Some People

There used to be what I thought was a photo of a noisemaker here. Turns out it was a drawing done by Leslie Hawes that I didn’t have permission to use. She asked me to remove it and I have. Go visit her site to see more of her wonderful drawings!

(I feel like I’ve written something like this before but I’m compelled to revisit it today)  Some things that don’t bother ME but seem to bother most others:

*  When an adult brings a glove to a baseball game: Balls fly into the stands at alarming speeds.  Maybe you’re stupid enough to try and catch one with your bare hand, but I’m not.  See, I don’t own a glove so when I sit in the “danger” seats I do so with the hope that someone with a glove will save my face or head from a foul or home run ball.  So I would like to publicly thank every adult who brings a glove to a baseball game.  You very well might save my face some day.

*  When fans say “we” when referring to the team: I try to not use “we” when writing about the team on the blog because a lot of time, to me, it just reads wrong.  But when I’m talking about the Red Sox with my fellow Red Sox fans, more often than not a “we” sneaks in here and there.  I think the time, energy and emotion I put into following the team (not to forget the money) are reasons enough for me to use “we”.  I always assume others who use “we” use it for the same reasons I do and not because they actually think they’re part of the team.

*  The “Yankees Suck!” chant:  Now, generally speaking, I don’t like the chant because I’d much rather the fans were chanting FOR their team than against the opposing team.  (Same as how I’d rather spend money on a t-shirt promoting the Sox or one of my favorite players than on one that says “Jeter Drinks Wine Coolers”.)  It’s when people start talking about how the Yankees are (this year, anyway) in first place so they can’t “suck” that I start getting cranky.  I’ve never once told someone they sucked and meant they do their job poorly.  Everyone knows that as a team, or even as individual athletes, the Yankees don’t exactly suck.  But the people chanting “Yankees Suck”, whether in Boston or Seattle, don’t care about how good the team plays or what records the players are breaking, they just don’t like the Yankees.  Ergo, the Yankees suck.  Simple as that.

*  Sweet Caroline in the 8th inning at Fenway:  It took me a while to warm up to Sweet Caroline.  Once I did, I still hated to hear it when the Red Sox were losing in the 8th inning.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around how people could get so worked up over the song when the game was bad.  Then KellyO pointed out to me that Sweet Caroline was played at a point in the game, winning or losing, where sometimes the fans needed a little kick in the seat to be reminded that it was okay to make some noise.  That if it was good for anything it was good for bringing some energy back into the park ESPECIALLY if the Red Sox were losing.  I’ve witnessed this many, many times.  Sure it’s a hokey 70s song but it’s something that the fans can own.  The Red Sox didn’t start this (like some teams who actually have had the fans vote on what song they should play ala Sweet Caroline), if anything they stole it from the fans by having it now sponsored and putting the words up on the scoreboard.  I think more fans complain about this than anything else at Fenway and I just don’t get it.  35,000 + strangers singing, dancing and having fun practically in unison for three minutes while they get the energy going again.  This is not a bad thing.  (Also, this is done between innings, not during the playing of the game, so it doesn’t inconvenience anyone.  Not the players and not the fans trying to watch what is going on.  See below.)

Just for good measure, a brief list of things that DO bother me:

*  The Wave:  If you are so bored at a ballgame that you need to start the wave, you need to find a different sport to follow.  This doesn’t support the team in any way and all you are doing when you join in the wave is blocking the view of someone who actually cares about what is happening on the field.  Also, I’ve never asked, but I have a theory that it annoys the hell out of the home team.

*  Bringing beach balls to the game:  See “The Wave” and multiply it by 1000.  I’ve mentioned here before that one of my greatest accomplishments at a game was spontaneously taken the pen that happened to be in my hand (I was signing a birthday card during a game I went to with a group of over 20 people) and popping a beach ball that landed in my lap.  It was like an amazing gift from the Baseball Gods.

*  Making everyone get up during action in the game because you have to go to the bathroom or need a beer:  Unless you have an illness that requires multiple bathroom trips or you’re a four year-old with control issues, there is no reason you can’t wait until the teams are changing sides (or if you HAVE to, between batters) to go do your business.  I understand you think it’s a crime against humanity that the Red Sox only sell beer in the field box seats and everyone else has to get up to get theirs, but that doesn’t mean I want to see your butt walking by my face when Big Papi is up at bat.

*  Noise makers of any kind that aren’t attached to your body by nature:  See “The Wave” and “Beach Balls” and multiply it by a million.  I was fortunate enough to sit in one of the luxury boxes last night thanks to a generous friend.  Two or three boxes away there sat a woman who thought what the game needed was to hear her dime store noisemaker over and over again.  While I find this offensive as a fan in any situation, if this women had been sitting in the same luxury box as I, that thing would have been stomped into a million pieces.

I’m not so difficult to figure out, am I?