Reporter’s Notebook : Serving Sushi at Baseball Games? Say It Ain’t So, Joe

There has been considerable hand-wringing in recent years about America losing its competitive edge to the Japanese. We invent it, they make it. Cars, TVs, VCRs, computer chips, farm equipment, high-tech gizmos of all sorts.

The Japanese are even gobbling up huge chunks of swank real estate, movie studios and other symbols of Americana.

Well, maybe all that was inevitable, interest rates, labor costs, and free-market competition being what they are. But its time to take a stand. They’re threatening to horn in on something that strikes at the very heart of our culture. We’re talking social significance. We’re talking moral outrage. We’re talking baseball.

Baseball may be the only hallowed American institution untouched by Japanese influence, the only one they’ve copied and still not been able to beat us at. In fact, its even good for the balance of trade.

Every year, Japanese teams import a few dozen nearsighted sluggers and sore-armed pitchers, the real meatballs of the national pastime. No longer terrorized by the likes of a Roger Clemens on the mound or Dave Winfield at the plate, even the American rejects start banging and bopping the ball like all-stars and ship back a few million dollars apiece for their troubles.

Now this last vestige of American dominance may be crumbling. Japanese influence is starting to trickle into major league stadiums. This season for the first time ever, they’re selling sushi--that’s right, those dainty little globs of raw squid, grouper, shark, fish eggs and what have you--at the old ballpark.

Think about it. You’re sitting in the grandstand on a sweltering summer day. It’s the bottom of the ninth, a tense, scoreless pitcher’s duel on the field, and that empty, gnawing feeling rumbles up from the pit of your stomach. You turn to your buddy in the next seat and say, “Gee, you know what would really hit the spot at a time like this? An ice cold brew and a hunk of eel, that’s what.”

Ridiculous, right? Well, the San Diego Padres have been selling crab rolls along with the peanuts, popcorn and Cracker Jack ever since opening day this season. And fans have actually been snapping them up.

What’s worse, the Angels are slated to be next. Ed Elias, the general manager of the catering firm that runs concession stands at the Big A, says he hopes to offer sushi later this season or early in 1990. If that sounds unpatriotic, get a load of this: The sushi shack is going to go in where an ice cream parlor now stands.

Why would any red-blooded fan nibble on slimy, uncooked seaweed at the ballpark when they could choose from a virtual cornucopia of all-American favorites to munch on, dishes like nachos, tostadas and bratwurst? “Why do they eat baked potatoes, fish and chips or cinnamon rolls at a ballpark?” asked Elias, rhetorically. “I think the fans will eat about anything you offer them. We’re even going to build a pasta house.”

Just because they’ll eat it, Ed, doesn’t mean you have to give it to them. I’m all for change, innovation and variety, but some things are sacred. With domed stadiums, artificial turf, designated hitters and mascots parading around the park in chicken costumes, hasn’t the game already been perverted enough?

Ever since Abner Doubleday kicked dirt on his first umpire, generations of American youth have been raised to believe that a balanced ballpark diet meant a hot dog in one hand, a beer in the other and maybe a bag of peanuts on their lap. But these days, Angel fans are already munching on wilted seafood salads and sipping on sweet frozen daiquiris. No wonder snobby Easterners resisted letting the game move West for all those years.

If fans here want the privilege of watching Big League games, the least they could do is eat like Big Leaguers. You think Joe DiMaggio or Babe Ruth ever slurped up a plate of raw mackerel on rice?

No, the Babe had an appetite and thirst that was legendary. When the Yankees played in Chicago, for example, he would sometimes duck out between innings to McCuddy’s Tavern across the street from the stadium.

And you can bet it wasn’t to order a watercress sandwich and a white wine spritzer.