MLB: We Love Baseball, Chevrolet, Apple Pie and Sushi Rolls

In 2010, while visiting the ESPN announcer’s booth at the Washington Nationals’ opening day, President Barack Obama remarked that Cubs fans exhibited a general lack of knowledge towards the game of baseball (this, ironically, coming moments after Obama could not name his favorite White Sox player growing up). He summed it all up by stating that Cubs fans are “up at Wrigley Field sipping wine.”

The comment was meant entirely as a joke, as Wrigley Field does not serve wine.

The idea that a baseball fan would be drinking wine would indicate they are ignorant, aloof and stuck-up, and would be showing a general disregard to the tradition of hot dogs and watered down American beer that has been served at stadiums for years (not to mention drinking wine is a white-collar behavior, as opposed to the blue-collar ideologies Obama and all democrats want to identify with).

So, Obama was calling Cubs fans, and any fans who would drink wine at a ball game, white-collar, stuck-up, ignorant, etc…but it was all in good fun. It was simply meant as an exaggeration of how ignorant one could be. To be sitting at a baseball game sipping wine is a preposterous idea…right?

While watching the Red Sox play on opening day of the 2011 season, I was alerted to some changes to the Fenway Park concourse. They now offer up wine tasting, in addition to sushi, garden salads and thinly sliced Boar’s Head roast beef.

Sushi!?! At Fenway Park!? I’ve never been to Fenway Park, much less the state of Massachusetts, but I know that Fenway Park is the oldest stadium currently used by a major sports franchise, and is famous for their Fenway Franks. Additionally, since this food is being served up at a sport known as “America’s Pastime,” I assumed that this was some sort of mistake, or that Fenway had entered some sort of odd outlier situation. Therefore, I explored further.

Much to my surprise (and chagrin), I found that other ballparks serve food and beverages that could be not only be grouped into the elitist class of white wine and sushi, but are far deviations from the standard peanuts, hot dogs, beer and popcorn.

Coors Field offers up Rocky Mountain Oysters, Seattle serves an Ichi-roll and you can find Waffles at Turner Field, Walleye at Target Field, ribs at Kauffman Stadium and toasted ravioli at Busch Stadium. Man, I am hungry.

How did we come to this point and what does it mean?  Let’s take a step back.

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The current epoch in American Culture is postmodernism. Beginning roughly in the 1950s and continuing through today (though many argue we are near or have already reached an end), postmodernism was born out of a reaction to elitist, modernist tendencies and practices in art, architecture, style and culture.

So what is postmodernism? For the purposes of our discussion, it is a way of combining existing or defunct practices to create a unique entity, experience, fashion statement or piece of art. Many argue that nothing is unique or original anymore, but the way to be unique is to combine old stories, styles, themes, trends, etc. Another, more simpler way of explaining it is: “anything goes.”

Take the city of Las Vegas, for example. Driving down Las Vegas Boulevard, we can see a pyramid, a castle, the Venetian canals, a pirate ship, the Roman Coliseum, the Eiffel Tower and the New York Skyline. Clearly, the strip in Las Vegas represents the post-modern adage of “anything goes.” When in Las Vegas you can “experience” all of these current or former lifestyles. There isn't one, underlying unique theme when it comes to Las Vegas. The uniqueness of Las Vegas is that it is a mixture of these old styles of architecture and experiences.

Another example would be the film Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is an extremely unique combination of traditional stories told in a non-linear fashion. The stories of a boxer paid to take a dive who ultimately decides not to, a person asked to take their boss’ wife out for dinner, two lovers who are robbers and two gangsters needing to dispose of a body before someone gets home, are old, stereotypical stories (not unlike those you would find in pulp magazines, as the beginning of the film indicates).

None of those stories are unique, but when told in an inter-weaving, non-linear fashion, Quentin Tarantino was able to create an extremely unique film, (the restaurant, Jack Rabbit Slims, in which Mia and Vincent attend, seen here, is also an example of a postmodern restaurant).

Post-modernism defines the art, film, television, architecture, fashion and behaviors of our current generation(s). We don’t have a unique fashion sense, but the combination of a 1970s trucker hat, 1980s flannel and 1990s Air Jordans is a unique fashion statement. All of those items existed in the past, so it isn't unique to wear a flannel, but it is unique to wear it with a "whatever goes" combination of other clothing.

It explains why films have to be action and romance, or dramatic and comedic, why The Cheesecake Factory has 10,000 items on the menu, why JackFM can have a motto of “We Play Anything” and be popular, why the iPod has a shuffle button and why the Abteiberg Museum in Monchengladbach contains elements of modern, futuristic and art deco styles of architecture.

