ball-strike count -- you know, those things that scoreboards normally keep track of so you don't have to.
That was but the first of many indicators that something was wrong. A second, and more glaring problem, became evident around the middle of the second inning, when the seats in our section began to fill with chronically-late Greenvillians. I had noticed when we took our seats that our usher had not checked our tickets when we started down the aisle, but had merely returned our eye contact and said "enjoy the game." Now, I can excuse the gentleman for not getting up to greet us, for, you see, he was in a wheelchair, and while I am a strong advocate of ADA and of hiring the disabled, it occurs to me that policing an entire section of seats to which the only access is a narrow row of steep concrete steps is not a good job to give to a man in a wheelchair. There were many, many other jobs in the stadium that this man, whom I'm sure is quite capable, could have done.
Nevertheless, I don't think that it would have made a difference had an ambulatory person been assigned to the section; for there seemed to be no oversight of seating whatsoever anywhere in the ballpark -- a sharp contrast to the policy in the old stadium, where the ushers were quite proactive in assisting fans with locating their seats and making certain that everyone was in the right seat and behaving in a manner that did not interfere with the enjoyment of other fans. Now, in thirty-plus years of attending games at various levels, I have come to accept that ballparks are full of fans, and fans sometimes are rowdy, and although it grates at my nerves sometimes, they paid for their tickets just like me, and anyway, they aren't hurting anyone. But there's a difference between normal fan behavior and obnoxous-jerk behavior, and the non-presence of the ushers was a tacit invitation for those inclined to behave like obnoxious jerks to do what they do best. And while I was not offended by the loud profanity going on behind me, it is possible that the families in front of me, many of whom had small children, might have been.
Yet the larger problem with the lack of seating supervision was the rampant seat-stealing that went on around me during the course of the game. Around the third inning, a family three rows down from me, a couple with a small child and an infant, left their seats for a few minutes only to return to find a group of fraternity boys and their girlfriends occupying them. They chose not to press the issue, instead sitting a couple of rows forward and politely asking the chuckling young men to hand their belongings down to them. Why they did not attempt to get a usher, I did not know. They would not have had to at the old ballpark.
Then there was the "entertainment," which put the cap on this cheap sideshow that we had foolishly mistaken for a baseball game. I also know from experience that baseball and cheesy entertainment go together: after all, there are lots of kids there, and they have to go for the lowest common denominator. Yet there was no commonality in the asinine fare offered that evening and, I'm presuming, every evening. Lulls between innings at the old ballpark were filled with the family-fun time typical of minor-league ballpark: promotional games and giveaways, t-shirt cannons, etc.. What we got instead at West End Field was a clowning dwarf, whose schtick consisted mostly of ridiculously-oversized props, exaggerated dancing, and on one occasion, pretending to call the pitcher's warmup tosses like an umpire while wearing a Darth Vader helmet. By this point, I had passed beyond annoyed into the realm of embarrassed: embarrassed for my city, embarrassed for my country, and embarrassed that I had willingly, albeit not knowingly, purchased a ticket to this foul spectacle. Apparently, we were not alone in our belief that this crap was not funny, for few people around us were laughing (not even the loud, obnoxious jerks behind us), and some of them even looked disturbed by it. It was typical of the level of humor that pervaded the evening (playing the sound of glass breaking over the PA everytime a ball is fouled out of the park is not funny the first time, much less the 36th) with the added dimension of being quite offensive -- and as anyone who knows me can tell you, I am not easily offended.
We left after the sixth inning, and although I no longer say never about very much, I can say that I have no plans ever to return to West End Field, even if the Rome Braves are in town. The whole thing smacked of arrogance, of cavalier treatment, of greed.
I can see them now, sitting in their meetings, dinners, receptions, clubhouses. I can hear them planning how to get the lintheads and rednecks through the turnstiles: don't bother with painting the dimensions on the fence: we had to make it too short, and most of them can't count that high anyway; jack up the radar gun, so they think they're seeing 100-MPH fastballs out of these kids; my sister's no-account son-in-law needs a job, maybe he can work the scoreboard; don't worry about the seating policy, they like to steal seats from each other, they're a bunch of animals, anyway; give 'em a dancing midget, they like stuff like that.
What's truly sad is that, apparently, they are right.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my opinion. I enjoy your column and read it regularly, even when I disagree with you, which is not often.
Sincerely,
Michael H. Burchett
Greenville
Thanks for the note, though I must admit it was hard to find the part I had asked for, namely people who didn't like the ballpark
Maybe I missed it, but I read a lot that you didn't like about the employees and their interaction or lack of same with fans, which is odd, because you seem to be suggesting you liked it at the old ballpark, which was operated by the same ownership. The same ownership employed the mascot you seem to like and the one you seem not to like. The same management oversaw the dumb stunts between innings and such last year and the ones this year.
But you are right, I gleaned quickly you don't like downtown from the code working "downtown elite," which I always find illuminating because it was the lack of interest on the part of the county council to spend a penny on the G-Braves that ultimately chased them away. Had the copunty[sic] council matched the city council investment, the G-Braves would almost certainly still be here, yet as soon as the G-Braves were gone the county coincil [sic] came up with $18 million almost overnight to attract a new team to the suburbs (which was shouted down by the people who live there).
So, while I don't understand it, I get the grudge is political in nature and I'm sure the team would want to hear about employees behaving badly. I'll pass this on, but remove your name.
The biggest irony is that this ownership, while no friends of mine (meaning I doin't [sic] have a relationship with them), aren't even trying to make a profit. They dumped more than $16 million of their own money into it (which people always say they want to see from owners, rather than draining the public for their ballparks), and are opering [sic] on a break even basis when it comes to concession prices and all the rest.
Yet people like to point to the downtown elite as the bad people.
As one who consoider [sic] the old park the worst I have ever visited, and this one among the best, I guess it take [sic] all kinds. Appreciate you writing, all the same
Posted by MHB
at 7:38 AM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, 30 August 2006 10:56 PM EDT
"I guess it take all kinds"