The Start of the Anti-Dome Artificial Turf Faction (ADATF)

Let’s face it, most knowledgeable football fans don’t like their sport
played on artificial turf or in domes (fans of baseball don’t like
their sport in unnatural environs, either; but that problem has been
largely alleviated by all the new retro ballparks); but here we are in a new
millennium watching football being played in gigantic pool halls, and
not a voice of protest is raised. Well, here’s one.

Football is not just a game of points and point spreads, it’s an
aesthetic. As the pace and style of baseball is defined by 19th Century
principles, making it the pre-eminent pastoral American game; football, born
in the early 1900’s, is the embodiment of the 20th Century’s Industrial
Age. Like baseball, it needs to be true to its roots. Football’s
gridiron is a field of organized mayhem, first played professionally by
Pittsburgh coal miners and Wisconsin meat packers. It was such a dangerous
business that President Teddy Roosevelt had considered banning it from
being played at all.

Until the late 1960’s, muck and mire were as much a part of the game as
reverses and field goals. As the game grew to be more corporate, it
started to get scrubbed clean. I remember a Monsanto ad in Time Magazine
circa 1970, which asked the question “Why are these men playing in the
mud?” under a picture of a particularly muddy game in Cleveland or
someplace; to which Monsanto answered that the cure was artificial turf.

For we fans, it’s particularly punishing watching teams like the
Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions (now in their second dome!) take away
their long-time advantages of forcing southern teams like Dallas and
Atlanta to travel to their  stadia to play on their frozen tundra in the
rain, sleet, snow and wind. (The Tom Landry-led Cowboys were always a
hearty bunch who were up to the challenge, and played tough in the cold
- I refer you to “the Ice Bowl” and their 1975 playoff victory over
Minnesota) That’s why it was so much fun was it to watch the recent New
England Patriots/Oakland Raiders playoff game, the so-called “Snow Bowl”.
Just like the old days. It reminded us how much excitement the climate
can add to football.

Obviously, modern northern teams put up their domes to attract Super
Bowls and high-revenue non-football activities like Monster Trucking. But
what they add in financial gain kills the fun for the true football
fan. As for the practical football consideration, don’t forget the silly
1998 upset of the mighty, fleet-footed  Minnesota Vikings in their
championship game to the boring Atlanta Falcons. Would that kind of
embarrassment have happened in old Metropolitan Stadium? Or how about the most
recent Super Bowl where the St. Louis Shams lost a tough, physical game
to the Patriots, even though St. Louis was supposedly playing under
their ideal weather conditions (none).

One of the most exciting sights in sports is watching a close game in
the rain or snow with dreary mud-soaked players standing around while
the place kicker, in an immaculate white uniform comes off the sidelines
to determine which dirty team’s effort won’t go to waste. And speaking
of mud-soaked players, why must the NFL insist on using dirt-repellant
uniforms? And why not let the grass go to hell as the season goes on?
This isn’t golf. Football’s supposed to suggest the conditions of war;
and unkempt pock-marked fields add to the drama. Just look at “the
greatest game ever played”, the 1958 Championship between the Colts and the
Giants. The Yankee Stadium field looks like a WWI battlefield, complete
with trenches. Only a handful of players, like the Jets’ Curtis Martin
claim they prefer running on AstroTurf. To that I say, they invented
Arena Football for athletes like you, homes.

Think of the most famous images from football’s golden age: the still
shot of Y.A. Tittle slumped in his own end zone, Chuck Bednarik
celebrating over a prone Frank Gifford or old NFL film of Gale Sayers gliding
effortlessly through the San Francisco 49er’s defense on his way to six
touchdowns, and one realizes the mud contributes mightily to these
images. There’s no reason  the NFL cannot re-create this magic. People love
stories and it’s said the best stories are written in sweat and blood;
well add muck and mire to the mix.

Help may be on the way, as the NFL is said to be considering more cold
weather sites for Super Bowls, in addition to the 2007 game in Giants’
Stadium. Imagine Super Bowls in Green Bay, Cleveland and Boston.
 
Lastly, the great running back Marshall Faulk has accrued most of his
Hall-of-Fame running stats in two indoor arenas: the Indianapolis Dopey
Dome and the St. Louis Nightclub Dome. We’ve yet to see him play an
important December game in New York, Chicago or Green Bay. Is he another
Barry Sanders: extraordinary on turf, mediocre on grass? (Remember the
1999 Monday Night game when Barry racked  up a total of thirty-five
yards in 60 minutes on a rain-slicked Tampa Bay field?)

So, all you football fans out there, let your voice be heard: Down with
BoreDomes, take out the ‘Turf and let’s get down and dirty.

Lindley Farley
President of the ADATF

Joe Namath and the NY Jets playing in D-Day-like conditions at Shea Stadium circa 1971.

Kurt Warner and the Rams look like their ready for a massage or a few cold ones in their nightclub-like setting at the TransAmerica Dome.

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