As I publish
this, I’m in the final days of a vacation.
Every year, I meet friends for a week of minor league baseball, regional
food, and enjoyable beverages. (The
friends also humor me by agreeing to look at cool downtowns and walkable neighborhoods.)
This year,
we traveled to New Mexico where most of the professional baseball teams are in
the independent Pecos League. The week
of independent baseball caused me to think back upon my years in independent
ball. In particular, I recalled a story that
illustrated an urbanist moral.
We had a
season-ticket holder whom I’ll call Bridget.
(The actual woman was in her 70s and in failing health when I knew her
nearly twenty years ago, so has likely passed away. But I’ll let her rest in peace by using a
pseudonym. Otherwise, the story is fully
true.)
Bridget was
the kind of season-ticket holder who is important to lower level minor league ballclubs. She could barely scratch together the cost of
her season ticket and never patronized the concession stands, so she didn’t
make much of an impact on club finances.
But she was eager to help the club in other ways. In particular, she often undertook sewing
tasks such as stitching commemorative patches onto jerseys and mending torn
uniforms.
Her mending
duties led to a conversation that illustrated a bit of her character.
We had a
center-fielder, Marco, who was a player, in every sense of the word, both on
the field and off. One evening, Marco
tore his baseball pants, requiring overnight repairs. About twenty minutes after the game ended,
with the primary stadium lights turned off and all but a few fans long gone, I
spied Bridgett waiting in the shadows near the clubhouse.
Not knowing
about the mending task that we’d asked of her, I asked her if she needed
help. She replied, “I waiting to get
Marco out of his pants.”
“Bridget,
I’m shocked!”
She shook
her white hair, pursed her thin lips, and admonished me, “You know what I mean!” But she couldn’t hide the small hint of a
grin at the naughty suggestion that she might still have something to offer a
24-year-old athlete.
But Bridget
really showed her colors on the Star-Spangled Banner. Like many ballclubs, we had a choice of
playing the same scratchy recording of the Star-Spangled Banner for 45 games
each season or inviting local musicians to audition for a chance to play at one
of the games.
Of course,
we choose the latter. Not only did we
hope to sell tickets and concessions to the friends and family of the musicians,
but we hoped some of them would enjoy the experience enough to return for
another game. (It may sound mercenary,
but balancing the books in independent ball, not to make a profit but just to
keep the gates open, requires being
mercenary.)
As might be
expected, with 45 local musicians for 45 games, some of the musicians weren’t
particularly good, or had renditions that diverged substantially from
traditional, or both.
Several
times a season, after a particularly inventive version, Bridget would feel obligated
to berate the owners for the sacrilege. As
she slowly worked her way down through the stands, the other owners would find
refuge in the press box or think of urgent cell phone calls that had to be made
at that moment. But I was often willing
to chat with her.
“That was
wrong! The Star-Spangled Banner needs to
be played as it was written.”
“What do you
mean, Bridget? The words were written as
a poem. Do you mean that we should
recite the poem?”
“No! You know what I mean. The music should be played the way it was
written.”
“But the
melody was written as a drinking song for a London social club. Do you mean we should import slightly inebriated
Brits to sing the song?”
“No! It should be played the way it was when I was
a girl, when my daddy first brought me to this ballpark.”
“And when
was that, Bridget?”
“1936.”
“So, in the
entire history of the Star-Spangled Banner, the way it was played in this ballpark
in 1936 was the only way it should ever be played?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, I’ll
advise the general manager.”
“You do that.” And she would stomp back to her seat while
the fans within earshot tried to stifle smiles.
I t
appreciated Bridget’s passion and her commitment to the ballclub. But her insistence that 1936 was the apogee
of the Star-Spangled Banner was silly.
However, her
contention, as ridiculous as it may have seemed to those in earshot, is unfortunately
similar to the attitudes that many take toward land use. And it’s an attitude that’s ultimately harmful
to our future.
Trying to
preserve the 1980s form of land use is a bad idea, particularly because of what
we now know about the financial and environmental impacts of that land use
configuration. But trying to preserve the
1890s land-use pattern is just as bad.
We’re a different people now, with different lifestyles, and our land
use needs to reflect that.
Some try to disparage
urbanism by claiming that it’s a foolish attempt to recapture the past. But that’s a strawman argument, falsely
attributing a characteristic just so it can be criticized.
No, urbanism
is about taking the best of all past practices (admittedly, there were more
good ideas before World War II than after) and applying those ideas to who we
are today. Urbanism isn’t about walking
around in top hats; it’s about walking around in cargo pants, using our phones
to navigate through a city that is environmentally and financially sustainable.
I still
appreciate what Bridget did for the ballclub two decades ago. And if she wanted to complain about the
occasional electric guitar riff in the middle of the Star-Spangled Banner, then
I was willing to listen to her in good humor.
But if she, or anyone else, were to take the same rigid attitude toward land
use planning, then I’d be unhappy.
As always, your questions or comments will be
appreciated. Please comment below or
email me. And thanks for reading. - Dave
Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
No comments:
Post a Comment