Horn at Oakland Athletics game: The future of baseball??

The Game Room
1

I’m watching the Tigers at Oakland, and someone is sounding a horn while the Oakland players are batting: Blatt blatt blatt. … Blatt blatt blatt. Maybe someone snuck in a vuvuzalia. Not sure if it would be a Tigers fan or an Oakland fan.

The last couple nights, it was a different horn: Beep beep, beep beep beep. … Beep beep, beep beep beep. I think that one was only when the Tigers were batting. I assumed that was an Oakland fan, but who knows.

I remember watching Tigers at Cleveland last year, thinking I was glad I wasn’t a Cleveland fan, and have to listen someone pounding a drum all game, every home game.

Is this the future of baseball? Would you like someone near you sounding a horn all game, or would it piss you off? Can MLB do anything? Should they?

2

The individual teams can certainly remove people for creating an unreasonable disturbance. If enough fans complain about Mr. Vuvuzela, they’ll ban them.

3

I saw one of those infernal things in a recent highlight of a baseball game (the little git wasn’t playing it at the time).

4

These horns have been around as long as I can remember. They can seem especially loud on radio or TV if the person making the noise is seated near the broadcast booth. The broadcast producers should have done something about it if the noise was too obtrusive. This could be done by re-aiming a microphone or by adjusting the mixing board.

This type of noise never comes from the team itself. MLB doesn’t allow teams to try to use noise to disrupt the performance of visiting teams. This came up at the Oakland Coliseum in the playoffs against the Yankees several years ago. There was a group of A’s fans who would bring drums to the left field bleachers. These guys had developed different cadences for different A’s players. George Steinbrenner tried to have them silenced by claiming the drummers were actually A’s employees. If this were true, they would have been forced to keep quiet during play. As I remember, Steinbrenner didn’t win this one.

Ballgames are noisy. People yell, they boo, they bring noisemakers. I attended a game in Montreal years ago where the fans made noise by banging their seats up and down. My guess is that this horn-blower wouldn’t seem so bad to you if you were at the ballpark. But as RickJay pointed out, if you were there you could always ask the person to stop, or appeal to one of the ushers or security people.

5

They’ve been doing that shit in Oakland for decades. Between the horn people, the drummer/glee squad, and the fact that attendance is so low there, I’d be surprised if anyone in the Coliseum is actually watching baseball.

6

Vuvuzelas were banned at Yankee Stadium last year.

linkee

7

Tampa Bay has the annoying cowbells.

8

Just an update. It’s as bad as ever. Almost impossible to watch the fucking horn noise is almost constant.

9

Tune into beIN if you have it and watch a Japanese baseball game, horns in American stands having nothing on the Japanese.