Let me root, root, root
For the home team
If they don’t win it’s a shame
In a shortened 2020 Major League Baseball season, fans are doing their “rooting” from the confines of their living rooms. In their place are cardboard cutouts smiling out over players and coaches wearing masks and using hand sanitizer in between innings.
It may sound like a Spike Jonze movie starring Joaquin Phoenix. Maybe “Her 2” with the lead character falling in love with a cardboard cutout. But no, this is baseball in a pandemic.
While piped-in crowd noise during a ninth-inning rally may not rival the real buzz of humans, the cardboard cutouts are serving their purpose. In fact, they may be superior to real fans in some respects. Let’s face it, real fans can be bothersome and irrational. We’ve all come home from a game complaining about those sitting around us.
Here are some of the most annoying “real” fans:
The fan who can’t stay in their seat
In a perfect world, no one would leave their seat during a baseball game but let’s face it — three-plus hours is a long time to stay in one place.
Maybe fans should be allotted two trips per nine innings. “Sorry, miss but you’ve used up your two. You’ll have to wait until the ninth inning ends or extra innings.”
Regardless, there are fans that are going to watch the action on the field and others who are there for the atmosphere. For the latter, maybe consider walking around the park or finding a place around the concourse to drink your beer and socialize.
Tickets are expensive. Most fans don’t want to miss a clutch two-run double in favor of seeing you pass through the aisle for the seventh time.
The fan who spends all of their time on their cell phone
Cell phones are valuable in this day and age. If you’re meeting a friend at the park, this is a wonderful way to find a place to meet before the game. Take a selfie with your family or friends in between innings. It will be an excellent reminder how much you miss baseball in the middle of winter.
But at some point, put that phone in your pocket. You might see something cool on the field like a 5-4-3 double play, an inside-the-park homer or a pitcher strike out the side. You may even have a chance at catching a foul ball. You can’t do that in football or basketball.
This falls into the previous category as the cost of a day at the park is pricey. As Jeff Kent once told the KNBR hosts “Enjoy the game more!”
The overly exuberant visiting fan
We’ve all come across this guy, right? I say guy because women generally don’t act like this. In fact, they are usually telling their boyfriends or husbands to cool it.
If you are a visiting fan, fee free to cheer and even yell. Wear your jerseys and hats. That’s why you bought the ticket. It’s a memorable experience seeing your team in a visiting stadium.
If you are a cool guy or gal, you’ll even start a few friendly conversations with the home fans around you. If a fight breaks out, those interactions could save your hide.
What you probably should not do is turn around toward the home fans and taunt them, start talking trash about the hometown players or generally act like a second cousin from “The Sopranos.”
The fan who touches balls in play
As a 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier deflected a batted ball hit by Derek Jeter into the stands during Game 1 of the 1996 American League Championship series between the Yankees and Orioles. The play was ruled a home run, rather than fan interference, as the Yankees tied the game. New York won the game and the series in four games en route to grabbing the World Series title.
This was before MLB’s use of replay. Now most of those kinds of calls are overturned.
Despite this, fans continue to reach over fences and interfere with balls in play. Yes, that’s you Giant fans. Oracle Park is an intimate experience where supporters are much closer to the action than the older parks like in Oakland.
Yes, Giant fans touch balls in play more than they buy Cha Cha Bowls and Gilroy Garlic Fries.
A rule of thumb: Pretend it’s a soccer game if you are sitting near a fence — don’t use your hands.
The fan who doesn’t know a fly ball from a home run
OK, I picked on Giant fans. Now it’s time to make fun of supporters of the Dodgers and A’s.
There is a different sound and feel to a fly ball and a home run. I’m not talking about the balls that reach the warning track. These are the ones where the outfielder barely has to move.
Experienced fans should know the difference, but I constantly see Dodger and A’s fans get fooled on this one. It’s easy to befuddle a toddler with a rubber pencil and disappearing coin, but adults should know the difference between a fly ball and home run.
It’s not that difficult. If the batter hits the ball squarely on the barrel and there is a high trajectory, the ball has a chance to leave the yard. If he hits it off the end of the bat, there is a good chance that ball is going to end up in an outfielder’s mitt.
Except at Coors Field of course.
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August 02, 2020 at 03:55AM
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O’Donnell: Cutout fans rival real fans some of the time - Vallejo Times-Herald
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