Boo, Boo, Clap, Clap at Anaheim

We were sitting in the cheap seats at Anaheim Stadium, listening to Tony Phillips receive his boos. Each time, Phillips would walk to the batter’s box, settle in and get bathed in a wave of ridicule.

Then, filtering up through the boos, something else could be heard. A counter-wave of applause. Not huge, mind you, but enough to make you wonder.

“Who or what,” my friend asked, “are they applauding?”

We weren’t sure. Certainly, the boos were generated by Phillips’ fall from grace as a result of his recent bust for crack. Perhaps the applause was a simple counter-response of sympathy.

In fact, that’s what I believed until Phillips came to bat in the fourth inning. The boo/applause ritual started, then a large man stood and shouted toward Phillips.

I cannot repeat what he said because, if I tried, this newspaper wouldn’t print it. But the paraphrase would go something like this: “Tony, don’t let the esteemed executives at Walt Disney Co. perform acts of an unwanted nature on your body.”

All around us, people began to laugh and cheer. Yeah, Tony, don’t let Disney get you down. The applause for Phillips increased.

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Disney, of course, has claimed the Angels. It had tried to suspend Phillips after his collar--hardly a draconian position--only to have the suspension overruled by a baseball arbitrator.

So why did the large man want to spew his bile toward Disney, and why did the others enjoy it so?

Easy. Because everyone loves to hate Disney. It’s become reflexive. Baseball is no longer the national sport. Hating Disney is the national sport. The turnaround from everyone liking Disney to everyone hating Disney may be one of the great cultural reversals of our time.

Everybody knows about the Baptists boycotting Disney. But did you know the Catholics are boycotting, too? Oh, yes, and for their own reasons.

How about the animal lovers? Yes. The National Federation for the Blind? Boycotting.

Concerned Women for America? You bet. The Arabs? Almost. They decided to hold off on the boycott and just hate Disney for a while.

Recently someone counted 30-odd boycotts against Disney, each with its own, separate beef. Not since Vietnam and Dow Chemical have we seen anything like it.

And the boycotts aren’t the half of it. What really tips you off to the depth of the loathing is the constant, small sniping. Used to be, only Hollywood execs who worked at other studios engaged in this blood sport. Now everyone does.

Remember when Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief, showed up at the black church after it burned down and promised that Disney would help rebuild it?

If anyone else had done that, they would have gotten Brownie points galore. Not Disney. It was seen, cynically, as trying to counterbalance the Baptist boycott.

I got a call at my office the day of the Eisner appearance. It was from an old friend. “You gonna write about Eisner showing up at the church?” she hissed. She was not talking about a favorable column.

The real problem, of course, is that Disney is no longer Disney. Forget the fact that it’s no longer the company created by Uncle Walt. It’s no longer the company that existed four or five years ago. It’s grown into a beast.

For example, say you’re standing in the hot dog line at Anaheim Stadium, like I did. You look up at the TV monitor and it’s showing the game broadcast on KCAL.

KCAL is the TV station that was owned by Disney until the government forced it to sell it this past year. Why? Because Disney had bought a whole network, ABC.

When you climb up to the cheap seats you can almost see the Pond, where Disney owns and operates the Ducks. And just up the road is Disneyland itself.

When you see a kiddie movie these days, of course, it’s probably made by Disney. But ditto for a movie about a homosexual priest or psychopaths galloping around the country in an airplane.

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Disney creates television shows and shows them on its network. Disney owns and operates its own cable channel.

The Mouse now hovers over Times Square in New York as surely as it does Burbank. Disney owns newspapers and magazines. It operates thousands of Disney stores that use tractor beams to suck in every 6-year-old in the Western world.

Disney, in short, is terrifying. Even when it does the right thing. And that’s the reason, or one of them, why the applause filtered through boos at Anaheim Stadium.

Maybe Tony Phillips is a cokehead. And not exactly a role model.

But he had beaten Disney. And that was enough.

It was a perfect baseball night, calm and balmy. The beach ball was bouncing around the stands. Kids were falling asleep in their moms’ laps.

Every time Phillips came to bat, a big wave of boos poured out of the stands. It got to be a ritual.