King James edition.
By http://ussc.edu.au/people/jonathan-bradley in Seattle, WA
9 July 2010
The news gripping America these past few sweltering days has been primarily concerned with the future career prospects of now ex-Cleveland NBA player LeBron James. I would tell you more about the situation, but, other than informing you that he has signed with the Miami Heat and is now more likely to win a championship, I can offer little that would be enlightening. Of the four major American sports, basketball is the realm in which I am at my weakest.
Being a politics guy, I turn to FiveThirtyEight for my sports analysis, and they do not disappoint. But being an urban geography nerd, my favorite portion of Nate Silver's post over there was this one:
According to commoncensus.org; the New York Knicks are the favorite team in 10 markets totaling 23.1 million people, the Chicago Bulls in 19 markets totaling 18.0 million people (the Bulls are popular in Missouri and Iowa, which have no NBA teams), and the Cavaliers in 14 markets totaling 11.8 million people. By contrast, the Heat's market is relatively small at 8.3 million people, and has a smaller percentage of African-Americans than do Chicago and New York. (Black Americans are two-and-half times more likely to be NBA fans than the population average, according to polling conducted by YouGov.)
One tends to think of Cleveland as a small and shrinking Midwest city, but such conceptions obscure how populous states like Ohio are, despite internal immigration flows heading south and southwest. It's a similar circumstance to that of the city of Detroit and the metropolitan area of Detroit, I suppose; while the former dwindles to 900 000 citizens, the latter remains a Sydney-sized metropolis of, depending how you measure it, 4-5 million people. Meanwhile, the city of Cleveland is home to just 450 000 people, but it has a metropolitan area of 2.25 million, many of whom will be disappointed by James's announcement. Meanwhile, Miami has a similar city size, but a metro population of more than twice that of Cleveland, and it was this awareness that caused me to misconstrue the size of these teams' markets. I had, of course, disregarded the many, many residents of smaller cities scattered around Cleveland's vicinity. The rust belt may be shrinking, but it is doing so from a formidable size.
Winning a more perfect game.
By http://ussc.edu.au/people/jonathan-bradley in Seattle, WA
5 June 2010
Some big stories in America are big stories the world over. The millions of litres of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is big news whether you're in Sydney or Seattle, as is Israel's storming of the flotilla headed for Gaza earlier this week. (Like it or not, stories about Israel almost always end up as stories about America as well.) But sometimes America will become gripped by an event the rest of the world could not care less about.
Such an event occurred earlier this week, when the nation took a time out from condemning its president for not suiting up in SCUBA gear to plug the oil leak himself. If the C.E.O. of BP wants to walk in to a bar right now in America, he should make sure he has Jim Joyce at his side.
Joyce? Probably the most loathed man in America right now, and no, the country has not developed a sudden distaste for Irish literature. Joyce was the first base umpire in a baseball game Wednesday night between the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians. Tigers' pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from pitching a perfect game, an extraordinarily rare baseball achievement in which a pitcher pitches for at least nine innings and allows no batter to make it to first base. In the game's 135 year history, with thousands of games being played a year, only twenty perfect games have been pitched.
As Galarraga sought his 27th out on Wednesday night, Cleveland's Jason Donald grounded the pitch and took off for first base. Detroit cleaned the ball up quickly, Donald looked to be certainly out and Galarraga looked to have made history. Joyce, however, judged the Cleveland batter to have made it to first successfully. The Detroit home crowd disagreed sharply with him, as did the video replay. (Major League Baseball does not review umpiring decisions with replays.) And after the game, Joyce recanted as well, apologizing to the Tigers' pitcher and admitting "I just cost that kid a perfect game."
The national pastime will go on, however, and America will return to the kind of news everyone the world over pays attention to - especially considering oil might go on leaking into the gulf until Christmas. And Joyce can count at least one supporter on his side. But the furore over this incident is a nice reminder that the United States, just like every other country, has its own odd little obsessions that do not come up on an outsider's radar.
Super Bowl Sunday
By http://ussc.edu.au/people/jonathan-bradley in Washington DC
8 February 2010
We're minutes away from the kick off of Super Bowl XLIV (Remember, I told you that the virtuous New Orleans Saints would be up against the blandly efficient Indianapolis Colts), and it's good to know that down in the great state of Louisiana, even the politicians are looking out for the home team.
But the evil empire the Big Easy is up against is not the Peyton Manning-led Colts, but the NFL itself, who have tried to stake their claim to the home grown fan chant of "Who Dat?" Check it:
Now, after breaking a 43-year run of bad luck to win a place at this weekend’s Super Bowl, the NFL’s multi-billion dollar corporate machine has taken a sudden interest in the “Who Dat” catchphrase, claiming that it owns the rights to its usage. It has even issued “cease and desist” notices against small-time souvenir vendors for using the words on T-shirts and demanding royalties on their profits.
