The Tepid Cauldron

Guest post time! In keeping with AMSL's series on MLS, Elliot, author of the fantastic futfanatico.com, tells the story of how the fan culture irrevocably changed after the Wizards moved from MO to KS. Enjoy!

When you hear the word cauldron, a host of cool words come to mind. Sizzle. Burn. Fry. Heat. You associate the cauldron with warmth, with red hot metal. Yet the Cauldron at Community America Ballpark, home of the Kansas City Wizards, lacks the above. This cauldron is not a cooking contraption. It is a place. A cold, cold place.

I understood the gripe about the Wizards old home, Arrowhead stadium, a cavernous monument to American football. With 40,000 empty seats, morticians enjoyed a more lively atmosphere than Wizards fans. Yet amidst the vast sea of red chairs, a spark led to fire led to smoke. A hearty group of Argentines sang their hearts out amidst drums and flags; a vibrant oasis amidst the despondent desert. They were the Cauldron.

Complaints surfaced. The noise bothered the minivan brigade. The cursing, although exclusively in Spanish, offended Anglos and Latinos alike. Beer was occasionally tossed. And racially based arrests pervaded the scene. Still, the Wizards had succeeded in luring a loyal and elusive demographic: the 30 something Latino.

Enter Community America Ballpark. The Wizards switched fields from football to baseball, but still no soccer. The stadium seats less than 10,000 spectators, making for considerably more cozy viewing. Games also sell out more regularly. And you can actually smell the tears on Jonathan Leathers face as home fans heckle him for his latest defensive blunder. But for everything gained, something is lost.

In name, the Cauldron exists. Community America Ballpark has a special "free speech zone", quarantining the Midwestern version of ultras. Fences and bleachers separate the rabblesousers. I struggle to answer one basic question: is this a piecemeal reform or corporate commodification? Is this the skate park next to the playground, or our own prison?

The Argentines, perhaps residents of now faraway Missouri, no longer make the trip. The remaining mass of cynical Midwesterners has failed to fill the vacuum. Lacking South American expertise, the songs have decrescendoed into the faintest of echoes. And you can only hum along to the White Stripes so many times.

Not surprisingly, philosophical dissonance self destructed. The current Cauldron is the "alternative" school, a misnomer obvious to all but some oblivious superintendent. The miscreants drop out to cook french fries rather than endure the indignity. The current Cauldron is Modest Mouse pre Float On; compromised, yet uncomfortably so. The current Cauldron is many things, except a steaming bastion of spontaneity.