Sports can be an experimental laboratory of real life. Rival teams and emotional fans resemble public moods around a presidential election. Above all in a playoff game, heading into the championship, fans reach a pitch of polarization, hurling insults against the other side. In a game, this emotional peak blows over relatively soon; a few hours compress mood shifts that in an election can last for months.
In the game I will discuss, the blow-up happened over an umpire’s call of a home run, announced on TV and on the scoreboard, that was later reversed. This created a nasty mood in the stadium, the teams almost coming to blows and the fans throwing things at the players. In the 2020 election, the results announced on election night were reversed in the coming weeks. This created a nasty mood on the losing side, leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol during the ratification of the vote. The whole process left a continuing residue. Denying the 2020 vote results became a badge of loyalty on the Trump side, whose supporters act much like fans at a game in the rallies orchestrated by Trump.
The Dodgers-Padres blowup in the Sunday, October 6 game is a mini-version of that dynamic.
At Dodger Stadium, Mookie Betts hit a home run into the lower left field stands that appeared to get the Dodgers back into the game after the Padres took a 1-0 lead. The left field umpire called it a home run; so did the TV announcers; it went up on the scoreboard, 1-1. Mookie was already circling the bases between second and third when the umpire reversed his call. Left fielder Jurickson Profar had jumped into the stands to grapple with a mêlée of fans, and at first appeared to come down on the field without the ball. Profar was only spoofing: with a grin he opened his glove to show he had the ball.
The game turned into an escalating series of hostilities and insults. In the 6th, Dodger starter Flaherty hit Padres slugger Tatis with a pitch. The up-coming batters, Profar and Machado, yelled angrily. Profar rubbed it in by beating out a bunt single. When Machado, the Padres' other big slugger, struck out swinging at a fastball off the plate, Flaherty yelled "Sit the fuck down, asshole!" (or words to that effect). Manny stopped and yelled back before entering the dugout. Tatis went on to score. Flaherty was replaced by a reliever. But as Machado took his position at third base to start the 7th inning, Flaherty yelled out to him from the nearby Dodgers' dugout, Manny yelled back, and the umpires had to separate them as the standoff continued for several minutes.
Bad tempers on the field ignited the fans. Profar, taking his position in left field, was the target of several baseballs thrown at him-- an ironic reference to his "stolen" home run. The umpires surrounded Profar and walked him back to the infield. Security fanned out while the announcer threatened anyone with expulsion for throwing anything on the field. As things seemed to calm down, bottles were thrown at Tatis taking his position in right field. Altogether the game was delayed for 10 minutes, while the teams huddled like a football team for a goal-line stand.
Sociologically, the situation was the same as the night of the 2020 presidential election, and its following days and weeks. On election night, there were numerous undecided states, but in many states people went to bed with Trump ahead. In the following days, returns trickled in-- chiefly because the new system of early balloting by mail, plus a variety of new voting technologies, slowed everything down. In every election since wide-spread TV reporting in the 1950s, the public knew the outcome the same night, or at worst, the next morning when west coast polls were counted. In November 2020, stretching even into December, the number kept changing. In almost every instance, apparent Trump victories turned into Biden victories. The situation was like Jurickson Profar looking like he had missed catching the home run ball; then when Mookie Betts was almost to home plate, pulling out the ball he had hidden in his glove.
Publically announcing one result in a tense contest, then changing it, is a formula for making a lot of people angry. Yes, the delays in November 2020 are sociologically understandable; new procedures and technologies are slow to get up and running. But when fans or partisans are at a peak of emotion, the appearance of clandestine manipulation stokes outrage and distrust.
There is a sociological explanation of the swing in vote-counting: liberals were much more likely to embrace early voting, while conservatives clung to the traditional practice of coming out to vote on election day. But a sociologist can also see that people going to the polls is a social ritual. It brings people out; even opponents share the excitement of the crowd. The very act of voting together-- palpably, bodily assembled-- generates a feeling we are part of democracy in action. Immediate announcement of results make them collectively real, even if you lose. It is this feeling of social solidarity and reality that is undermined by remote voting. Like everything else in the Internet age, substituting solitary action-at-a-distance for public assembly leads to distrust. The January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was one result.
For the November 2024 election, and no doubt into the future, we are stuck with a mix of mail-in, drop-off, app-in, and in-person voting. Early results from eager news sources will clash with technological glitches and bureaucratic plodding. If one wanted to design a system for generating distrust in election results, and hostile reactions after your side has lost, this would be it.
Without making a sociological prediction about the outcome of the election, I would point out this: Dodger fans were the outraged "home run deniers". The Padres, energized by the attack, won the game.
