In the last post of this installment of the summer anthropologies series, I ended with the point that major league baseball (MLB) is an annual demonstration of autocratic corporate power. If that’s the case, I asked, why would anyone go?

Well, humans are complicated. Take my case. I grew up playing baseball since I was about four or five years old. I played it all the time, went to MLB games when I had the chance, collected baseball cards, played baseball on my own in the backyard and out in the street with my friends. I loved the game. But, as I mentioned in this piece, then the big strike hit in the mid 1990s, and I was done with it. Done. Between 1994 and 2022, I went to exactly one MLB game. One. That was on a road trip with my wife, and we decided, in the middle of a road trip from Kentucky back home to California, to catch a Rockies game in Denver. We ate hotdogs with sauerkraut, watched a great game, and it was super fun. That was around 2010 or so. During that almost thirty year period, I checked up on baseball every now and then, but rarely watched and definitely didn’t give MLB any money (except for that one Rockies game). I was about 19 during that strike in 1994, and I was disgusted by the whole thing. So I just walked away. I went surfing for a few decades instead. I was disgusted by the owners and the players–just all of it. Looking back, some of my views of the politics of the sport were a bit naive, but I stuck to my decision and moved on. I had other things to do. 

It was with all of that in mind that I went to about a dozen games this past season (Giants, A’s, and Dodgers). I know the MLB is problematic. But my oldest kiddo got into baseball this year and, well, we went to some games. As I explained in the opening piece of this little sub-series within a series:

It was nice being back after so long. Things that I’d forgotten about all came back–the sounds, the feel of a packed stadium, the smell of hot dogs, popcorn, and not-so-cheap beer. Baseball was my first love, so it was fun to be back.

Like I said, humans are complicated. I happen to be one of them.

So, why do people still go? Well, to start off, maybe it’s about the beauty of the game. No, really. In the opening of Ken Burns mid 1990s baseball documentary, Bob Costas describes baseball as a “beautiful thing.” Costas talks about the rhythm of the game, the choreography of it all. Sportswriter Robert Creamer calls it a pastime (something you do), entertainment (something you watch), and a shared experience (something you read about and talk about with others). But, most importantly, Creamer says “it’s the best game that’s ever been devised.” He says that baseball is great because it’s just so much fun to watch.

Baseball is fun to watch. I grew up watching the Angels play at the “Big A” in Anaheim, and I’ll never forget it. I loved being at the stadium, hearing all those sounds, seeing that massive green field. I loved getting the chance to see my favorite players right there in front of me. I remember the moment when Bobby Grich threw a ball right to me after a double play during one game. These things stay with you. The feelings of being at a game, the sound of the PA announcer, the food–all of it. That’s why people go. 

But baseball isn’t just about watching. It’s also about playing. As someone who started playing around 4-5 years old and played all the way into High School, I can speak to how fun it was to play. To me baseball has always been like chess–this intricate game with all kinds of possibilities that play out each time. It’s just fun seeing how it all enfolds; you never know. And when I say that baseball is fun to play, I’m not just talking about formal, organized baseball. Playing baseball out in the street or out in the backyard was, honestly, just as fun as any formal game I ever played. I remember all of it, and one of the great things about the game is that you really only need some kind of ball and stick to get a game going. We used everything from real baseballs to tennis balls to those amazing wiffle balls that allowed you to throw massive ten foot curve balls for games. Any of it and all of it. Here I think things get interwoven. Many people watch, I think, because the game itself is fun to play…and it’s amazing seeing people who are really good play the game.

So there we have a few reasons why people still go to games, despite the politics of the sport. I also think it comes down to a whole list of other social reasons, ranging from nostalgia to sheer devotion. Some people go to major league baseball games because it reminds them of childhood, memories of a certain time period, or things they used to do with family, friends, etc. Others go–and keep going–because they are so dedicated that almost nothing could get in the way. So we have the nostalgia seekers, on the one hand, and the fanatics, on the other. And then we have all those regional identities and histories–Dodgers fans, Yankees fans, and so on. In many ways, all of this makes sense. I get it.

Even so, I still have questions. While this behavior makes sense on various levels (memory, nostalgia, habit, fanatic devotion, regional identities), it’s hard to understand on others. Given a choice between a world of options, why would so many people choose to take their hard-earned money and use it to watch millionaires play a game on a field owned by billionaires? Is there something else going on here as well?  

I think David Graeber had some interesting answers for these kinds of questions in his book Utopia of Rules. Games, he explained, whether sports events like baseball or board games like Monopoly, appeal to people precisely because they have clear rules, boundaries, winners, losers, beginnings, and endings. Games are appealing, mostly, because they are so different from everyday life, which is often maddeningly complicated, opaque, and uncertain.