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This would certainly begin to explain why we have sushi, wine and crab cakes at baseball stadiums. The postmodern adage is “anything goes,” and serving such items at a ballgame would certainly live up to the saying.

It’s only part of the story, however. Epochs such as postmodernism develop a “chicken and the egg” syndrome.  Do we naturally crave the characteristics associated with an epoch, or do we just take whatever is delivered up to us and then go with it? That is, were we itching and desperate for a film such as Pulp Fiction, or is it that once we see Pulp Fiction, we demand to see similar films?

The answer is a bit of a cop out, but it is that it most likely a mix of both. We'll see that postmodernism works in conjunction with technological developments in the past 25 years create a disturbing trend.

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Internet, cell phones, YouTube, iPads, etc, have all clearly created a condition of immediacy. There’s no arguing that at this point in time. Not only do we want to see highlights of something or gather information on a topic, we need it instantaneously. It’s why when we load a YouTube video we grow frustrated by a 15-second advertisement that delays our clip.

Is this good or bad? If you told me in 1990 that you would have the ability to watch the Michael Jordan free throw line dunk or Bo Jackson highlights in the palm of my hand within seconds, I would have welcomed it with open arms. Now, I’m not so sure.

I feel that the technological developments, especially Netflix, OnDemand and YouTube, have somewhat destroyed what was once borderline sacrosanct. Part of the enjoyment of a campy 1980s film, a spectacular Bo Jackson run or Desmond Howard’s Heisman pose was that they were special and you were lucky if you caught them when they were on TV.

Predator is a great movie, but it’s even better when you stumble upon it on cable at 1 A.M. When you make the conscious decision of “I Want to watch Predator,” get up, add it to your XBOX instant queue, sit down and hit play, the film loses some of it’s appeal. The same happens when you watch Dillon and Dutch welcome each other 500 times, as I have.

Films, music and sports highlights have all become over-saturated. You can ask a friend if they’ve seen Desmond Howard’s pose and if he or she says that they haven’t, instead of re-enacting it or explaining it, you just tell them to “look it up.” Odds are you’ll look it up to and watch it over and over, ruining the charm of the play.

Now, instead of the 1997 Rose Bowl being something that is on once in a blue moon, we can watch it any second we want, along with commentary from an Ohio State fan.

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There are a multitude of cultural components, and no one component acts independently. Therefore, our postmodern ways of thinking influenced our technological innovations, and our technology further advanced our postmodern tendencies.

What does this have to do with white wine and sushi? Simple. Sushi and wine came to the ballparks for two reasons. One, our culture demands that we have everything at our disposal at all times and the postmodern adage of “anything goes” allowed it. Sushi at a ballpark, why not!?

On one hand, it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. If a person likes sushi and they like baseball, then why does it matter if they want to combine their two interests and have a nice California Roll while they watch the ballgame?

On the other hand, attending sporting events have fallen under the same umbrella as watching 1980s films and sports highlights whenever we want. The traditional elements of attending a ball game are no more. Would it really kill anyone to wait three hours and get sushi after the game if they wanted it so badly?

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Either President Obama agrees with me, or he wants to give out the perception that he agrees with me (I would guess it’s the former).

While attending a baseball game and drinking a beer and eating a hot dog may be campaigning, or intentionally giving off the image of a blue-collar, traditional values individual: it is just that, traditional. Additionally, his minor slip-up of stating that Cubs fans drink wine further underscores his disdain for the postmodern tendencies at ballparks today.

If Obama linked sipping white wine to being ignorant towards the game of baseball, then what would he think of the menu items and patrons at the other stadiums?

More importantly, what have we become? Are we more concerned about what amenities and concessions the stadium is offering up than the play of the team we are supposedly rooting for?

Does a World Series pale in comparison to having fresh oysters, and can we stomach a dismal 65-win team if they have good seafood?

This article focused only on the concessions of a given stadium, but we can also throw in the other attractions stadiums offer such as kid zones, miniature trains, sting ray aquariums, fountains, and of course, sausage/pierogi/president races that would further illustrate the postmodern desires of a typical stadium-going fan.

So folks, I know that we live in a world of immediacy, and that the postmodern structures beg for you to stand in line for the sushi roll while Felix Hernandez is throwing a gem, but take a deep breath and enjoy the tradition of the game. There’s plenty of fun in eating a hot dog, a week’s worth of sodium from a bag of peanuts and drinking four over-priced domestic beers.

When the game is over, there will still be plenty of sushi in the ocean for you to enjoy.