Spring Training Props

This post originally appeared on the Arts page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/02/24/sports-rush-spring-training-finds/

Courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers

 

If you visit Surprise, Arizona for Rangers spring training, you probably won’t find yourself needing to source several bags of whole pecans. You likely won’t find yourself at the mall seeking the cheesiest temporary tattoos you can find. And you almost certainly won’t have to haul a drum kit, keyboard, and complete horn section to the visiting clubhouse.  But should one of the above circumstances arise, let me know. I may be able to help you.

From 2001 to 2012, I attended every Rangers spring training, primarily for the purpose of gathering video and audio elements to create commercials and other media productions for the team. The Rangers ran a pretty lean shop, so as the producer/writer/director of the spots, I typically also served as prop master,

When we shot in Arlington, I knew plenty of places to buy, borrow, or shoplift props. The ballpark had a whole store full of them downstairs. A closet in my old room at my parents’ Fort Worth home became known as “the prop closet” after I raided it multiple times in search of old baseball cards and other sports memorabilia needed for commercials.

Digging up unusual items presents more of a challenge in remote locales, and you never know what a given concept will require. The first time I found myself in need of spring training props beyond bats and balls came in 2002 in Port Charlotte, Florida. 

 










Courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers
 
In the offseason, I had run across a list compiled by the prestigious National Hot Dog and Sausage Council of hot dog-eating dos and don’ts. I built a series of commercials around these official guidelines. It turns out you aren’t supposed to eat hot dogs off fine china, so I was faced with needing to find some dishes we could abuse in a tiny Florida town. I turned to a staple of prop people everywhere, the local Goodwill store. Soon enough, we had a tea set and plates to use in Michael Young’s first career commercial. We ended up not destroying them, and I had no intention of stuffing them into my luggage, so I donated them back to the store. Somewhere, someone is eating off the same second-hand plates a future All-Star did.


I can tell you where the Goodwill is in Surprise, Arizona, too. I found an owl sculpture for a Park Place Dealerships Triple Play spot that former third baseman Hank Blalock found hilarious. Later, we would put it in random people’s offices at the ballpark. It is probably still floating around up on the fourth floor somewhere. Goodwill was no help, however, when it came to finding whole pecans.

The ad campaign in 2011 revolved around Texas symbols like bluebonnets, longhorns, and, in this case, the state tree. The premise of the spot was that Nolan Ryan (team president at the time) had planted a pecan tree in the ballpark. Texans know shelling pecans can be a difficult task, so power-hitter Nelson Cruz had supposedly been recruited to help by mashing them off a tee, assisted by then-hitting coach Thad Bosley. I needed pecans still in their shells, and Arizona is not the pecan haven North Texas is. I finally found some in a co-op grocery down in Tempe and Cruz scattered them around the batting cage.

We had used the same batting cage in 2005 for applying temporary tattoos. For that project, I needed to scour the local mall for a selection of the goofiest looking ones. I didn’t write the commercial this time. The idea came from first baseman Mark Teixeira, and he scripted it with input from Young and Blalock. Blalock had attained some notoriety for his body art, and Teixeira and Young amusingly imitated him with limited success.

I returned to Tempe for some custom wardrobe for a 2012 spot. We couldn’t schedule the shoot until the last minute and needed custom t-shirts done lickety-split. A college town seemed like the place to find what we needed, and Brand X Custom T-shirts delivered them. For this particular spot, I also shipped out the entire stock of prop clothing I kept at the ballpark for use in videos. 

 












Courtesy Tim George/Texas Rangers

We needed a lot, because the premise of this spot was that for Nolan Ryan t-shirt day, we would actually be giving away Nolan’s own shirts. His wife had ostensibly tired of them cluttering the closets and was getting rid of all his ratty old tees. The crafty Hall of Famer had snuck out an old favorite, however, and worn it to game with his grandkids (the spot did co-star some actual Ryan grandchildren). The piece had five alternating endings, which meant Nolan had to change five times to get all the shirts in. As he trudged upstairs to change for the third or fourth time, he said to me (jokingly, I am pretty sure), “Why’d I agree to do this again?”

The bulkiest haul I had to track down came for a spot in 2005. In an effort help Spanish-speaking fans identify with the ballclub, a TV spot was to suggest that Rangers baseball moved with a Latin Rhythm. We wanted to shoot it music video-style with all the Latin players. Some friends at local studio Dallas Audio Post helped me track down a backline company in Phoenix to supply a drum kit, keyboards, horns, and everything we needed to supplement my own guitar, bass, and amps (brought on the van from Texas). We mostly just let the players pretend to jam as the spot’s music cut played, while our videographers Eric Koski and Tim George, plus then-team photographer Brad Newton, gathered images. 

