Gatorade, baseball and the American culture wars
Last night, I finished Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World
In part, Foer writes about the baseball fan’s disdain for soccer. Baseball fans, Foer argues, share one of the few distinctly American intergenerational traditions. In the minds of purists, loving soccer is reprehensible because it is quite non-American.
But I digress. Check out the following Gatorade spot and you’ll understand why I made the connection. Watch carefully, listen closely and replay it if you must.
20 comments
Love the ad, but I think some would argue that repurposing the national pasttime’s unofficial theme song is less than effective.
I remember back in the nineties, during one of the many MLB labor disuptes, seeing a shirt that said, “One Strike and You’re Out.”
No point to the story…just remembering.
This ad makes me hope the U.S. lifts the Cup this year…but only because Rooney is out and England’s chances are otherwsie shot.
Love the ad, though.
Saw the ad for the first time last night on TV (because for some reason I can’t view it on my computer). Yeah, that is awesome. I just don’t think people get how violently cruel opposing stadiums can be. You won’t see the tiles popping out of the ceiling in the visitors locker room at Pizza Hut Park for an international game that’s for sure.
As an avid baseball fan, I find the commercial offensive in that it makes an attempt to displace baseball with soccer as America’s game by lifting a song so treasured by baseball fans everywhere.
I’d have no problem with the commercial if they’d be creative enough to write their own damn song.
Gatorade is doing nothing to win over baseball fans with this one, that’s for sure.
Amy,
Fair enough. However, I viewed it as an homage to baseball, in that soccer is a burgeoning American tradition. Using “Take me out to the ballgame” represented the idea that soccer could become like baseball.
Or, I could just be seeing what I want to see…
I can definitely see why baseball fans wouldn’t like the song used.
[...] Yesterday, Amy posted a comment about the new Gatorade commercial featuring the U.S. Men’s National Team. [...]
I think baseball fans should get a grip on reality. It’s a freaking song about baseball, not some religious hymn or something.
I love baseball. I hate soccer. Leave our song alone.
Soccer is the ultimate sport for the entitlement era brought on by widespread parenthood of the Sons and Daughters of Entitlement — The Baby Boomers.
Boomers believe their little brats should have all the joy, intrigue, wonder, beauty, and discovery of the world without any limits, disappointment, humiliation, or pain.
That’s why Boomers are teaching this AWFUL game – soccer – en masse to their brats. It’s the game where you can’t look foolish!!! In baseball, you can strike out, drop a flyball, get picked off — it’s an episodic game with plenty of potentially embarassing episodes.
This distresses boomer parents, who believe — getting repetitive here — that Madison and Zachary (memo to self: must kill any parent who names me ‘Zachary’) should live life to the fullest but never suffer embarrassment.
So, heeeeeere’s SOCCER!! Yes, the game that lets you call you son or daughter an athletic competitor just for running back and forth for 45 minutes!! With any luck, your kid will never touch the ball and thus never risk any sort of frustration or embarrassment. Under the guise of organization, soccer is a thinly-veiled romper room, the dual purpose of which is to 1) knock your kid out so you can shag and have a Chardonnay uniterrupted later that night; and 2) collect a trophy even less meaningful than the bowling trophies you took home in 1974. All this, and no threat of embarrassing strikeouts or bad-hop grounders in the nutsack!!
Yes, soccer….take our song….play it, enjoy it….run up and down that field….where’s the goal? Where’s the ball? Who cares, we’re playing SOCCER — scoring is so boring anyway.
When Zach and Maddy grow up and find out the real world has strikeouts and hit-by-pitches and dropped flyballs, they’ll look back to that artificial ‘sport’ Momma Boomah and Poppa Boomah forced them to play and say…’this didn’t prepare me for joy or for pain. It just knocked me out on Saturday so you could shag and drink Chardonnay. I HATE you!! And why the %&$( did you have to name me Zachary!!!!!
….at the olllllllddddd bawwllllllll gaaaammmme!
