Fun at the Stadium
The other day I was at a major league baseball game. The middle innings can get slow, the stadium gets a little quieter, and people’s attention starts to wander. As I was watching the special announcements on the scoreboard I heard a familiar sound – the roar of the wave. It amazed me that 25 years after I first witnessed the beauty of the ‘wave’, people still seemed as excited as ever to participate. Its funny to watch the anticipation on people’s faces as the wave gets nearer and nearer to them… and then they finally get the opportunity to jump up, raise their hands and sit back down. Then the anticipation grows again until the wave makes its way all around the stadium.
There are many different styles of participation. There are those who give a half-hearted effort either because they don’t want to let the other 30,000 strangers down, or because they really want to do it, but feel kind of stupid doing it. Then there are those people whose eyes light up and they yell loundly when they get to stand up. Then there are those who just enjoy getting out of their seats because they hate baseball to begin with and the wave is the most fun they had all night.
There is always the initiator. The guy who started it in his section and brags to his buddies becasue he started it. This time there was a Forrest Gump type guy who ran across the aisle as it came time for each section to stand up. Soon the wave was faster than him and he would retreat back to his starting point. The only reason I call him Forrest Gump was because he had this set of keys dangling from his belt and when he ran, it looked as if he had just learned how to do it that morning. All i could think of as he ran across the aisle was “Run Forrest run”.
A couple years ago I thought that Minnesota was the only stadium left that continued to do the wave.. I figured since everything hits minnesota about 7 years after it hits the rest of the world, it is possible that the wave is still popular here. But I have been to a few stadiums since and I can verify that it is actually done in other major league parks. Although I cant really say that Kansas City is a barometer for ‘trendy’. I just have to assume that the wave is one of those phenomenons that will last forever.
