Chris Baer

From Here to Boo-ternity: The Boo in Philadelphia Sports Culture

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By my quick calculations, the 2008 World Series winning Philadelphia Phillies were only World Champions for fifteen pitches before being booed again in the second inning of the first game of the new season.

From Andy Martino’s recap of the game in the April 6, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer:

[A]t 8:27, rightfielder Jeff Francoeur hit Myers’ first pitch of the second inning into the left-field stands. Some in the crowd, so boisterous during the pregame ceremonies, voiced the first boos of 2009.

At 8:30, centerfielder Jordan Shafer, in his first major-league plate appearance, hit a 3-1 pitch into the stands in left-center field, and the booing became louder and more widespread.

Sounds about right. As a fan of Philadelphia sporting teams myself, I understand the love-hate relationship that exists between the fans and the teams in the much-maligned City of Brotherly Love.

But it’s an easy trope to trot out, a broad brush to paint a city’s fans with, this whole “Santa-booing boors” thing, and many point to the city’s relative paucity of championships in the past few decades as deriving from the apparently negative atmosphere the fans create. Perhaps a fair point.

No doubt there are athletes who do not perform well when they are derided for their efforts, who prefer to play in comforting arenas filled with unstinting supporters. They don’t tend to do well in Philadelphia, and perhaps they have played below their potential while there because of their rough treatment. But for every athlete who wants to get out of town, there’s another excited by the prospect of playing there.

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Who Got Pop Culture in My Peanuts?

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If your only exposure to Charles Schultz’s comic masterpiece, Peanuts, is via the “Classic” Peanuts feature in most newspapers that endlessly repeats the strip’s greatest hits, as it were, then you can be excused for thinking that Peanuts floated, unsullied, above the pop culture storms during its multi-decade run.

Thanks to Fantagraphics’ Complete Peanuts project, which is reprinting the entire series in chronological order, we’re able to see that Schultz did, on occasion, make reference to current events that, to modern eyes, seem quite outdated, like these panels from March 8, 1972 (in The Complete Peanuts: 1971 to 1972):

Johnny Who?

Talk about a time-bound joke! Though the context makes it clear that Johnny Horizon is somehow associated with the environmental movement, he’s hardly a household name some thirty-seven years later.

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Sir Chair of the Duchy of Desk: MMO Name Inspirations (or the lack thereof)

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Virtual worlds blog Terra Nova takes a look at some of the choices players make when naming their avatars in Massively Multiplayer Online games, examining the rather mundane inspirations that guide some decisions.

Can you find the stupid names in this picture?

While focusing mainly on a World of Warcraft forum thread (now expired) that examines avatar names derived from common household objects, Terra Nova’s Timothy Burke also touches on a very interesting point about the intersection between names and voice communication:

Other times, we’ve given some thought to how a neologism or random name sounds. But other times, the question itself is a bit of a surprise, and we suddenly realize that something which was entirely textual up to that point is now also oral. It’s really interesting to see how people negotiate that moment of invention, where they have to decide just how to say the character’s name, or decide that they don’t really care how it’s said and will respond to any recognizable variant pronounciation.

As I’ve examined in the past, character names are important to a player’s immersion in the game world. If my character’s name is unpronounceable, or untypable, I have to accept that other players will refer to me by a nickname or shortening of my chosen character name. If you cannot adapt to the name that is bestowed upon you because of the inherent complexity of your chosen name, you’ll find your immersion lessened.

The fact that most games put up barriers to name changes, ranging from a not-insubstantial fee (as in World of Warcraft’s $10 charge) to a complete prohibition on changes (as in EVE Online), suggests that game developers understand the importance of a consistent name, both for continuity of reputation within the game world and for that sticky, immersive quality that keeps players playing—and paying for—the game.

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Roast Pork in a Box?

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Tony Luke’s recent unveiling of its frozen Roast Pork Sandwich puts Movement Point‘s longstanding advocacy for Philadelphia Roast Pork Sandwich Awareness to the test.