I quit baseball after the third grade because it was the most boring game I had ever been forced to stand through. I moved on to basketball, which for my money takes the biggest combination of skill and athleticism of all the sports. Not that I was any good at it.
But this isn’t even the point. The point is that the video posted above is a Gatorade commercial. Gatorade. Commercial. If baseball fans actually feel threatened by it, they might consider getting over themselves.
This fan in particular might also consider not worrying about how other people parent. In fact, I might make my Zachary take flute lessons just to spite him.
[...] I’m sure some of you will have something to say about this comment by lendog about the Gatorade commercial. [...]
No time to read all of lendogs post, I’ve gotta go shag my girl and drink some wine.
“This fan in particular might also consider not worrying about how other people parent.”
Have you been out in public lately? In an airport? Restaurant?
Are you kidding me? The way “other people parent” wouldn’t be an issue except for, well, the way other people parent!!!!
“In fact, I might make my Zachary take flute lessons just to spite him.”
And when Zachary is older, he’ll give SKIN flute lessons, just to spite you!
[...] Landon Donovan, Pablo Mastroeni, and Deuce appeared on ESPN’s Cold Pizza. Among the topics of discussion was the infamous Gatorade commercial and Deuce’s bourgeoning music career. You can see the Cold Pizza video here. [...]
This commercial is absolutely brilliant. The look on Quaranta’s face in the locker room before the game when the ceiling tiles are bouncing is priceless. The commercial really made me realize how young some of the players on our team are, and how frightening it must sometimes be for them to play in such hostile venues.
I thought the use of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as background music was really clever, particularly the way the song was played so slowly, and rather mournfully, sort of to suggest the way soccer can build on American sports tradition while adding its own influence at the same time.
Homey, Josh, Jeremy and especially Mirarchi–right on. All agreed.
Amy and especially lendog–puh-leeze.
Offended? Yeah right. I refuse to believe anybody is *genuinely* OFFENDED to see US soccer put to baseball’s traditional theme. Good God, sports will always be just that no matter how much you want yours to become a religion.
And lendog, everything you said is just utterly opposite of the truth. Soccer is a sport that unskilled players don’t look awkward at? Have you ever been in PE or tried to throw together an intramural team in college? Everybody HATES soccer because they know they’ll look so d*mn stupid and uncoordinated when they fall on their *ss after a humiliating whiff. Can’t say that about shooting hoops or, if you’re American, throwing a baseball. And to think there’s no skill involved and that anybody can do it is so patently absurd. There are far more soccer clubs around the world on all levels than most or all other sports, yet it remains just as if not more difficult to secure a spot on an even medium-profile team than it is in the MLB and many other bigs. Take your knuckle-dragging rants to a site more on par with your marginal levels of intelligence and humor.
I just found this blog, and I have to comment: why is it that soccer and baseball have to be mututally exclusive to one another? Why can’t they exist in the same (equal) capacity? i don’t really like pitting one against the other, because, frankly I like both sports and don’t see why it has to be done. Why can’t baseball just go on and do its thing while soccer does its?
I mean, both sports were created and standardized at about the same time. So I don’t think that baseball was created simply to spite soccer, or vice-versa. They, like the countries in which they were created, developed differently, in different form. Why is that so wrong?
The reason why both games developed how they did is simply because of the spheres of influence of each country: England spread its game to the European Continent, Africa, and the Middle East while America spread its to Asia and the Carribean.
All this is is a different way of globalizing the each game. I see nothing wrong in this. Can’t we just acknowledge that they’re two very different games which both take lots of (albeit different kinds of) skill and are both (GASP!) fun to watch and follow?
Soccer haters and baseball haters alike need to rethink their positions. The nature of soccer, at least as it exists in Europe, is unsuited for Americans. And baseball is the same way. They’re different sports. Get over it.
Leave the soccer to the Europeans. Baseballs the best
Ok now there is empty land for 15 mill and another empty land for 125,000 whys this and why do they cost more
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