Idiots Write About Sports

One of the pleasures of working at home is that I can turn on my TV and have the occasional afternoon baseball game playing softly in the background as I go about my business. And so it came to pass, on this particular afternoon, that I tuned in to Fox Sports West to take in the pleasures of today’s Angels-Rangers tilt from Arlington — in so much as anything involving the vocal talents of Rex Hudler can be called a pleasure.

In case you less-fortunate working slobs missed the ins and outs of today’s game, it featured the Rangers building a 6-2 lead followed by the Angels doing what I expect they’ll do a lot of this year — use their superior firepower to mount a soul-crushing comeback. The Halos tied it at six, forcing extras. Orlando Cabrera led off the 10th by hitting a laser over the left field wall — a turn of events that, with Francisco Rodriguez loosening up in the bullpen, meant almost certain defeat for the home squad.

Now here’s the story turns troubling.

Cabrera’s homer hit the steps in the leftfield bleachers at Usurious Mortgage Lender Field and bounced to the feet of a portly gentleman wearing a Rangers cap who bent down to pick up the baseball in advance of the scurrying mob. It was then that the smiling gent — who, I remind you, was wearing a Rangers cap — thrust his arms into the air and shouted “Yeah!” In case anyone in the left field bleachers had failed to grasp his superior ball-picking-up abilities, he turned around and thrust his arms upward in the “Yeah!” motion once more. Then, he turned back to the field and threw the ball away.

I think there are three things wrong with this sequence:

1. Picking up a rolling baseball is not nearly so tricky a task as this gentleman’s celebratory gestures might lead you to believe. It is certainly not the moral equivalent of snaring a screaming liner with only your bare hand and your oozing machismo to shield you from the impact. Please do not celebrate as if it were.

2. You’re a Rangers fan, man! The opposing team has just hit what is almost certainly the game-winning homer in a contest your team was once leading by a comfortable margin. What in the hell are you so happy about? Are you unfamiliar with the rules of the game?

(In the off-chance that anyone out there is just the least bit confused by this item, here is a summary of when it is OK to rejoice in catching a home run that spells certain doom for the team that you root for: Never.)

3. Now that you’ve celebrated picking up the baseball in the manner that some might celebrate splitting the atom, now that you’ve rejoiced in your ballclub’s humiliating defeat at the hands of foreign invaders, why not keep the baseball? If the souvenir meant so goddamn much to you five seconds ago, why are you participating in the most idiotic tradition in all of sport? Keep your ill-gotten gain, pinhead.

Sequences like this are why I don’t mingle much with the public, by the way.

"why are you participating in the most idiotic tradition in all of sport?"

Down, boy. There are Cubs fans reading this blog ;-)

Cubs fans at least can lay claim to inventing the tradition (dopey as it may be), so they at least get points for originality. But every other fan who has ever tossed back a home-run ball is a witless copycat.

I think my problem with the ball-tossing phenomena can be boiled down to four points:

1. It's not that common a thing, catching a home-run ball. I sat in the right-field bleachers and never had to so much as flinch at a ball coming my way. I'd hate to think, after all, this time, that the one time I catch a home-run ball, I will be forced to throw it back by a howling mob of partisans.
2. Yes, I said "force." Because it is my experience that people who toss the ball back do so not out of fervor for the home team, but because they'd rather not be torn to pieces by self-stylized super fans who are screaming profanities at them.
3. If balls hit by the opposition are so odious to the touch, why don't people throw back foul balls as well? Because they're worthless phonies is why.
4. Speaking of worthless phonies, the same people who would throw back home-run balls during a game can often be found hanging over the outfield wall, begging opposing players to toss souvenir baseballs their way.

If turning my nose up at this sort of unsavory behavior is wrong, I don't care to be right.

It is the most idiotic tradition in all of sport, and what bugs the most right now is a Mariners ad celebrating it. The opposition's home run ball escapes the bounds of the ballpark and lands in the yard of a Mariners fan. He and a bunch of other area residents then participate in an absurd relay to toss the baseball back onto the field.

It's bad enough people do this, but to celebrate it in an ad? Just awful.

At least every time I think about it I get to laugh at the Mariners fan who threw back a Cal Ripken home run ball in what was already assumed to be, and did indeed turn out to be, his retirement year.

"But every other fan who has ever tossed back a home-run ball is a witless copycat."

OK, I can agree with that (being a Cubs fan) ;-)

When I was quite a bit younger, and hadn't quite grasped the concept of "in your face" fandom, I didn't quite get why the Bleacher People threw home runs back, when all I ever wanted was to catch one...

(That being said, I was later fully indoctrinated -- to the point where now if I was at PacBell with my wife, and the visiting team were to hit a home run directly into my glove, I'd probably throw it back. If this ever happens, please remember it's because I grew up in Illinois and was raised a Cubs fan ;-) )

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