Champions of the Boardwalk

Every summer, Amy and I take one night out of our visit to my parents’ home in Cape May in order to brave the fiercest of summer elements. I’m not talking about fishing or surfing or nightswimming. I’m talking about walking the Wildwood boardwalk.

If there is a kingdom of kitsch, this is it. Come and ride the Sea Serpent coaster! Come and take a monster truck out on the beach! Come and win a 3-foot-tall stuffed bear by tossing softballs in a basket! Come and see the 4-D movie experience! Come and take your picture dressed in old-time clothing! Come and hit the live target with paintball guns!

The lights, the sounds, the constant movement, the mobs of people, the children awake far beyond their bedtimes, the tram cars rumbling toward you, the sweet smell of fresh funnel cake. It is all there. And yet, as hectic as this place is, it’s impossible for us to resist that one visit. It’s partly for nostalgia, since we’ve both been coming down here for more than 30 years, and partly for anthropology, as there is just some awesome people-watching to be done here on these wooden boards.

And when you’re watching the people, you start with the T-shirts. Boardwalks such as Wildwood have more T-shirt stores than any tourist spot outside of Times Square. But while Times Square has the typical New York shirts, places like Wildwood have a delicious gumbo of options. And the boardwalk walkers buy them all.

You begin with the celebrity T-shirts. When I started coming to Wildwood more than 30 years ago, it was the Farrah Fawcett and Shaun Cassidy silkscreens that sold the most. This year, the Michael Jackson memorial shirts abound, but so do “Lil’ Wayne for President” designs.

After the celebrity shirts, you move on to shirts that play off of pop culture buzzwords and images. In years past, the boardwalk was filled with T-shirts proclaiming “I Shot J.R.” or “Where’s the Beef?” This year, there are an inordinate number of Sesame Street shirts (not sure why there’s such an interest in Grover this year). Another T-shirt played off of today’s technology by proclaiming, “YouTube MySpace and I’ll Google Your Yahoo.”

Which brings us to the raunchy slogans (I think we’re there already, although I’m still trying to figure out that Yahoo part). The “Gettin’ Dirty in Jersey” shirts seem very popular this year, as do a number of graphic designs involving the universal symbols for men’s and women’s restrooms.

It’s a gumbo, all right: In one store, we saw a SpongeBob silkscreen design next to a Jesus Christ design, next to Borat, which was next to Barack Obama, which was next to a design stating, “Boobies Make Me Happy.”

As tempting as the aforementioned designs may be, this year’s boardwalk walkers are choosing one T-shirt above all others, and it has nothing to do with Lil’ Wayne, Grover or Google. It is the red Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt.

The defending champs are everywhere you look, from the Ferris wheel to the pizza stands. There are World Series shirts. “World Champions” designs. And the names and uniform numbers of virtually every starter on this year’s team. In just two hours, we saw no less than seven Phillies players’ names on boardwalk T-shirts: Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, Jimmy Rollins, Raul Ibanez, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, and even Cliff Lee, who hasn’t even been on the team for two weeks yet.

The Jersey Shore is always flush with Philadelphians, but it is rare that this city has the chance to flaunt a sports championship. They are doing it in 2009, that’s for sure. For me, this brought back memories of the summer when I was 10, when the Phillies were fresh off their other baseball title. That year, the boardwalk was full of Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton jerseys, and despite my allegiance to the Yankees I found myself feeling happy for these fans, as they had finally seen the Phillies win it all for the first time since the team’s origin in 1883.

This summer, 28 years later, another generation of boardwalk walkers have a chance to show off their long-awaited glory. And even though Ernie, Bert, SpongeBob and Lil’ Wayne are selling like hotcakes, they can’t keep up with Chase Utley this year. The Phillies are number one. For the second time in 126 years. Please, gloat all you want. Eat a funnel cake. You deserve it.