Games are spaces in which participants have to follow rules—and there are clear guidelines, incentives, and penalties in place. Baseball is, of course, jam-packed with lots of intricate rules. The rules keep everything running smoothly. Sure, there’s some room for choice and individual moments of heroism, but everything has to fit within the boundaries of the field and all those rules. This ‘utopia of rules,’ as Graeber calls it, is incredibly appealing for people to watch and enjoy, precisely because it’s such a break from real life, where rules are often so arbitrary and unclear, and (some) people get away with breaking them all the time. It’s nice to watch or participate in something where you know when it starts, when it ends, what can and cannot be done, how one can win or lose, and what will happen if rules are broken. There are even official rule arbitrators right in the middle of the field (umpires) to clarify everything as the game progresses. 

So, then, maybe one reason why people go to baseball games is to see and experience that particular ‘utopia’ as a break from the torrid, unpredictable, and often unfair mess that is everyday life. I don’t know how many people actually think about baseball in that way, but I think it’s plausible that this explains some potential underlying motives. Baseball is an escape, a momentary getaway. Mix that together with all the other reasons (memory, identity, habit, etc) and it makes sense why people go…even with all the politics and corruption. I mean, people need somewhere to go, and they can’t always just build their own games and stadiums. So they seek refuge, respite, and some form of communitas in things massive, pseudo-public spaces like baseball stadiums (and Roman coliseums?). They make life–and memory–in the spaces they have. I think they do this despite the machinations and motivations of the (many) owners who rule over the game, the players, and even the fans as if they are all little more than petty holdings from which to extract as much wealth as possible. Dreams, nostalgia, and memory, in this scenario, are simply more grist for the owners’ mill. 

I think the fans know all this, and they go anyway. I think some could care less about the politics of the game. That’s always going to be part of the picture. But for others, I think they go despite full knowledge of the corruption and politics of the sport. There’s a tenacity within many fanbases–a protest, resistance, or pushback–that tells me that the ‘ownership’ question is actually open for debate. It’s contested ground. I think Graeber is right that the ‘utopia of rules’ has a strong appeal, and people go to such things in search of a break, of respite. But I also think there’s a battle over who rightfully owns and controls that supposed utopia. The owners may rule over franchises, stadiums, merchandise, the league, and all those trademarks, but there’s still so much that’s up for grabs.

Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a cultural and environmental anthropologist.

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All the grades are in, summer is here, and we can all start ‘relaxing’ by lining up a bunch of unrealistic work expectations. Finally. One of my goals is to get back to short form writing that is not owned, controlled, moderated, or in any way beneficial to or complicit with the once functional platform known as Twitter. Recently, someone on that platform said something along the lines of ‘If you start writing more than a few lines here, write a blog post instead.’ I like it and I agree. So this summer, it’s time for some non-CV, short-form, yes-of-course-it’s-open-access-because-we-own-the-site blogging.

So my summer project is to write about two things: beaches and baseball. If for some reason you’re still on the threadbare shell of its former self that is Twitter these days, and you happen to follow me there, you may have noticed there’s been a slight uptick in posts about baseball. Slight. Uptick. Long story short: I haven’t followed baseball for decades, but I’ve recently been drawn back into it, thanks in part to my oldest kiddo. You can read more about that–and the recent #ReverseBoycott by Oakland A’s fans–right here.

I’m not an ‘anthropology of sports’ person per se. I have mixed feelings about sports. I grew up loving baseball, but walked away from it in the mid 1990s because, mostly, of the terrible politics, particularly labor politics, of Major League Baseball (see link above). There’s a long history there, and it’s not a good history. So I shifted from baseball, which was rigid and organized, to surfing, which I came to see as a kind of anti-sport that had basically no rules. The tension between baseball and surfing–one rather strictly governed by bounded rules, the other characterized by a kind of anarchic freedom–animated most of my teen years. I remember some of us used to ditch baseball practice–which included things like running laps for punishment–in favor of many, many cool saltwater-laden afternoons in Southern California. But, as much as I saw baseball and surfing as opposites, there were plenty of rules when it came to the latter as well. Just different.

When it comes to sports overall, I vacillate between thinking of them as an ideologically problematic opiates of the masses and vital, fascinating endeavors that humans have engaged in for thousands of years. It’s complicated, right? I mean, I know that professional sports is an overly commercialized juggernaut that commodifies human achievements and experiences and extracts tremendous wealth from loyal fans. But, at the same time, I like going to baseball games, buying overpriced mediocre hotdogs, and reveling in all that can happen on those well-manicured and tremendously striped green lawns. Anyways, sports are weird, odd, complicated, beautiful, and problematic all at once.

