A labor of love tonight, friends. Pull yourself up a good sore throat remedy and mull over your options for the next event you go to. (Hint: you get much more bang for your buck with youth sports. Plus, you toughen them up for later!)
Your link is here, and it's something I'm actually pretty proud of. Go and spread the love. Just use protection.
Eagle Nation is coming to your town to chew gum and kick ass, and most of us don't have enough teeth for gum. Hide the women, because to outsider eyes, we can't really tell the difference before it's Too Late. (Video is not safe for work, because it's mildly naughty and freaking hilarious. You'll never think about 2% milk the same way again.) You may remember us from Freddie Mitchell -- that's right, my team beat yours in a playoff game with a guy who probably couldn't get a job in Arena Ball now. What makes you think it will be any different now, when your QB is officially 83 years old?
Check back on the site late Sunday / early Monday for the travelogue and details. It'll be football-riffic.
The Five Tool Ninja took in a couple of Single-A New York-Penn league baseball games over the weekend, as the Brooklyn Cyclones (Mets) defeated the Hudson Valley Renegades (Devil Rays) on Saturday night and the Staten Island Yankees trounced the Aberdeen Ironbirds (Orioles) on Sunday afternoon.
There are many things to love about minor-league baseball. The between-innings entertainment. The (relatively) cheap concessions. Seeing players that you'll never, ever see again.
But perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that walk-up tickets can be purchased on the day of the game, and good seats, too -- the first 15 rows near home plate, where the players are well within earshot.
So when the Aberdeen SS makes his second error of the game at yesterday's Staten Island Yankees game, he was helpfully reminded that "You made a terrible career choice!"
It's also worth mentioning that the freebie gameday program that the Staten Island Yanks hand out to each fan contains a personal profile for each player, which includes favorite hobbies, movie, music, food, etc.
So if you are so inclined, you can get under pitcher Jeff Livek's skin by telling him that his work is about as impressive as Kid Rock's recent album sales.
Or give it to catcher Brandon Ketron when he strikes out by suggesting that "Adam Sandler is vastly overrated in Billy Madison!"
Or set pitcher Craig Heyer straight by letting him know that "Your grandma's homemade pot roast *sucks*!"
Good times.
A quick question for everyone who goes to baseball games in cities that also have pro football teams...
How often do cheers for the football team crop up during the game?
Because you can, and do, hear E-A-G-L-E-S during just about every Phillies game. It's usually not meant in kindness.
When I was in the Bay Area, I never heard a Niners chant at a Giants game. I think I heard a Raiders chant once or twice at an A's game, but it was pretty rare (to be honest, real A's fans often hate the Raiders, because they ruin the outfield and their fans only show up in big games, then act badly).
I've been to see games in Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, New York, Detroit, Cleveland... no chants for the fall team. Only here.
So what is it, folks -- do other towns do this and I've just missed it, or is Philadelphia, for all intents and purposes, a single pro team town now?
For the record, I'm not casting blame on anyone for doing this. The Phillies are what they have been for a very long time -- a more or less direction-free collection of good talent and questionable front office moves, just good enough to be in a race, just bad enough, especially in critical pitching roles, to not be a serious threat. By recent standards, this team is likable and exciting, and being only 2 games back of the Mets / 3 out of the wildcard is encouraging.
Besides, this isn't Seattle. You can boo here. You pay for a ticket, and yet, you still have free speech. We're kind of quaint that way.
Anyway... I just can't shake the feeling that even a World Series win wouldn't make this area a baseball town again. Hence, the Eagles chants.
In other news: 42 days until training camp opens. Happy Father's Day, y'all.
(Another in a series of Bad Sports Fan Experiences.)
In my formative sports years, I knew a guy who was a top-shelf heckler. He rarely resorted to profanity, but would say or do things that made normal people pale, owing to a nearly pathological lack of shame. (We'll call him, for the sake of this story, Bob.)