 




  






Courtesy Brad Newton/Texas Rangers

In putting the script together, I had scoured the dictionary for words that might apply to both music and baseball, and it turned out that we could make wordplay off the words for drumming and hitting, That worked great, since the hitting coach at the time, Rudy Jaramillo, spoke Spanish. He finished off the spot, and we also made an English version out of it, plus a longer music video. The players apparently enjoyed it, because in 2010 Frankie Francisco asked my Rangers colleague Hugo Carbajal and me to recreate the video. He had missed the first shoot rehabbing an injury but thought it would be a good bonding exercise for the players. We got to do it all over again and it was a blast just like the first time, only now in high-definition thanks to advances in technology over the years.

I probably can’t be as helpful navigating Surprise as I could have back in, say, 2009. My favorite wine bar closed and who knows if the fish taco place and the Greek restaurant still exist. But if you need unshelled pecans, a rental trombone, or a t-shirt reading “Chicks Dig the Fastball,” I might be able to assist.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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Sports Names Mean Love

This post originally appeared on the Arts page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site : http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/02/10/for-the-love-of-the-game/


Sports isn’t a groovy kind of love. It’s a passionate, scream-at-your-partner, declare-your-undying-affection-10-seconds-later, sacrifice-your-dignity-for-a-moment-of-pure-ecstasy sort of love. Basketballer Michael Jordan famously had a “love of the game” clause written into his contract allowing him to play basketball whenever he wanted, just because he adored it so much. As we prepare for the holiday that honors former Rangers and Expos outfielder Ellis Valentine, we reflect on the most lovingly named players in sports.

Kevin Love, for instance, is a U.S. Olympian who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers. The NBA has a pretty strong track record in the affectionate nomenclature department. Bob Love might have been the greatest pre-Jordan Chicago Bull, and 1950s standout Clyde Lovellette made the Hall of Fame. The latter’s last name kind of sounds like a pet name, yes? As in, “Oh my sweet little lovellette, you have eyes that shine like sapphires.”

The late Darryl Dawkins broke backboards like they were teenagers’ hearts and claimed to have come from the planet Lovetron. And forget-you-not former Portland Trail Blazer Darnell Valentine.

The other major U.S. sports have married into the loving family. The Rangers once employed Bobby Valentine as manager. A player called Slim Love played in the majors between 1913 and 1920, his moniker reflective of the chances single dudes with tribal arm tattoos and smokeless tobacco habits have of getting a date on Valentine’s Day.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers recently broke up with their coach, Bears ex Lovie Smith. Receiver Edwin Lovelady played three games for the New York Football Giants in 1987. However, many of his fellows no doubt viewed him as a fickle harlot, for he was the side guy of the sport, a replacement player while the regular NFLers were on strike.

In the NHL, Ben Lovejoy plays defense for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Might he have a chance to score against the Blackhawks’ Scott Darling, who seems to be a real sweetheart of a guy –– the goalie bought a down-on-his-luck dude he had just met a hotel room and food. And you can’t talk lovely names and hockey without thinking of Flyers and Hurricanes great Rod Brind’Amour. His last name translates to “bit of love.” Probably some non-North American player has a name that means sweet baboo in his or her language, too, and I just don’t have the linguistic skills to realize it.

The nearly similarly spelled Brin d’Amour is a type of cheese, which is a pretty romantic food. So is chocolate, of course. How would you like to get a heart-shaped box of Chocolate Thunder? That was one nickname preferred by the aforementioned Darryl Dawkins.

Speaking of hearts, one of my favorite Rangers general managers was John Hart. OK, I recognize that the spelling says “deer” more than it does “dear,” but it’s pretty close. The Rangers had a player named Jason Hart, and there have been a handful of others with that name to make the majors. Gabby Hartnett became a Hall-of-Famer.

Tennis hall of famer Doris Hart passed away last year. We associate the word “love” with her sport more than any other since the L-word figures into the scoring system. When you have won zero points in a game (or games in a set), you are said to have “love.” Some believe the term came from the French word for egg, but it’s not out of the question that some tennis-playing playa introduced it after not scoring with any Renaissance Kournikovas at the previous evening’s alehouse.

Love makes its way into sports stadiums from time to time. A fan will hold up a sign asking some player to marry him or her. Someone will try a wedding proposal on the scoreboard video screen. The kiss cam might thrust romance upon unsuspecting couples. And if you go to a game in Toronto’s Rogers Centre (née Skydome), you always have a chance to see a whole lotta love going on in the field-facing rooms of the stadium’s built-in hotel. Some people don’t seem to realize that glass is clear (or maybe they do –– exhibitionists can love the national pastime, too).

Nothing says sports more than the term “bromance.” Men have been getting in trouble for years for seeming to care more about whether their favorite player wins a ring than whether they buy one for their lady.