Image from https://web.archive.org/web/20090308002055/http://www.philly.com/philly/business/40631707.html

Any effort to get Roast Pork Sandwiches into more homes and hungry hands must be celebrated, because these sandwiches, with their bewitching combination of tender roast pork, sharp provolone, and slightly bitter greens, have flown under the nation’s culinary radar for far too long. But can Tony Luke’s really pull off a good, frozen Roast Pork Sandwich?

Speaking in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the near-eponymous Tony Lucidonio, Jr., says he can:

“I can’t get into too much detail because we have a Patent pending,” Lucidonio said of the new frozen-sandwich preparation process. “It is the way the meat is made that allows the meat to go from a raw steak into a microwave or a boiler bag and come out as if it were grilled.”

Though he is speaking there about his frozen cheesesteaks, one assumes the process is somewhat similar for the Roast Pork Sandwiches. The proof will be in the pork, as they say. I think…

(Image from The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The More Things Change: Updating Archie

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I’ve always had a soft spot for Archie and the gang, for reasons I prefer not to try to understand. Back in the 1980s, I read Archie comics in digest form—the small, bound reprints of stories from the various comic series—and I’ve kept a small collection of them around to read every so often in nostalgic fits.

Recently, I decided to hunt around on eBay for more of them, the way you do when you remember suddenly that everything you once had in your childhood can be bought online, and I picked up a small lot of Archie digests from the early 2000’s. (The fact that I used cash from a recent wargame sale to fund the purchase most likely invalidates my grognard credentials, but I’ll face up to that shame another time.)

Sitting down with the new digests, though, I was struck by how the basic plots were repeated from earlier digests: Archie can’t choose between Betty and Veronica, Reggie and Archie match wits against Mr. Weatherbee, Moose punches someone in the head for being on the same planet as Midge, etc. Of course, now Jughead was phoning in orders to Pop Tate on his cell phone and Dilton was doing research for Ms. Grundy via the Internet, but it was still Archie, right down to his 1950s-era jalopy.

And then I realized that some of the stories were exactly the same. Of course, a digest is a vehicle for repurposing stories that have already appeared, so I wasn’t too shocked. But when I ran across an old gag that relied on contemporary references, I noticed that the art may have been the same (though more crisply printed), but the text was updated:

Hip and Up to the Minute!

Curiously, the 1987 panel, from Betty and Veronica Comics Digest Magazine #25, originated in the 1970’s, judging by the shows referenced. It’s unclear why the writers felt comfortable using one real show name (Six Million Dollar Man) but resorted to fake names for Happy Days and Hawaii Five-O. The 2002 digest panel, from Archie’s Double Digest #134, uses shows more in line with the publication date, all of them real.

I suppose the update was made feasible by improvements in handling the artwork, a digital cut and paste perhaps simpler than an actual paste job would have been in the ’80s.

Not all Archie gags can be so easily updated, though…

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Gravatars Enabled

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Sort of sounds like a line from a Gerry Anderson Supermarionation show: “Gravatars Enable!”

Generic GravatarMovement Point has turned on support for gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars, though their globality relies on blog sites enabling the service). The notion behind the gravatar is to have an avatar that follows you from site to site as you leave comments, to create some semblance of continuity. People with shared interests tend to visit similar sites, so seeing a familiar comment avatar should help create a sense of community in the otherwise anonymous ether.

Gravatars are keyed to the e-mail address required for commenting at most blogs, though rest assured that said addresses are never displayed here at Movement Point. People without a gravatar account have a generic avatar, like the one above.

I like the notion of a single avatar for multiple sites and services. Establishing a “reputation” online is not as simple as establishing a persistent avatar (especially since you can change your gravatar at will), but any steps in the direction of accountability and defined identity online are good steps.

WordPress, the blog engine behind Movement Point, has one-click gravatar support, so it wasn’t hugely difficult to turn it on. Hardest part is figuring out what avatar you want to represent yourself everywhere…