the Port Washington meet (pp. 269–270)
The gallery is barely even applauding Wayne and Incandenza anymore; at a certain point it becomes like Romans applauding lions. All the coaches and staff and P.W.T.A. parents and civilians in the overhead gallery wear tennis outfits, the high white socks and tucked-in shirts of people who do not really play.
Context
The spectator-gallery as coliseum, sealed behind aquarium glass. Watching from above, the meet's civilians see "72 well-muscled children arrayed and competing in total silence in the pit," and by the rout's end the watching has curdled into something Roman — a crowd consuming the children's exertion as blood-spectacle, "applauding lions." The sting is the last clause: the watchers "wear the high white socks and tucked-in shirts of people who do not really play," the costume of participation worn by pure spectators. It's the supply-side thesis the book states outright at 127 — that the Show turns players into consumable objects and the audience into something that chews them — caught here in vivo, the doers down in the pit and the non-players above, dressed as though they belonged to the game they only watch.