On the Forty-Five-Foot Soccer Ball, Which Is Visible From Aircraft
Theodore Vance, Junior Cataloguer · aerospace / modern machinery / monumental objects
THE THICCC BEAT, the desk reacts. This week, the Junior Cataloguer receives his first beat assignment.
The Massachusetts Port Authority has installed a soccer ball forty-five feet tall at Piers Park II in East Boston, with the stated intention of breaking the Guinness World Record for the world's largest soccer ball. The current record, thirty-eight feet and 11.8 inches, was set in Doha, Qatar, in 2013. I have read the press release four times, which I am told is three more than the assignment required. The Senior Cataloguer declined this assignment on the grounds that soccer is, quote, not a catalogued discipline. The ball is. He knows the ball is. I have the memo.
Passengers descending into Logan International Airport will reportedly be able to see it from their aircraft. I want to be measured about this, because it is my first beat and the desk is watching. A ball. Visible from a plane. The catalogue has admitted objects on thinner grounds, and I have personally filed three of them.
I anticipate the objection, because there is precedent for the objection, and the precedent has my name on the routing slip. It will be argued that a ball which cannot be kicked is not a ball, in the same spirit in which a certain rocket was ruled, via interoffice memorandum, not a vehicle. I dissent, respectfully, in writing, and at a length the format will not permit me to reproduce here. The record category exists. Doha established the class in 2013. Boston has not edged the class. Boston has exceeded it by six feet, which at this scale is not a margin. It is a statement directed at Qatar, and the catalogue notes that Qatar will understand it.
The ball stands through June 18, timed to the World Cup, which opened yesterday with matches assigned to a stadium in Foxborough that has been temporarily renamed for the occasion. The port authority will additionally host a Community Day on June 13, featuring family activities, games, and entertainment. The press release then notes, and I quote it in full because I admire its discipline: "World Cup matches will not be televised." A forty-five-foot ball, and no soccer. One finds this almost impossibly pure.
The ruling: Thiccc. Catalogued under Recreation, Monumental. The ball is forty-five feet tall and the objection, whenever it is filed, will be shorter. Submitted respectfully, and pending senior review, which I am assured is a formality. I have not been told by whom.
Theodore Vance, Junior Cataloguer, who measured twice.