Sports and love both inspire inexplicable passion. They really are a perfect match. Heck, the NBA even scheduled its All-Star Game for this Sunday, the 14th. Hopefully, I’ll get home in time to watch it after driving back from a rugby match in Round Rock the night before (for work –– really!). Sport doesn’t take Valentine’s Day off, because sports love is forever.




Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


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Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports

LinkedIn As A Search Engine

LinkedIn forgave me when Google wouldn't.

It’s not that I’d been evil, which Google has traditionally frowned upon. I just wasn’t coming up with the right search terms on the world’s leading search engine for learning about a particular business practice. I needed some guidance on how to prepare a certain kind of investor proposal and the results I found in the early pages of the search weren’t as comprehensive as I hoped. Then I thought “What about LinkedIn? They’ve got a search bar.”

“LinkedIn targets itself toward business,” I theorized, and might therefore find results relevant to business endeavors like mine. About a year and a half ago, they started letting all members create what are effectively business blogs through their posts system. I know this because I’ve used it. If your firm needed insights on Teams’ Brands & Regional Sports Networks or How Cricket Might Succeed in the U.S. or even Sports Trousers, you’d find them on my page. If other folks also use LinkedIn to position themselves as insightful in their fields, I figured I should be able to turn up some helpful results.

Sure enough, the first article I found had a whole list of material relevant to the document I needed to assemble. Its author works for a company specializing in assisting entrepreneurs looking for finance. The content marketing piece she put together certainly demonstrated that she knew whereof she spoke. If we decided to go that route, her company would definitely get strong consideration. In this case, at least, LinkedIn proved more forgiving of my vague search terms than did Google.
One can modify one’s search to look only through “posts,” and it probably makes sense that if you’re looking solely for industry insight, LinkedIn might be a good place to start. Google creates algorithms that identify what you need with amazing accuracy. However, they necessarily cover a worldwide web. LinkedIn covers only business, so it follows that sometimes it might offer more refined results than even the best general-purpose search engine.

Like many (almost all, probably) of you, I also use LinkedIn to search for people. I’ve searched the names of former colleagues, potential business partners, and newly met connections on the platform, finding success more often than not. LinkedIn recently reduced the number of searches non-premium members can use per month and I found myself up against the limit last month. My cost-benefit analysis has not yet assigned sufficient value to LinkedIn premium to induce me to purchase it, so I ironically turned back to Google. LinkedIn has done an excellent job of getting its users’ profiles noticed by the big G’s spiders. With a little information beyond the person’s name, then, you can often find his or her profile there if you’re limited on LinkedIn. Of course, no matter where you search, it always helps if the person has a unique name. If you’re looking for me, thank whichever of my ancestors decided to make “Rush” a family surname (which my parents repurposed into a first name).

Once I had tried this technique a bit, I came across the concept of Google X-Ray searches. This feature allows you to search within a particular website for results. It makes your LinkedIn search using Google even more effective. Did I find better information about “how to execute X-Ray searches” by looking on LinkedIn or Google? Both found usable results. Which one will you find superior? It might depend on your own preferences and how well you choose your search terms - both can be pretty forgiving with the right inputs.

My next search project will be to identify the right type of investor to work with us on our big sports/media endeavor. If you think you might be him or her, don’t wait for my techniques to work. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn yourself, which is luckily a bit easier thanks to the Rush side of the family.

Pants Get Shorted

This post originally appeared on the Blotch page at the Fort Worth Weekly. To read it on that site :http://www.fwweekly.com/2016/02/02/sports-rush-pants-get-shorted/

Nobody chooses the guy in blue jeans. You know, when you’re picking sides for a basketball game in the schoolyard, you figure the kid who didn’t think to wear shorts probably doesn’t have any game.

Pants matter.

And yet when you think about branded sports merchandise, we’re mostly into buying the jerseys, t-shirts, tank tops, hoodies, and golf shirts of our favorite teams. It seems like replica leggings don’t make it onto many Christmas lists.

As David Letterman knew, pants are worldwide. So to be clear here, for those of you reading this post in Commonwealth countries, we’re talking about trousers here. Sports-logoed unmentionables will someday require their own detailed investigation.

As I type this piece, I am wearing my vintage Atlanta Knights hockey jersey. I had a period several years ago where I enjoyed acquiring hockey sweaters, and this defunct team from a defunct league exuded a certain postmodern cachet. If you stumbled into my closet, you’d find a host of sports jerseys and shirts. There’s a jersey from Santos, a Panamanian baseball team. You’d see a Houston Aeros sweater, a Dallas Stars jersey autographed by Bill Guerin, an England rugby shirt, a couple of Liverpool shirts, a CSKA Sofia jersey, two Fort Worth Fire jerseys, and, well, you get the picture. Down at the end, by the cargo shorts, hang some lonely Dallas Mavericks shorts. They at least ensure I won’t get picked last on the playground (though if you’ve seen me shoot lately, it might make you seriously consider choosing the dude in the Wranglers).

