Blogs > Cliopatria > Red Sox, Yankees, and Globalization

Oct 20, 2004

Red Sox, Yankees, and Globalization




I’m at best a casual baseball fan.

Making literally no hits in three years of grade school YMCA baseball still haunts. “Y” rules required the coaches to play me. A few years ago my father confessed that every time I went to bat he prayed that I would get a hit..

But like many people, I’m caught up in the Red Sox—Yankees stuff. Drama, heroes, villains. All that’s left is for the God to come out of the Machine and set things right (whatever “right” means in this context).

So I’ve been reading sports stories. Today I came across this one in the New York Times (registration required) by Dave Anderson. This passage riveted me:

Schilling questioned whether he would be able to pitch in the series again, but Reebok quickly assembled several new shoes.

"When Curt aggravated his tendon in the division series against Anaheim, I was in Hong Kong when I got a phone call that he wanted a more substantial shoe," Don Gibadlo, the director of promotional footwear for Reebok, said yesterday in a telephone interview from the company's Canton, Mass., headquarters."That's when I got our people in China working on a hightop shoe to give him more support."

Another hightop shoe was assembled at the Canton plant and in the hours before Game 3 at Fenway Park was rained out Friday night, Schilling threw in the Red Sox bullpen.

Is this Globalization or what? A company founded in Great Britain that does much of its marketing with American stars, has its shoe experts in Hong Kong redesign a shoe, which is then assembled in Canton.

So, excepting the obviously biased Bostonians, is this example of Globalization good news or bad news?




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Charles V. Mutschler - 10/21/2004

Well, history has been made - and here I am cheering for a team which isn't really mine. Down three games in the playoffs, and they won't quit. So, like a lot of folks, I am still in amazement and delight at the results of tonight's game. Good Luck, Sox. A lot of us are rooting for you.

CVM