We have our own blue states and red states. In Thailand today, the red shirts battle the yellow shirts. We are still some years away from gladiatorial contests between Lockheed Martin and Microsoft.Ĭolors, on the other hand, have remained a major way of dividing up sides. Corporations are more powerful than 40 years ago, but even though they certainly have grabbed the naming rights of many stadiums, they haven’t replaced wealthy individuals as the primary owners of sports teams. We are only a few years away from the time that Rollerball imagined. We did, however, run around like little billboards for local businesses - though I can’t imagine that my striking out or repeatedly dropping fly balls in right field encouraged anyone to shop at the local hardware store. None of us Little Leaguers, of course, took the field in those days with spiked gloves like the ones James Caan flaunts in the movie. In that glimpse into the world of 2018, war has been outlawed and replaced by corporate-sponsored athletic contests just as ruthless as the battlefield. Adults back in 1975 might have found this arrangement vaguely ominous, since that was the year the movie Rollerball came out. The match-ups had an entirely different flavor: the dry cleaner vs. I loved being Green.īy contrast, the baseball teams in my hometown were sponsored by local businesses. We talked of “Purple power” and the “Gold tradition.” For all I know, the league was run by psychologists testing the influence of ideology on child development. Friendships across color lines became strained. The teams were chosen at random, but we became fiercely attached to our color. I played for Green when I was growing up.
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