Just when you thought it couldn't get any tackier...
When I saw the headline Coffins to Bear Logos of Baseball Teams my first thought was: Why is it so hot in here and what am I doing in this handbasket? Seriously people, how low can American "culture" sink?
Starting next season, fans of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will be able to have their ashes put in an urn or head six feet under in a casket emblazoned with their team colors and insignia.MLB has entered a licensing agreement with Eternal Image, which hopes to eventually make urns and caskets for all 30 teams. The company also hopes to have similar agreements with NASCAR, the NHL and the NFL, but baseball was the first to sign on.
This sort of blatant commercialism is de rigueur for sports teams who use public funds to build huge stadiums, charge exorbitant prices for tickets to their games, and then get people to pay them to walk around with their company logos emblazoned on every article of clothing in sight. Not much marketing exposure where those coffins are going, but hey, a piece of that $11 billion dollars that the funeral industry makes each year ain't too shabby.
Not being a sports fan, I can't begin to fathom why someone would want to do this.
Kurt Soffe, a spokesman for the National Funeral Directors Association, said the baseball products are part of a trend of trying to capture "the life and the passions of the person that has passed away.""More and more families are wanting to have something that respects the personalities," Soffe said.
In my opinion, respect has absolutely nothing to do with it. This society doesn't seem to respect much these days, least of all the dead. We can put a Yankees logo on a coffin, but heaven forbid the widow of a soldier who lost his life serving his country wants to put a pentacle on his grave marker.
Posted by Angela-Eloise at 10:16 AM
Comments
I wish I could say I was surprised, but everything is about money now and people will do anything to make a buck. It is a sad state of affairs. I agree with you wholeheartedly about respect. Blessings
Posted by: Ary | October 19, 2006 3:20 PM
At first, I thought, okay, Angela, so you don't like baseball -- but if the departed loved their team, then why shouldn't that be remembered? But then you mentioned the money part, and on that part you're right. To use, let's say, the Red Sox emblem, you have to pay the franchise for it. Why should the team make money off the dead? Who are they advertising to? Hades? Persephone? (She's a hard-core Red Sox fan, btw. Little-known fact.) It's creepy and an underhanded way to make more money. If the teams would be willing to offer use of their emblem free of charge, I would say, do whatever rocks your sox.
Oh, and yeah, serving and dying for your country really ought to earn you the right to have a pentacle on your gravemarker if you consider Wicca your religion. Sheesh.
Posted by: Luna | October 19, 2006 8:21 PM
OK, I guess I get to play dissenting voice here.
I'm a baseball fan. I'd no more have a Twins logo on my coffin than I'd have a coffin to begin with (Burn baby burn!), but what's so terrible about this?
They value something we don't at all/don't to that degree? So what? That in no way does any of us harm.
Someone's making money off it? So what? Someone's making a miniature fortune off the coffin, the funeral service, the flowers, and so on and so on. All of it gets buried or tossed out, too.
They aren't the first to do this, by a long chalk. You've been able to get a Kiss coffin for years, should you be so inclined.
This is really no different than putting a memento of something a person loved in their coffin - or loading a pyramid so the Pharoah can rock and roll in the afterlife. Sending tokens with the dead isn't a new thing - and in fact is generally considered to have been a Pagan thing historically - and it's never been free. Someone paid for that token somewhere down the line.
I guess what I find most intriguing is that you freely say you dislike this in part because you don't understand why someone would value their local sports team enough to do it. Fair and understandable; but how many people would say the same about a pentacle on a headstone? They place no value on Pagan faiths, so they have no understanding of its importance. Saying "I can do the same thing back to you" doesn't accomplish much.
Posted by: Card-Table Gypsy | October 20, 2006 5:14 AM
A KISS coffin? HA! Now THAT is funny. Can you imagine archeologists years from now unearthing such an artifact?
"It appears that some 21st c. Americans worshipped a group of underworld gods who ruled over loud music and sex. They were often depicted wearing black and white (no doubt drawing attention to the dual nature of life), sporting big hair and provocatively long tongues."
Posted by: Luna | October 23, 2006 12:18 AM
OK, here that puppy is! And it's a KISS Kasket, my bad :)
Now you have me imagining what happens when those same archaeologists unearth artifacts of Kabuki theater, as well. Their poor heads would explode *laugh*
Posted by: Card-Table Gypsy | October 26, 2006 3:49 AM