Cubs Suffering From "Gato-Rage"
Where's it all coming from?
By RYAN POLLYEA and ZACH CHRISTMAN
Updated 4:00 PM CST, Fri, May 29, 2009
It's been a rough week for the Cubs' new Gatorade machine.
The drink machine has been in the dugout since the start of the season, but it first gained notoriety when Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster took out some of his emotion on it after a painful appearance on May 22. Only hours after being repaired, it found itself on the wrong end of a true Chicago style beat down (a la one of Al Capone's best scenes in The Untouchables) when ejected Cubs pitcher Zambrano fiercely took a baseball bat to the dugout's orange friend.
It's clearly not Gatorade's fault that the Cubs are having a slump and are pissed off about it, so why target the beverage dispenser? Maybe it's time to dig a little deeper to determine the cause of all this anti-machine anger.
One answer may come from a possible link to the May 21 release of Terminator: Salvation, a film in which powerful machines wage war on the decimated remains of the human race. We were unable to get confirmation Friday as to whether Zambrano or Dempster had seen the film and perhaps mistaken the beverage dispenser for a cold-blooded killer. While there is no proven link between the film and the Gatorade incidents, the initial Attack of the Machine did take place during the Cubs' first home game -- just six days after the film debuted in theaters. Hmmm.
Sure, the outbursts have made for great television, but how do the Gatorade people feel about their beloved product taking a beating on live television?
It's clear that the machine's newfound prominence holds at least some benefit for Gatorade as a company. All they had to do was get the machine into the dugout, and now it's generating tons of free publicity, like it or not.
The debate between good publicity and bad mojo has been brewing for a while. Milton Bradley was quoted earlier in the season saying he promised the team's trainer that he would not be the first to break the machine. Many Cub fans, meanwhile, likely hadn't even taken note of the Gatorade machine before Dempster gave it a face-lift.
Now that the machine has been front and center during not one, but two meltdowns, it's becoming somewhat of a tabloid celebrity. Could Gatorade come out and actually endorse the thrashings? Or would that be misconstrued as an invitation to would-be vandals who might trash their neighborhood Gatorade vending machines? Wait a minute. That kind of carnage could be the ultimate viral ad campaign. Thrash a Gatorade machine, but don't forget to drink Gatorade after you're done (don't try this at home, kids).
Regardless of where the anger is coming from, or how Gatorade feels about it publicly or privately, it's still making for some great YouTube clips, and fans should probably say "keep it coming." Or better yet, fill 'er up.
First Published: May 29, 2009 3:38 PM CST
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