You'd laugh at his stuff and admire his courage, but he wasn't exactly a guy you could relax around, for fear that someone would want to beat the crap out of him.
Bob could heckle on the fly, but his best material came from preparation and research. In the late '80s, as the dominant Mets came to Philly with 20K fans in tow to mop the floor with the hometown heroes, this meant props.
Props in zip lock baggies.
Specifically, realistic amounts of flour and/or baking soda, in such a fashion as to catch you the serious attention of security personnel, not that anyone really checked in those more innocent times.
The game was one of the first back for Darryl Strawberry, who was in the early stages of pissing away his talent on cocaine. He had just completed an arduous 3-day rehab, as was the custom in the go-go '80s, and the Phillies fans were expected (required?) to shower him with abuse. It was, after all, one of the only sources of amusement in that era.
Unlike most nights, the place was packed, and like all Mets-Phillies games, it was an open fist fight between the invaders from the north and the downtrodden hometown rabble.
Bob, brandishing his baggies, went to work on Straw. Early and often, but not profane, and with fights breaking out all over the stadium, it's not like anyone was going to call security for this.
"Hey, Strawberry! I got your drugs right here!"
"Darryl! Free drugs, Darryl! Come and get 'em! That's a good drug user!"
"Hey, Darryl, what's the matter? My drugs aren't good enough for you?"
"Hey, Darryl, I just took some of these drugs and oh, man, you've just got to try them! They're awesome!"
"Darryl, are you turning down my FREE DRUGS because you're already high? You scamp!"
Et cetera. Mets fans are looking daggers at him, while Phillies fans are giving him knowing nods of encouragement, as if they're sampling a fine vintage.
The game gets out of hand early, with Kevin McReynolds doing a lot of damage. It also pours down rain, so with the outcome well in hand, we leave with the majority of the crowd, in the eighth inning.
The old Vet Stadium had long ramps for the upper levels, that eventually ended in a bottleneck where the lower levels also exit. All the way down the ramp, Bob is flogging his baggies for all they're worth.
"Get your Mets drugs! Get your Mets drugs! Special collectible Mets drugs! Who wants to buy Darryl Strawberry's drugs? Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy Darryl Strawberry's drugs!"
We're almost at the exit when I see Them - the very worst people in the world to catch Bob's act right now. It's a Mets Dad (probably an attorney, given the '80s slick hair, suit, tie and briefcase) and his no-more-than-ten Mets Son (head-to-toe authentic jersey, hat, and glove). They've clearly heard Bob's sales pitch, and the Son is giving us the "Say it ain't so" eyes.
Bob, in a perfectly choreographed moment of brutality, tosses a baggie to the boy. "Here, kid, catch."
Yes, it felt like this. But horribly, horribly wrong.
Time froze. The baggie arced through the air, falling short of its victim, landing in a puddle in front of them. And I'm running for my life, convinced that Bob is going to get the shit beaten out of him, and pretty sure that I don't want to intervene. Which Bob uses as his exit cue.
"Hey, (DMtShooter's Real Name)! Come back, (DmtShooter's Real Name)! Hey, everybody, I'm here at the game with (DMtShooter's Real Name)!"
I'd like to find out what happened to that kid. But only so long as things stay anonymous. I'm pretty sure you could bring a lawsuit for that today.
(Another in a series of Bad Sports Fan Experiences. Milt Thompson was an outfielder for 7 teams in a 13-year career from 1984 to 1996.)
A college roommate was the kid of an ex-MLB manager, which meant that he got unused player's wife tickets. In the summer of 1988, he invited me to take in a Phillies game in late July, with the team mostly out of the pennant race. It was my first experience, ever, in very good seats.
The Phillies had (have?) a moronic fan that we'll refer to here as Mr. Hoo Hoo! Mr. Hoo Hoo! is so named because of an odd habit he has, where he shouts out some odd statistical note of encouragement to a Phillies player, then punctuates it with a high-pitched "Hoo Hoo!" that echoes throughout the mostly quiet stadium. During slow points in games, you could clearly hear him on telecasts.
