Take me out to the ballgame?

Well, I was very excited, I think, to attend my first footy game down here in Oz (for those of you unschooled in the higher forms of athletics, “footy” is the abbreviated version of Australian Rules Football, a game that is kind of a conglomeration of American football and soccer, with elements of basketball and volleyball thrown in. In Oz, sports, like the land itself, are something of a conglomeration.) The movie that we watched in Australian History really got me thinking about the place of sports here. It seems like in a land devoted to leisure, of course sports would come to have a kind of pseudo-religious context. And so it would seem; one of the sports commentators was noting how popular athletes are seen as something like young godlings down here, emulated by children and adults alike, and followed devotedly by their acolytes. He recounted how, when he was young, his dad would come into the room in the morning and throw some kind of ball at his head. He had to wake up instantly and identify what kind of ball it was that had been thrown, whether it was a cricket ball or a football or a soccer ball or so on. If he got it right, he dad would bring him into the kitchen and fix him up a nice big breakfast, all glowing with pride, and it would be a good morning. If he got it wrong, however, his dad would drag him out of bed and into the backyard and he’d have to do drills and practice his athletic skills, regardless of the weather. “But,” he said, “it was worth it, just to see the look on my dad’s face when I got it right.” (So immediately, of course, I’m thinking of how this paradigm of fatherhood affects how Christianity is perceived down here and how that does/should affect the way that the gospel is presented as well-i.e. a Father who is approving regardless of performance-but again, that’s another entry.) So, knowing the elevated position that athletics have come to have here, I was curious to see this enacted in an actual sporting event. Well, the first thing I noticed was how different being downtown on a “game day” was from being there at any other time. Throngs of people filled the street, the first actual crowds I’ve seen since coming, most of them sporting either the red and white of the Sydney Swans, or the brown and gold of the Hawthorne Hawks. But, as far as the actual game went, I was disappointed at the level of enthusiasm that was displayed most of the time. Sure, there were sections of the stadium that would go quite crazy when their team scored a goal, but overall it seemed to be just as blasé as any American sporting event that I’ve gone to. Towards the end, however, I was able to observe some funny things. First of all, there was a guy seated a few rows behind us, and about midway through the 3rd quarter, he started yelling out “SYDDDDDD-NEEEEEEEEY! SYDDDDD-NEEEEEEY!” to which another fan in the Hawks section over to our right just yelled “SHUT UP!” in reply. Well, the bloke a few rows up didn’t shut up, and the Hawks fan finally just got so frustrated that he too started screaming, “Yeah okay, go Hawks, we’re cool now aren’t we, yeah, go Hawks, woo hoo,” in a very mocking imitation of the other fan’s enthusiasm. Well, at length this got them both to shut up and the game continued. As we got into the fourth quarter however, the fan’s loyalties seemed to intensify, especially the Hawks’ fans. Their team was trailing significantly (about half as many points as the other team) and so, they began to be very keen-eyed for anything even resembling fowl play. Now, at the refs calls, they began to boo vociferously, and to shout negative remarks about the other team. Well, the game finally ended with the Hawks trailing significantly, which led to some very bruised feeling among the fans, which in turn resulted in some additional shouting matches out in the parking lot.
It was very difficult for me to get so enthused, however. First of all, because the match was so uneven, there was very little tension about who was going to win, which kind of took a lot of the fun out of it. Also, there was the small fact that the sun was shining directly into our eyes the entire game, and so even to see the field we had to shield our eyes, which got kind of tiresome as our arms grew numb from holding that position so long. Then also, there was the fact that the field was so very large, so that it was hard to have a good view, since much of the action seemed to take place on the opposite side of the field. So, actually I think if I could have actually seen what was going on, I would have enjoyed the game a lot more. But at any rate, it was an interesting experience (one of our profs pointed out last week just how nondescript of a word that is, so true, but ha, I will leave you with no other words in parting…)