Folk and Popular Culture in Contemporary Sport

The example of American baseball illustrates the process of transition from folk game to popular sport. This transition process also works the other way. Not only do folk games evolve into organized sports, many folk games are patterned after organized sports.

Millions of Americans play various folk games with rules derived from baseball. In a simple form of baseball for four to six players, those on the team at bat take turns pitching the ball to one another, while members of the opposing team play the field. A batted ball hit past the infielder counts as a single, and one that is hit past the outfielder(s) counts as a double. Generally, a ball hit on the fly past a designated point counts as a home run.

The specific rules and even the name of this game vary from place to place. In southern California, it is referred to as "over the line." while in Maryland a similar game is called '"knocker" or "knockout." Residents of Charlestown. an Irish- and Italian-American neighborhood of Boston, play a game they call "halfball." Halfball is played with a broom handle and a rubber ball that has been cut in half, making its flight erratic. The batter is positioned opposite a large building. Whether a hit qualifies as a double, triple, or home run depends on how high up the building the ball hits. During the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of people attended halfball tournaments in Charlestown, and the game proved to be an important aspect of that community's folk culture.

In recent years, people have been devoting more of their leisure time to popular sport rather than folk games. Children whose grandparents chose up sides for baseball in vacant lots now play adult-organized baseball, football, soccer, and other sports from the time they are four or five years old. Little League baseball, which was founded in the 1930s, used to be confined primarily to middleclass neighborhoods, and it was played exclusively by boys. Over the past two decades, however. Little League and similar programs in other sports have diffused to poor and minority neighborhoods and to foreign countries. Organized team sports for young girls have also become much more commonplace.

Geographic Aspects of Modern Popular Sport. The continued popularity and expansion of modern popular sports depends on linkages between teams and their fans. Modern sports depend on the revenues generated by fans, and the support of fans often depends on how well the teams do on the field.

Sport and Place. The relationship between professional and university sports teams and the communities in which they perform is intimate and complex. As a result, a distinctive geography of sports-fan support for particular teams is evident at geographic scales from local to international.

In the United States, many people retain strong emotional attachment to local high school athletic teams. Visitors to local communities are reminded that they are entering the home team's territory. Team mascots and colors are frequently displayed within the town and nearby communities. The social impact of high school sports is reflected on the local cultural landscape.

The local environment often influences the choice of nicknames and mascots for high school sports teams. Many nicknames are derived from the local employment base—for example, the Miners of Trinidad, Colorado; the Cornjerkers of Hoopeston, Illinois; the Bulldoggers of Dewey, Oklahoma; and the Fighting Farmers of Louisville, Texas. The nickname of the Richland, Washington, Bombers derives from that community's association with the Hanford nuclear research facility nearby.

Other nicknames are drawn from the physical environment. Several communities in western Oklahoma and Kansas have chosen the nickname "Bison." Still others reflect events in community history. The nickname "Orphans" was chosen by the community of Centralia, Illinois, commemorating an early game for which each player showed up in a differently colored uniform. High schools in college towns often point up their association with the local college, hence, Evanston, Illinois (home of the Northwestern University Wildcats), calls its teams the Wildkittens. Teams in Fort Collins, Colorado (home of the Colorado State University Rams), are the Lambkins.

From time to time, ethnic minorities have complained that popular-sport mascots are offensive. In 1991 the success of baseball's Atlanta Braves along with the "tomahawk chop" gesture performed by fans drew protests from many Native-American groups (Figure 6-14). Numerous high schools, however, continue to use nicknames like "Indians," "Chiefs," and "Redskins." In 1989 the state of Minnesota asked its high schools with Native-American mascots to change them, but only twelve of fifty-four complied.

Figure 6-14 Protest at Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium. The selection of team mascots and nicknames and the behaviorthey generate can create ill-will. Native Americans protested theAtlanta Braves' "tomahawk chop" because they felt it demeanedtheir culture

By no means are such protests limited to Native Americans. African-American activists have protested the use of the nickname "Rebels," which symbolizes the Confederate Army in the South. In 1991 seventeen high schools in Mississippi were still using this nickname. Over half were private schools—many of which had been founded in response to government-mandated school integration policy. Indeed, the use of the nickname "Rebels" is largely confined to the South.