So…I’ll be writing about baseball, and beaches. We will see how it goes. There are a few things I have in mind, like looking into some of the deeper histories of human migration and to what extent we might want to think of Homo sapiens as an intrinsically coastal species. I might bring up Carl Sauer on that point. I also want to use baseball–and some recent social media exchanges with hall-of-famer Rod Carew–to think through the age old debate about quantitative versus qualitative views of the world. Short version: some of the overly quant-focused folks in baseball may be…missing a few things. I also have a short piece in mind about language and coastal management, specifically the whole idea of ‘beach nourishment.’ What else? Magic and gift economies and foul balls? Whether or not Polynesians made it to the Americas? The deeper histories of stadiums and what they tell us about human society (baseball economists like J.C. Bradbury tell us they don’t justify public subsidies, for starters)? Why coastal homes listed on Zillow don’t make any mention of the obvious risks they face (even when they show up in the photos)?

As you can see, I have a sort of grab-bag of topics in mind. That’s what blogging is all about. Or was, back in 2005. Maybe, considering the implosion of Twitter, it’s time to revive the art form. Regardless, the ideas I have in mind all come back to beaches and baseball. I don’t know if I’ll be able to actually bring both together at once, but it’s worth a shot.

I’ll leave you with this: Every summer when I take my kids to the beach, we play this game where we build a big wall and then see how long we can resist the rising tide. It’s key, for this game, to time things right. If you build your wall when the tide is dropping, you have a long wait ahead. So check your tide charts. Anyway, the futility of this game always gets me thinking about human coastal occupation overall…and why people build in place–and stay in places–despite the known risks and dangers of the sea. In our little game, my kids sometimes get attached to the little ‘houses’, walkways, or bridges they create, and they do everything they can to save them. The game we play is about engineering, force, and the corrosive power of water (especially against sand). But it’s also about attachment and keeping what we have in the time we’ve got. Humans: we’re complicated.

So it goes with life on the edge of the sea.

Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a cultural and environmental anthropologist.

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In a textured ethnography in guise as an ESPN feature by Sam Borden, The New Hooligans of Russia, one of the men interviewed, “believes fighting is a necessary part of dealing with the anger that grows out of life’s inevitable frustrations and disappointments.” The authorities in Russia are cracking down on these individuals, with some arrests and a general state of alertness. Borden’s article makes space for such fights to sound like a resurgence of an older tradition, a cultural artifact linked to heritage, not a practice that has emerged recently due to an erosion of civil society, class struggles, or some anarchic impulse, which many of the other reports suggest.

Within Anthropology, of course, we can look back to the literature related to war, aggression, and sports. As I have been reading the various reports on the Russian Hooligans, much of the analysis continues to feel settled (perhaps stuck) in early popular ideas related to combative sports. Even though as early as 1973 anthropologists like Richard Sipes argued that aggression is a learned cultural behavior pattern, we continue to see popular ideas of war, aggression and masculinity being linked, particularly in relation to sports.  We also know that the ways in which sports have been studied has changed and become more nuanced, but it continues to be talked about in public discourse in a way to suggest that it has not really moved beyond those early frameworks of aggression. In contrast, Sports (as an enterprise) is and has been trying to change the view that it is linked to masculinity and aggression. Just recently, FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura claimed at the 2018 FIFA conference on Equality and Inclusion, that football can change the world; that it can be used as a tool for social change.

Utilizing her own appointment as the first female Secretary General at FIFA as an indicator, she seems to be leading change within the sport, increasing numbers of women administrators in FIFA from 32% in 2016 to its current 48%. But her claim is not just about hiring more women – it is about inclusion, it is about understanding and underscoring that football has the ability to transcend religion, race, and gender (for some critical reading on issues of race/gender, see The Place of Afro-Brazilian Women in the World Cup, by Melissa Creary and Erica L. Williams).

The Secretary General brings with her the postwar optimism that surrounded the UN – not surprisingly so, given that is her experience prior to FIFA. And in some measure, she is not wrong; there is certainly something about football that brings much of the world together, for example I’m thinking of all the neighborhoods, particularly in the postcolonies, that go all out and decorate their neighborhoods in team colors, like at Siddiq Goth in Malir, Karachi. In these neighborhoods, however, violence and aggression do not break out during the World Cup – at least they have not been reported as resulting from sporting aggression. Being a Baloch neighborhood, there are other issues of violence that continue to plague many of the residents, and it seems as if football provides some respite.

There is something familiar that Secretary General Samoura is trying to do that, at least from the outside, looks somewhat impossible, and yet necessary. She is attempting to un-do a system that was created to reflect (and maintain) a certain world order, a particular power structure that we all love and loathe simultaneously.

FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904, conceived of as an umbrella sports organization within Europe. With France leading the meeting, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland in attendance, and a remarkably absent Great Britain, FIFA was created. As FIFA’s history web-page (very pointedly) relates, “When the idea of founding an international football federation began taking shape in Europe, the intention of those involved was to recognise the role of the English who had founded their Football Association back in 1863.” Apparently the Football Association had been contacted, but there were delays in getting feedback from everyone involved to move it forward. But really, how could they have moved it forward? Great Britain and France were not really on good terms. In fact, the founding of FIFA happened a little over a month after the Entente Cordiale (April 8, 1904) — an Anglo-French agreement that ended (or started the end of) the antagonism between both powers primarily to grant freedom of action to Great Britain in Egypt and to France in Morocco. This agreement did not create an alliance, but it did set the stage for diplomatic cooperation that would help in their stance against the German’s leading up to WWI. Also part of this agreement, and arguably more significant, was France renouncing its exclusive right to certain fisheries off Newfoundland, and Great Britain ceding the Los Islands (off of French Guinea) to France. Moreover, Great Britain agreed to French control of the upper Gambia valley, defined the frontier of Nigeria in France’s favor, and zones of influence for the French and British in Thailand were outlined. Indeed, as Matisse was imagining how to represent a world in a particular manner and form in Paris, in just as vivid and non natural strokes, the colonial powers were distributing the world and its resources, and conjuring up new worlds within which football would bring people on the European landmass together.

I do applaud FIFA Secretary General Samoura’s efforts to transform a remarkably colonial, racist and misogynist organization, but I also want to draw attention to what happens when there are aggressive transgressions that contest the histories of power, its abuse, and how the bodies that perform them on the field are held to different standards. In this case, it is about the history of wars, aggression and sports that continues to play itself out on the field and in the stands. There are particular ways in which we see brown bodies claim their space on the field — where it becomes less about the patriotic jerseys and claims to nationhood that football teams obviously represent – and it becomes something slightly more nuanced, an historic global resistance that pulls people together because the tension of being pulled apart becomes obvious through some action done to that body as a power play. This can be done through the media and narratives spun around the players, or can be done by the powerful sports institutions themselves. It is the responses that those athletes have to such explicit racism that I am always watching for because it, in that moment, becomes emblematic of all of our struggles.

Gearing up for the World Cup, there is always a lot of activity in the football world. In particular, last week I read a headline about how Zinedine Zidane resigned as Real Madrid’s Head Coach. As ESPN’s Dermot Corrigan reported: “Zidane shocked the football world with Thursday’s snap decision to resign just days after securing a third Champions League trophy in just two and a half years as Madrid coach.” The mode by which many sports reporters articulate this decision is telling: they focus on the quickness of it, the knowing that he might be getting fired anyway, and the overall snappiness of it is reminiscent of the tone used after the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final. It was in that World Cup Final that Zidane, famously, ended his last game as Captain of the French Team by getting a red card in overtime after headbutting Marco Materazzi. At the time, his actions were called into question as unsportsmanlike and acts of a hooligan. What else could one expect, they asked us from their news rooms, from an Algerian Kabyle descent child who grew up in poverty in northern Marseille? Reporters continued to bring up Zidane’s childhood in order to explain his actions. He was cast as violent, unpredictable, and uncivilized.

Halfway around the world, however, in Brooklyn NY, the entire crew of football enthusiasts cheered for him. Caught off guard, we knew the headbutt was not just for whatever verbal altercation that had ensued. We raised our fists and yelled at the projection in the side room of a dingy restaurant in Williamsburg.

I cannot help but think of the many ways by which we love and loathe colonial structures (cough archaeology cough) and how these choices to decolonize or address issues of equity and inclusion are not limited to academic discourses but are emerging in multiple disciplines, and practices. Right now, because of how toxic the world has become, the academy is starting to feel like bare-knuckle fighting among ourselves – allies, accomplices, friends, and others. I wonder if our disciplines are ready for that change or if we will have to continue to slowly headbutt our way through, red card after red card.

Uzma Z. Rizvi

Uzma Z. Rizvi is an associate professor of Anthropology and Urban Studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY, and a Visiting Scholar at Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, Pakistan. Her current work focuses on Ancient Pakistan and UAE, during the third millennium BCE. She utilizes poetics as a mode through which to push the limits of archaeological theory. Additionally, her research focuses on ancient subjectivity, intimate architecture; memory, war, and trauma in relationship to the urban fabric, critical heritage studies at the intersections of contemporary art and history, and finally, epistemological critiques of the discipline in the service of decolonization.
Previous posts can be accessed via https://savageminds.org/author/uzma/

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