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September 13, 2007
Jays Promo Takes A Shot At A-Rod
From the Daily News - with a hat tip to BaseballThinkFactory.org -
Alex Rodriguez and the Blue Jays have a heated history this season, with A-Rod getting plunked twice in retaliation for his infamous "Ha!" play, when he distracted Toronto fielders from an infield pop.
Last night, during an otherwise-uneventful game last night, a new chapter was added.
In a video game promotion in the middle of the sixth inning, two Jays fans were playing a baseball game on the scoreboard screen, pitching to A-Rod. Twice they threw at him, missing once and hitting him once and leaving Joe Torre unhappy.
"It's ridiculous," Torre said after the Yanks beat Toronto, 4-1. "Some of the videos they have period, it's all about violence. There are certain cities, one of our players gets knocked down and they start laughing and cheering. I don't understand it.
"To me, this game is about playing it and not about hurting somebody. To me, if you show it at a ballpark, you're telling the youngsters it's OK to do it and that's not a good message to send. I don't know if it's hockey - it's a little more of a violent game than ours - and I'm not sure if that's a carryover in what they do or how they promote.
"It certainly lacks good sense, I think."
I seem to recall, recently, some team doing a bad promotion - or one in bad taste - and them having a person in the organization fired over it. I think that Bud Selig should demand the same from the Jays on this one. This idea was just flat out incendiary by Toronto and it should not be tolerated.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at September 13, 2007 08:06 AM
Comments
Was that when the White Sox guy was playing a Whitesnake song (Tawny Kitaen had been married to the lead singer) when Chuck Finley (her then current husband) was warming up? And the WS did fire the guy.
Posted by: rbj ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 13, 2007 08:36 AM
Was the ad you're referring to the one with Frank Thomas beating a kid with a pillow (the kid is actually his real-life son.)? The ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMdelLmvUf0) was banned by Canadian media.
I agree that advertising violence is not a good idea. However, I understand that for these teams, fostering hatred of the Yankees is good for business. There's a reason that the Yankee lead the league in road attendance, and it's not entirely due to widespread Yankees fandom.
Posted by: mehmattski at September 13, 2007 08:37 AM
I was at the game last night. They do the video game segment at every Jays home game, certainly every one I've been to this year, it's some sort of megacorp promotion. The players usually are older and nervously wave when the camera gets on them for their 10 seconds of glory. Last night they chose a couple of giggling attention seeking young guys as the two video game players, the one guy kept waving his Red Sox cap in the air as soon as the camera came on him. Even some of the Yankees fans in attendance were laughing and shaking their heads, he was deliberately over the top. This wasn't a "Yankees Blue Jays chapter", someone is trying too hard.
Posted by: jamesonandwater at September 13, 2007 09:16 AM
And the Frank Thomas ad is still all over the TV, it hasn't been banned.
Posted by: jamesonandwater at September 13, 2007 09:18 AM
james,
Here's where I got the information that it was banned: http://www.globesports.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070403.wsptjays3/GSStory/GlobeSportsBaseball/home
"The Blue Jays and Publicis Toronto, the company that came up with the ad, felt the spot was innocuous. However, the Television Bureau of Canada, the watchdog that approves TV commercials for private broadcasters, thought otherwise.
TBC refused to approve the commercial until the part showing the child being knocked to the floor was edited out.
The CBC, however, is able to broadcast the original version of the commercial and is doing so."
That was back in April, so maybe things have changed.
Posted by: mehmattski at September 13, 2007 10:07 AM
There was this one too:
http://www.waswatching.com/archives/2005/06/classy_cats.html
http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2003/0330/1531639.html
Posted by: JJay at September 13, 2007 12:57 PM