(Note: the Phillies had, at this point, not made the playoffs for 5 years, and not really been in a race for that long, either. It was the era of Steve Jeltz, Jeff Stone and Rich Schu, which is to say, very much like a lot of eras in Phillies history.)
So we're settling in for the bottom of the first. Milt Thompson had gotten the start for the Phils that night, mostly out of a lack of any more interesting ideas. Hitting second against a lefthander, he was a mostly power-free outfielder hitting from the wrong side of the plate.
He also had, at that point, one home run for the year (and would finish with 2). Milt hit 47 home runs for his entire career. (Which makes him the perfect current candidate to coach Ryan Howard. Anyway, I digress.)
In short, Milt was no threat to go deep. At all.
As I soon discover, Mr. Hoo Hoo! is sitting no less than 20 feet away. Which, while annoying at the time, warms my black heart now -- the idea that the fat cats in the good seats had to suffer with this clown, game after game. He opens up.
"COME ON, MILTIE, HIT NUMBER TWO! HOO HOO!"
Turning to my friend, I said, "Yeah, maybe in his life against a left-hander."
Not loud, not drunk, not even all that derisive. It was the first inning. All was calm.
At which point Mrs. Milt Thompson (presumably), who was sitting right behind us, proceeded to loudly suck all of the air out of the stadium in a classically understated display of Spurned Woman Fury.
Mrs. Thompson also, probably, outweighed me by a good 50 pounds, and is surrounded by similarly enhanced people, all of them performing variations of the "Oh no, he didn't" face.
Milt might have been the pro athlete, but he wasn't the power hitter in the family.
The following YouTube clip more or less expresses the next 90 minutes of my life.
Thompson hits a pop up and is retired. The Phillies lose quietly. My friend and I do much the same. Mrs. Thompson's glare gives the back of my neck a third-degree burn. I would have had a better time in the bleachers.
On the off chance that Milt reads this... by all means, say hello to the missus for me.
Assuming she's still, you know, on the streets.
When they came for the high school fansFTT has been to any number (Chico Voice On -- we got lots of numbers – take any one you want) of games, and listened to any number of hecklers. Hell, we’ve even shouted our own. We did, after all, grow up in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Degradation.
Most heckles are more tired and played out than The Wave, techno, or Marty Schottenheimer. When the ref blows the call and everyone does the iambic Ass Hole or Bull Shit, it’s like farting in an elevator – two seconds of pleasure, then a long awkward stage where you’re just a teensy little bit embarrassed to be there.
So follow these rules and raise your game, Mouth.
1) Enough With The God Damned Cursing.
Unless you are Samuel L. Jackson or a Smurf that works in porn, it’s just not that entertaining to hear so many variations on the word fuck. Get some actual material.
2) Use Simple and Direct Commands
A nice one for the ref that used to destroy whole sections: “Bend over and use your good eye!” See, that’s right to the point, constructive, and educational. It’s also out there in two seconds flat, and Makes You Think.
3) Props and Prep Work
Heckling does not mean showing up at the game with signs and GWAR-ready costumes. Those only block the view of people who paid good money to go to a game, rather than to try to get on camera. Good heckling is not about getting on television.
But that doesn’t mean that all props go in the Carrot Top bin of Useless Crap along with, well, Carrot Top. One of the finer moments of heckling ever involved a zip-lock bag of flour / dummy cocaine, the ’86 Mets, and a little kid Mets fan who unwittingly recreated the Mean Joe Green Coke ad. I’m amazed we weren’t all killed. But of course, this is hard to pull off in an era of heightened security. We’ve lost something here, people. The terrorists may have already won.
You can, of course, do good work with a personalized game jersey (Hat Tip: Deadspin). Warning: May Cause Actual Herpes.
