Bike riders and sports fans may find this amusing.

[gordonzola]

There's something that almost every ballpark does these days between innings of a baseball game. To keep people amused as they break for commercials, they put up a "race" on the scoreboard. Originally, this was called "dot racing" and was pretty simple, just three different colored dots racing around a "track" with fans cajoled into picking a color to cheer for.

It’s this weird new tradition, almost self-mocking. Fans get really into it, yelled and screaming for "blue" over "green" or whatever and then everyone kind of laughs about it. It comes close to an acknowledgement that being a fan is, in the end, a pretty meaningless thing but pretty fun anyway.

I know many will refuse to accept this evidence that sports fans can have self-awareness. So be it.

Scoreboard operators have tried to give things more of a local flair in recent years. In Milwaukee for instance, they dress people up in different sausage (bratwurst vs. Polish sausage etc.) costumes and have them actually race around the infield. The Giants had speedboats which always struck me as kind of unimaginative.

But no more. Last night they had cable cars, each designated a number of a famous Giants player. So far, not much beyond what you’d expect right? Anyways, people chose cable cars to root for and the race was on. They sped through the city passing many local landmarks in a blur. Then, as they approached the ballpark finish line they headed through downtown moving at a scary pace.

But wait! What’s going on? Yes, it’s Critical Mass! All three cable cars are stopped dead in their tracks. After a comparatively long time, considering how quickly they drove through the rest of the city, they finally extricate themselves and finish the race. For those of you cheering at your computer terminals, the Willie Mays car won when the Barry Bonds and Willie McCovey cars fell into the bay, the Lefty O’Doul drawbridge having been suddenly and inexplicably raised.

de_gustibus said afterwards that he was holding his breath thinking the person at the scoreboard controls was going to have the cable cars run over the Critical bikers while the crowd cheered. But no, it was weirdly respectful.

By the way, since we’re talking about The Giants, there are at least three more singles nights near the middle of every month. Who wants to go?

Comments

yeah . . .

[slipkid.livejournal.com]

and I hear the game was pretty good last night too :-)

Re: yeah . . .

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

definitely. but you can read about that in the Chronicle. My job is to scavenge the interesting flotsam and jetsom of the sports experience and present it in such a way that even the non-sports fans will be interested.

yes, yes

[slipkid.livejournal.com]

I think the first time I saw dot racing was at Oakland and I don't go there that often so I wonder if they weren't the originators of it all. And let's not even talk about "the wave", which has thankfully lost popularity in the last three years or so.