DRAWING CARD(BOARD)
There’s no better way to show your fandom than to buy a cutout of yourself
I’ve been thinking about the cardboard cutouts some baseball teams, including the White Sox, are planning to use this season in place of fans. I’ve been thinking about it too much.
The pandemic has presented many challenges to sports teams, including how to make games seem normal despite the absence of people in seats. This is how someone came up with the idea of having cardboard cutouts in the stands until actual human beings are allowed back. The thinking goes that if a TV audience can be fooled by fake cheering and other crowd noise piped in during games, perhaps it can be fooled by fake people, too.
I’m not sure whoever came up with the idea thought it all the way through.
I worry about a Sox player becoming obsessed with a fetching cardboard figure. You laugh, but I see a player — single or otherwise — who has been cooped up and socially distanced for much too long, thanks to COVID-19. I see a player asking a clubhouse attendant to deliver his phone number to the rigid outline of a woman sitting in Section 139, Row 3, Seat 5 by the Sox’ dugout. I see a ballplayer who repeatedly gets the silent treatment and, for the life of him, can’t understand why. The clubhouse attendant is sent into the stands for the 10th time in 10 days with another missive.
‘‘I long to caress your three-ply corrugated fiberboard curves,’’ the note says. ‘‘You can’t deny the attraction between us. I see it in your lovely, unmoving — some would say almost dead — eyes. Why won’t you call?’’
This leads to a prolonged hitting slump by the player, putting the Sox’ playoff hopes into real question.
My greatest fantasy (the pandemic affects people in different ways, folks) is that somehow the past and present collide and that former Cubs manager Lee Elia goes on his infamous 1983 rant about the fans at Wrigley Field. The Cubs aren’t one of the teams planning on using fan cutouts in 2020, but they are in my fantasy.
Elia: ‘‘I’ll tell you one f------ thing: I hope we get f------ hotter than s--- just to stuff it up them 3,000 f------ people that show up every f------ day. Because if they’re the real Chicago f------ fans, they can kiss my f------ a-- right downtown — and print it!’’
Reporter: ‘‘Um, Lee, you do know that the ‘fans’ are really made of . . . ’’
Elia: ‘‘They’re really, really behind you around here. My f------ a--! What the f--am I supposed to do? Go out there and get destroyed and be quiet about it? For the f------ nickel-dime people that show up?
The m-----------s don’t even work! That’s why they’re out at the f------ game! They ought to get a f------ job and find out what it’s like to go out and earn a f------ living. Eighty-five percent of the f------ world is working. The other 15 come out here.’’
Reporter: ‘‘They really don’t have jobs, Lee. They don’t even have heartbeats. They could maybe land a job in a departmentstore window. Maybe.’’
You get the idea. You probably wish you didn’t.
Apropos of nothing, sort of like this column, Cardboard Fans would be a decent name for a band.
The good news is that the cutout movement will give a boost to charities. Fifteen hundred Sox fans will be allowed to buy a cutout of themselves for $49 each. The figures will ‘‘sit’’ in the stands during games at Guaranteed Rate Field, and the money will go to White Sox Charities. Maybe a TV camera will zoom in on your virtual self, and a friend you haven’t heard from in 40 years will reach out.
‘‘I wish I had your posture,’’ he’ll say. The cardboard movement eventually will lead to the inevitable: cardboard cutouts of media members lined up for free cardboard meals in the press box. And mustard stains on cardboard short-sleeved button-down shirts. Actually, if the team you root for is especially atrocious, the inevitable would be cutout cardboard ballplayers on the field. And a free Bic lighter to angry season-ticket holders for effigy-burning purposes. I think I might be on to something here.
I have another proposal. For years, I’ve been a vocal advocate for adding more netting at stadiums to protect fans from line drives that go screaming into the seats. Too many people have been seriously hurt over the years. Baseball finally woke up a few years ago, slowly introducing changes. This season, the netting at all ballparks will be extended to the far end of each dugout.
But with our world already turned upsidedown, I suggest we get rid of the netting for this shortened season and allow line drives to introduce themselves to the cutouts in the seats. This wouldn’t be good news for poor Bob from Blue Island, his cardboard likeness reduced to pulp at Guaranteed Rate Field. But talk about good TV!
Jason Benetti: ‘‘I think we have a new definition of ‘slaughter rule,’ Stoney.’’
Steve Stone: ‘‘There wasn’t this much confetti at the 2005 World Series parade.’’
As I said, I’ve been thinking about this too much. I’m ready for the real games to begin July 24 for the Cubs and Sox. With fans, real or otherwise.