The Washington Nationals unveiled statues of DC baseball icons Josh Gibson, Walter Johnson and Frank Howard at Nationals Park’s centerfield plaza yesterday, and suffice to say, the reactions weren’t entirely favorable. MASN’s Phil Wood emceed the event and did a little focus group polling of his own (link culled from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory).
The early returns on the works by sculptor Omri Amrany are, quite frankly, almost totally negative. They started yesterday from some fans at the ceremony yesterday, which I was flattered to be asked to emcee.
The whole “motion” concept didn’t quite fly with anyone, including some pretty sophisticated observers, whose educational background I’m aware of. I won’t quote anyone by name.
“The multiple arms and bats and balls are confusing.”
“Walter Johnson looks like one of the X-Men.”
“Why is Frank Howard swinging an Ernie Banks model bat?” (It’s true, you can see Ernie’s name on the barrel(s).)
“It looks like something out of a comic book.”
There were far worse comments, many including words I can’t print here.
The sad thing is, when the Nats move to Nashville in 4 years, who’ll want a Walter Johnson statue that looks like Spider-Man? Well, besides Todd McFarlane.
Ben
Those giant red plastic letters on the side of the stadium make it look like a metastized mini-mall, too.
PS I have an educational background that I’m aware of.