The move prompted uproar among the Saints’ fan army, known as the Who Dat Nation, and turned into a political crisis when the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee passed a motion calling on the State Governor, Bobby Jindal, to set his attorney-general on the NFL.
It wasn't only up-and-coming GOP star Jindal who came to the defence of the home town's fans. Louisianan Democrats in DC, like Rep. Charlie Melancon, in a true display of bipartisanship, collected signatures for a pro-Saints petition. But the true star was Republican Senator David Vitter, who, in a penned missive, dropped this bomb on the NFL:
“This letter will also serve as formal legal notice that I am having T-shirts printed that say, ‘Who Dat say we can’t print Who Dat?’ for widespread sale in commerce. Please either drop your present ridiculous position or sue me,” wrote the Republican, while the Democratic Congressman Charlie Melancon collected thousands of signatures on a petition entitled: “No one owns ‘Who Dat’ except for the Who Dat Nation.”
The NFL caved of course, and today, Saints fans are free to sell their dodgy merchandise to their hearts' content. And on that feel-good note, it's time for a great game of football. Or a run of fantastic commercials, interrupted by organised violence, should you prefer. Either way, GEAUX SAINTS.
EDIT: If you're interested, check me tweeting the game at @jbradleyUSSC on Twitter.
They call me the N.O. capo
By http://ussc.edu.au/people/jonathan-bradley in Washington DC
25 January 2010
If you're wondering about the title of that last post, direct your attention to the Wikipedia* article on the subject's extensive history:
Who dat? is the name of a chant of support by fans of the New Orleans Saints, an American football team. The entire chant is: "Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints?"
[...]
The chant of "Who Dat?" originated in minstrel shows and vaudeville acts of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and was then taken up by jazz and big band performers in the 1920s and 30s.
The first reference to "Who Dat?" can be found in the 19th Century. A featured song in E.E. Rice's "Summer Nights" is the song "Who Dat Say Chicken In dis Crowd", with lyrics by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.[1] A common tag line in the days of Negro minstrel shows was: "Who dat?" answered by "Who dat say who dat?" Many different blackfaced gags played off that opening. Vaudeville performer Mantan Moreland was known for the routine.[1] Another example is "Swing Wedding," a rarely shown 1930s Harmon-Ising cartoon musical, which caricatured Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Ethel Waters, and the Mills Brothers as frogs in a swamp performing minstrel show jokes and jazz tunes. The frogs repeatedly used the phrase "who dat?"
In the swing era, "who dat" chants back and forth between the band and the band leader or between the audience and the band were extemporaneous. That is, there was no one specific set of words except for the two magic ones.
*I'm usually very wary of Wikipedia, but this is too interesting to pass up.
Who Dat?
By http://ussc.edu.au/people/jonathan-bradley in Washington DC
25 January 2010
If ever there were a game to convert you to the pleasures of American football, it was tonight's NFC Championship contest between the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings. The match up between an entertaining team from a hurricane-ravaged hard-partying Southern city with an infectious level of hometown pride, against a solid yet unexciting band of interlopers led by an aging turncoat of a quarterback (fans of his previous team, the Green Bay Packers, are none too happy about his Vikings' contract), made for a contest in which even a novice could delight. That the two teams were matched touchdown for touchdown, field goal for field goal, heartbreaking fumble for heartbreaking fumble, made for the kind of epic drama that makes it seem not-so-silly to get worked up about two packs of armor-clad grown men smashing into each other for a few hours on a Sunday night.
Because, really, I'm not usually a fan of any kind of sport. I make an exception for the NFL, and watching this game in a noisy Virginia sports bar, where even the wait staff would halt their work and cheer on the major plays, was an absolute delight. That this game was the kind that was won with a field goal prised in an overtime period the Saints gained only through a last-second Vikings fumble made it even better.
In two weeks time, the New Orleans Saints will face off against the Indianapolis Colts in Miami for Super Bowl XLV. Millions of Americans will tune in, many of whom will be watching solely for the big budget commercials and the cultural experience; I will be watching for the football as well. It's tough to see the game in Australia due to the time difference (it will kick off mid Monday morning in Sydney), but if you get a chance to watch, give it a look. The big budget spectacle of football is one of America's great and unique joys, and seeing the time-tested, superstar-led Colts face a New Orleans playing the franchise's first Super Bowl promises to be an excellent experience. I'll be eating chili, drinking a few Buds, and cheering on the Saints. Y'all should join me.
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