Idiots Write About Sports

Well, Barry Bonds is back, and much to this hapless Padres fan’s chagrin, he’s playing almost exactly like he did before his lengthy drug reha… er, knee rehab. He’s taking good swings, making us throw twenty pitches every time he’s at the plate, putting the ball in play, and causing the Pads the usual splitting headache. Sure, away from the plate Barry’s a little sluggish, but that’s not exactly a change; the only difference is that he now has a pretty good excuse for loafing in the field and on the basepaths.

I’m just as thrilled to discover that something else hasn’t changed while Bonds has been away. It turns out that a preponderance of the Giants fans who attend home games are still jackasses! Setting aside the boneheads in the bleachers who turned Bonds’ first at-bat from a likely single to a ground rule double, the crowd at PacBC still boos loudly every goddamn time Bonds takes a pitch.

Look, I can kind of understand the frustration that must attend seeing Bonds so rarely get a pitch to hit. And when you’ve got brilliant strategists like Buck Showalter deliberately walking in a run in order to avoid a Bonds slam, I can even understand occasionally playing that damnable chicken dance over the P.A.

But people, I’ve been watching the Padres get humiliated by Barry’s Giants for nearly a decade, and I can assure you that the San Diego pitching staff treats Bonds only slightly more gingerly than any other hitter. They usually end up regretting it, but Pads pitchers almost always throw him strikes. The two exceptions are when the situation would justify giving an intentional walk to any power hitter, and when the pitcher is simply too inept to hit the strike zone. In fact, when you’re facing San Diego, you should always assume the latter regardless of who’s at the plate.

So hey, when the Pads are up by three and Bonds steps into the batter’s box with nobody on base, it’s really not necessary to boo if the first pitch just happens to be a ball. And if, during a later at bat, a pitcher places one low and outside on a 0-2 count, that too might be a good time to consider holding your tongue. Just because your team’s organization is classless enough that they actually install a huge chicken in the outfield to tally up intentional walks doesn’t mean that you have to stoop to their level. Remember, this is the same group that brought you Rusty the Mechanical Man. Do you really want to take your social cues from these people?

Whoa, the Padres fans have awakened! For this?

Some people boo because they think they are being funny. Some people boo because they want to see Bonds swing the bat. So what?

And it's not a "huge chicken in the outfield." It's a sign with a number in foul territory under the arcade. Sure, it's huge compared to a real live chicken, but it's probably the smallest sign in the yard.

A guy's gotta get pissed about something, I guess.

"Whoa, the Padres fans have awakened! For this?"

Nah, I'm still napping. No point in getting too riled up; the Padres are just continuing along the steady downward trajectory that they started on in early June. They'd be in the basement already if the rest of the West wouldn't keep ducking out of the way.

"Some people boo because they think they are being funny. Some people boo because they want to see Bonds swing the bat. So what?"

So it's irritating to see so many people profess publicly to be so ignorant.

"And it's not a 'huge chicken in the outfield.'"

Fair enough. The chicken has been put up since the last time I was at PacBell, so I haven't seen it in person. It looks pretty big on the televised coverage, but I'll take your word for it.

Anyway, huge, small, realistically chicken-sized; it's still a team-erected endorsement of bad sportsmanship. Fans already find plenty enough excuses to behave like imbeciles without the organization actually encouraging them to do so.

I recommend sending a strongly worded letter to the R&A. Tut tut.

Team-sponsored idiocy is a longtime tradition. They sell beer at ballparks don't they?

Idiocy doesn't necessarily follow from beer consumption. Plenty of people can enjoy a beer at the game and not turn into a drooling cretin. When you buy a beer, the vendor doesn't hand it to you and say, "Be sure to be an obnoxious pain in the ass!"

The chicken, on the other hand, is inherently contentious, and invites contentious behavior from the fans.

One thing the beer vendor does do, at least at Petco, is take the cap off the bottle and keep it. They apparently do this to keep people from zimming the caps into each other's heads. It's a ridiculous thing to have to do, but the lack of respect fans show for each other in the stands necessitates it. As seemingly harmless as the stupid chicken is, it contributes to what I perceive as a growing trend of baseball fans being complete shitheads because they can get away with it.

I guess all I'm saying is that I'd like to continue to be able to take my daughter to baseball games without some pinhead unleashing a string of f-bombs two seats over. The chicken, and the whole mob-mentality booing thing, don't give me a lot of hope.

That's a good thing to hope for, but somehow I'm not convinced that chicken-crazed fans are more obnoxious than drunken ones.

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