The Shape of Things To Come

  A couple weeks back, Chase Field hosted a boisterous Ohio State pep rally, hopelessly disorienting this Phoenix ballyard denizen.  In the first place, there was no charge to get in.  Second, gate security was unseasonably cheerful, positively "jellin" on the comfy concrete baked below July's medium well.

Using Diamondback games as a reference, this reporter can best describe the peppy January throng as "big", filling the brownish Phoenix air with enthusiastic chants and cheers, rarely heard in the publicly financed hangar. Oh sure, the sound system malfunctioned, just like at Dbacks' games, but this was, somehow, different.

Most revolutionary of all - was the sea of red in the previously purple baseball palace. Granted, it's a pep rally, but Snake fans, I have seen the future and the future is....well, it's very odd looking. Admittedly, Buckeye scarlet is glossier than standard issue USSR (Un-Solicited Sedona Red), and April's home opener wont be as uniformly rosy as the rally. ( Envision a smattering of purple and red dotting the stands, like a schizo's PB&J made with grape and strawberry jelly.) All the same, longtime locals are in for a bit of a jolt.

Objectively, the rally looked like a sanguine crowd at Busch or the Sox at Fenway - that much is true. But subjectively, it didnt feel like happily watching the Cards in St Louis. It felt like watching someone else's team, anyone else's team frankly, take seige of your hometown ballpark. I dont have an aesthetic thing for purple at all, but cant overstate how a) disorienting and b) undistinctive the red was in this particular venue. We might as well have been in the Columbus horseshoe. Or Tiananmen Square. Or Dante's circle of He11. The shape of things to come is, apparently, irrelevant.

The venue - and sense of place - immaterial.

As long as the material is red.