Toward the end of the semester in “Seminar in Journalism as Literature,” Dr. Ron Rodgers assigned us the task of trying our own hand at gonzo journalism. Because an individual writer’s style is nearly impossible to duplicate, this would essentially require having Hunter S. Thompson write the assignment for us. Still, we each gave it our best shot—some landing closer to the goal of a gonzo piece than others. Mine was probably somewhere in the middle of the pack.
It’s a critique of the inanity of a 21st century pro sports broadcast. While ROOT Sports of Pittsburgh is far from the worst practitioner of this sort of in-game nonsense, I watch its programming for the Penguins and Pirates games more than any other station. I cannot duplicate the actual video clip here, but you’ve probably seen something like it if you’ve ever watched a pro game on TV.
We’ve all seen this sort of nonsense before. When we do, we hope we never see it again.
It’s the kind of display that only the ever-desperate-for-more television lens could possibly care about. The kind of claptrap that makes the halfway intelligent viewer sit back and wonder “Who really gives a shit?!”
The scene I’m talking about went down on Thanksgiving Eve when the Pittsburgh Penguins hosted the St. Louis Blues in a perfectly entertaining Wednesday night National Hockey League game. Even without any sort of telecast frills, this is the type of contest that keeps hockey purists locked in for the full 60 minutes of play (sometimes more if it goes to a shootout).
I’ve watched, for the past two hours, as my Penguins have played the Blues to a perfectly enjoyable one-all tie. The game is returning from a television timeout (what a horribly wondrous late-20th century capitalist creation that was) with about 13 minutes left in the hockey game, which is being broadcast on ROOT Sports Pittsburgh. What the hell kind of name for a television network is that, anyway? The cringeworthy moniker became even more absurd with a recent spate of corporate summer promotions with the tagline, “You’ve always had a place to watch, now you have a place to ROOT!”
Gee, thanks, Mr. Suit in Seattle.
Back to the action? Yes, I think so.
But wait just a minute. What do we have here? In comes the voice of one Mr. Dan Potash, loyal sideline correspondent, in effect telling us that, OH YES! This is a big night for one special fan!
He’s standing under a concourse awning in the middle of the CONSOL Energy Center (all hail western Pennsylvania coal and gas drilling!) with a fan from nearby Charleroi, Pa., a town about 50 minutes down the Monongahela River.
What has this gent, a Mr. Tom Mimidis, done to warrant the 67 seconds of fame he’s about to have lavished upon him? Nothing at all, really. Nothing more than any other fan in attendance did tonight. That is, he simply showed up.
Mr. Potash (whose name sounds something like a Thanksgiving dish—“Hey, ma, wudja pass the danpotash there, please? I want it here on my plate next to the stuffing.”) asks Mr. Mimidis, Greek god of attendance, to recount in dramatic form how his night at the hockey game began.
Potash, who wears thin-framed glasses and an excellent suit, buddies up like any worthy sideline reporter to Mimidis, a man he’s surely never met before in his life.
“You entered the building with seats in section 216,” Potash says. “But what happened as you came through the turnstile?”
Yes, tell us, oh blue-sweatered one!
“They told me I was the 25 millionth customer—er, fan—to uh, come into the, to see a game,” he says, hands in his pockets and Pitt Panthers hat on his head.
Potash responds with the first in a line of questions that aren’t really questions.
“So, you never thought that was coming, huh?”
“I wasn’t ready for that,” Mimidis guffaws, with his son and buddy (who we never actually hear from) smiling alongside and loving the whole bizarre exchange.
What follows is a concise, vivid, three-second history of the team, from its origins in 1967 all the way to Mimidis showing up tonight. Then Potash confirms something on air that he had obviously talked over during the commercial break with his subject. Mimidis rarely actually buys tickets for the game.
“You don’t buy tickets very often, though, right?”
“Nah. Wish I could, but I don’t. No.”
Potash surely hoped for something or someone more—say, a season ticket holder or one of those lifelong fans who travels thousands of miles each year to see his beloved ‘Guins on home ice—but this is the hand that the turnstiles, ticket sellers and his producer have dealt him.
They tell us Mimidis’ last game was the Winter Classic, held outdoors in January at the Steelers’ Heinz Field football stadium. Not really all that long ago, but still Potash is getting pumped up over the possibility of Mimidis’ newfound fame spurring him into buying more tickets.
“So now that you’re the big number 25,” Potash says, his head about to nod at least five quick times with each word, “maybe (nod) you’ll (nod) come (nod) to (nod) a few more games (nod)?”
The nods, we assume, are a sign of Potash’s desperation to somehow salvage this stillborn interview borne out of the incestuous relationship between professional sports franchises’ affiliation with their TV rights holders.
“Yeah, yeah I will,” Mimidis says with a polite smile and laugh, but we’re not really supposed to believe him. From an Internet search, I learn he’s the owner of a small business in nearby Belle Vernon, Pa., that makes garage door awnings.
See, here’s the problem with what modern big-time college and pro sports have become. People like Mimidis, a solid, working class family individual who’s been a fan since 1984, can hardly afford to attend, with any sort of frequency, pro hockey games in a city like Pittsburgh, where tickets run from $60 to $215.
Back upstairs we go, as Potash addresses that night’s commentators in the booth. They don’t have much more to add after that riveting exchange.
“Big 25, guys, wow!” Potash grunts. “Back up to you.”
They wish congratulations to Mr. Mimidis, who I imagine at this point just wants to get back to his seat and his cold brew, and note that he’ll be getting a free trip to see the Penguins play on the road later this season.
Later, WTAE, Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate, recounted the whole elucidating event for viewers on the nightly news, adding that Mimidis also won an autographed Sidney Crosby jersey and an upgrade to box seats that night.
The pointless nature of this story becomes ever clearer when I look at the Penguins’ average attendance over the past few years. Except for years when the team was terrible, since the late 1980s, between 600,000 and 700,000 fans generally show up each season.
Guess we will indeed be put through this gotta-fill-time television ringer all over again in another 18 months or so when the total inevitably hits the big 26.