Major League Baseball emailed me today with pictures of new Majestic Flex Base® jerseys and New Era 59FIFTY caps I could buy in my favorite teams’ colors. No pants were mentioned in the email. I clicked the link to explore the MLB shop. They did have some lower-extremity styles there, including pajamas, scrubs, knits, flannels, sweats, and shorts. The bottom to top ratio, however, skewed heavily in favor of the collars-and-sleeves set. In the Rangers women’s section, for instance, I found 6 pairs of pants, 5 pairs of shorts, and 203 t-shirts.

You could buy the same jersey Roughed Odor wears on the field, but his knee-length pants with the stripe on the side are nowhere to be found on the site.  Those traditional pants vaguely recall capri pants, but not exactly, and no doubt therein lies a lot of the reason for the primacy of les chemises over les pantalons: sports shirts more closely resemble their everyday counterparts than do sports pants.

If you show up somewhere wearing baseball pants, people assume you’re about to play in a game because the garment’s function is specialized to its sport. That’s not the case with a t-shirt or even replica jersey. Ice hockey and American football pants have pads sewn into them, a feature that has yet to catch on in general fashion circles.


A few sports offer more practical lower-body coverings. Some tennis shorts and skirts might not be uncomfortable for casual wear, especially since the latter moved past the hoop skirt era. Golf slacks mimic their everyday counterparts, except, of course, for certain plaid patterns best left in the club locker. Individual sports’ garb rarely bear team logos, however, save for the occasional nation vs. nation competition.

Spandex is a component of some sports bottoms, like volleyball. That material covers lots of buns in non-sports settings, too, though rarely with a logo and often with an uncomfortable (for the viewer, presumably not the wearer) snugness that makes one long for the days of the hoop skirt.
Basketball shorts might have the best claim to applicability off the court. The NBA even boasts a team named after pants, the New York Knickerbockers. Even here, though, the NBA.com Knicks shop stocks some 225 t-shirts while the pants-and-shorts area counters with only 46 offerings, one of which is a belt.

A handful of sports, like wrestling and women’s gymnastics, have no pants. You compete in a singlet or leotard. These one-piecers are rarely worn to dinner parties.

Men’s water sports and beach volleyball present the rare case in which contestants often wear no shirts. Swimwear might be its own category, as what we wear when we relax at the pool or lake often doesn’t resemble what competitive swimmers wear. In any case, one would think that if you approached a gold medalist wearing only an old-school Speedo, he’d be unlikely to autograph it for you.

One advantage shirts have over pants is their proximity to the eyes. If you want someone to notice your support of your team, putting the logo in a more noticeable position makes sense.
Hey, my eyes are up here! Were you staring at my logo?

Some pants do plaster a logo across the hindquarters, because apparently some people’s eyes also drift to that part of the anatomy.


Sports leg wear experienced its 15 minutes of fame during the early 1990s assault of Zubaz. The ubiquitous stripes made a glorious run through official licensure, even imprinting themselves on upper-body wear. I myself own a Cubs Zubaz cap. It’s in the back of the closet, I promise. I’d also like to note at this time that I do not own a pair of 70s/80s-era polyester coaches shorts, though I certainly had gym teachers who did.

The most enduringly successful sports pant has to be sweatpants. I do own a pair of Houston Rockets sweats in which I play softball (a curious sporting cross-pollination). The old-school cotton sweats (not the more modern tearaway ones with snaps) adapt themselves to use for both vigorous workouts or couch surfing.

One issue with pants is that adults tend to look dorky wearing a team’s entire kit. Showing your support with a shirt or shorts (but not both), plus maybe a cap, is desirable. Dressing precisely the same as your favorite player, including wristbands and eye black, borders on creepiness.

If you’re a leg man (or woman) and resent the attention blouses get at the expense of britches, there’s probably just not a lot to be done about it. Maybe you should take the issue of pant inequality up with your elected representatives. Or you could pitch the story to the media.

Of course, one of the great things about being a TV sports anchor is you don’t have to wear any pants at all. The same goes for sports bloggers, though I usually do. In fact, I was thinking this might be an ideal time to start a new trend in lower-body fashion. If you see me at the Fort Worth Weekly’s Love FW event this Friday. I just might be the guy wearing a pair of Pakistani cricket trousers. We’ll see if they prove a better wardrobe choice for a pick-up game than hoops-court denim.


Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns, television programs, and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.


RushOlson.com

Linkedin.com/company/rush-olson-creative-&-sports

Facebook.com/RushOlsonCreativeandSports