American Flags as Big as Fields

[Woodmonkey]

On the field before the All-Star Game, Major League Baseball plans to assemble the largest gathering of Hall of Fame players in baseball history. And as fans salute their heroes, the former players will join the crowd in saluting the American flag — one that is roughly 75 feet by 150 feet, as long as a 15-story building is tall, spread horizontally over the Yankee Stadium turf.

That is a relatively small flag by big-event standards in American sports these days. But it will signal the latest can’t-miss blend of sports and patriotism, a combination increasingly presenting itself through gigantic American flags, unfurled by dozens or hundreds of people in an attempt to elicit a sense of awe and nationalism in the surrounding crowd.

Once the gaudy lure of attention-seeking car dealerships or other roadside attractions, big flags have found a comfortable home inside the ballparks, arenas and raceways of American sporting events.

“It is an American phenomenon, no doubt about it,” said Frank Supovitz, the N.F.L.’s senior vice president for events, who oversees such spectacles as the Super Bowl and has helped stage events around the world.

A small industry has formed to supply the flags, usually at a cost of a few thousand dollars an appearance. Some colleges and bowl games, tired of renting them frequently, have bought their own field-sized flags.

“People are getting more on the bandwagon,” said Doug Green, who has long rented giant flags to teams and leagues, and recently supplied one for the Indianapolis 500. “Nascar’s doing it more and more, the N.F.L. is doing it more and more.”

The trend began nearly 25 years ago, spiked after 9/11 and now seems simply part of the cultural backdrop in American sports. Where there is a big game, there is a big flag, often the size of the playing field itself.

Far too big for a pole, the flags raise something else — the question of whether a bigger flag is a more patriotic one, or just a bigger one.

“For big, spectacular events, big just happens because it paints a more vibrant picture,” said Tim Brosnan, the executive vice president for business at Major League Baseball. “I don’t think bigger is necessarily better, but it is a celebration.”

These can be touchy times for interpreting the use of the flag as a symbol of patriotism. A tiny flag on a lapel, or the absence of one, fueled debate in the presidential campaign. And the Olympics will provide plenty of chances for medal-winning Americans, handed flags as celebratory props, to create a stir with their reaction. Some past Olympians were accused of disrespecting the flag by wrapping themselves in it or wearing it like a cape.

But there is little debate over the use of field-size or court-size flags during the national anthem or other sporting rituals. They have received the tacit approval of the military, which often supplies the people to present the flags, and are routinely greeted with wide-eyed cheers.

“People go ape when they see it,” said Jim Alexander, a retired Coast Guard commander who runs Superflag, the company that basically invented the industry and once held the world record for the largest flag, which temporarily hung on the Hoover Dam. It was 255 by 505 feet and has been surpassed by a flag in Israel that measures 2,165 by 330 feet. “It’s a feeling. It’s a feeling that takes over a whole stadium. If anyone in the stands opened their mouth and objected, there would be hell to pay.”

The eccentric founder of Superflag, Thomas Demski, known as Ski, commissioned a 95-by-160-foot American flag — about half the size of a football field — that made its debut in 1984 at Super Bowl XVIII.

Mr. Green soon designed a big flag of his own, made to come apart in 14 pieces for easy transport. Now, as the vice president of Sky’s the Limit Productions, he has two football-field-size flags. The other unfastens into four pieces, packed into separate trunks that, when filled, weigh 400 pounds each. Each of the 50 stars on those flags is about 5 feet across, according to Pete Van de Putte, the president of the Dixie Flag Manufacturing in San Antonio, which has made four football-field-sized flags.

At games, flags are typically unfurled quickly by volunteers, sometimes hundreds of them, creating an effect like a slow-motion firework or a fast-motion blooming of a flower. Once the flag is fully displayed, often at a particular point in the national anthem, the holders sometimes shake their arms, creating ripples to conjure a flag in a breeze.

Mr. Green says that the only complaint he hears is that the flags sometimes touch the ground. Sheer size makes it nearly impossible to avoid. Plastic is often placed on the ground when the flags are packed and unpacked. Superflag recommends having 265 volunteers to hold the football-field sized flag — most to hold the edges, but about 100 of them to be stationed beneath the flag to help keep it aloft.

Mike Buss, an assistant director at the American Legion’s national headquarters in Indianapolis, and the organization’s flag guru, said that the belief that a flag that touched the ground was somehow soiled and must be destroyed “is an old wives’ tale.”

“All we ask is, no matter the size, that the flag is treated with dignity and respect,” Mr. Buss said.

Event planners say they sense that there are limits, but do not think they have yet been exceeded. Still, every team is different. Mr. Green has supplied flags to the Yankees for opening days, playoff games and other occasions for about 10 years.

“The Yankees like one of the smallest flags I own — about the size of a basketball court, 45 by 90,” Mr. Green said.

That means, for the All-Star Game on July 15, a decision was made by baseball: We need a bigger flag than usual at Yankee Stadium. But not the biggest.

“The smell test is, is it exploitative?” said Mr. Brosnan, the Major League Baseball vice president.

Mr. Buss, from the American Legion, says he has yet to see flags go too far — or too big.

“Huge flags?” he said. “That’s great.”

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