Then your Playbill would be wrong. The Mets’ backup catcher is Vance Wilson… 
Zev Steinhardt
Except that fans of either team are equally likely to get involved in the wave - who’s being supported? It doesn’t get going when there’s something to support happening, so you can never tell if they’re cheering the home team or the away team - if they’re cheering anyone at all, which I doubt. And, here in AZ, there are enough transplants that there are going to be a significant number of fans of the opposition at any game you’d happen to go to. They all do the wave right along with the DBacks fans.
Its my damn ticket, and do what I want with it, soy you can just fucko off! 
Gotcha ya!
(God, I miss those guys!)
I always bring my glove to the game. Although I am well aware that I am a dork.
The bad thing about PacBell is that the fan base is very different. no one did the wave at the stick. Rarely did the loser behind home plate have a cell phone waving “can you see me? can you see me?”
One thing I want to add:
DO NOT INTEREFERE WITH A BALL IN PLAY!
I hate people that do that!
btw-on scoring the game…one of my favorite is (Yogi Berra’s?) abbreviation:
WW (wasn’t watching)
It sticks in my mind that it was Ralph Kiner. I could be wrong about this. I use it, too - it comes in handy when I get distracted by things (like people standing up to do the wave in front of me 
)
ESPN.com did a list of these a while back, let’s see how good their archive is…it’s crap. Can’t find it.
Anyway, my number one annoyance is people at the game who aren’t paying attention, and yammering on about everything else. I don’t care what happened at work today or who you like and don’t like and where you’re going after the game. It’s especially maddening when people have this conversation at “shout” volume.
Maybe my view of the wave is skewed because I’m used to the overwhemlingly pro-home team crowd at my college’s stadium. Usually, the vistors’ fans don’t do it.
Enough of that: Dooku, you were at Pac Bell. How was it? Any balls go into the bay? I’m interested in all the new stadiums as Philly is getting one of its’ own (in the wrong location, but anyway).
I went to the Stanley cup playoffs a couple years ago here in Denver, and in front of us was a man and his wife. The woman CLEARLY cared nothing for the game because she had brought with her a trashy romance novel, which she read the entire time.
It was obvious to us that the wife whined to her husband, “Whyyyyyyy don’t you ever take MEEE with you to sporting events? Whyyyyy do you always hafta go with your buddies? I wanna be included tooooooo!” until he broke down and agreed to take her. And then she sat in a $100 seat and read a freaking book and never once looked at the damn hockey game!
I felt so bad for the guy…he could have brought a buddy and had fun but instead brought his bummer of a wife. UGH. Don’t insist on GOING to the sporting event, whatever it is, if you don’t actually want to BE there! How hard is that?
That’s exactly my point. Pac Bell isn’t Dodger Stadium, where everyone always leaves after the sixth inning, so why is everyone leaving? (Subtle dig at Dodger fans :))
Wolfian, I’ve been to Pac Bell many times. (I live in SF, but I’m still a Cards fan b/c I grew up in STL). No balls into the Bay that day, but I have been there before when it happens. As far as I’m concerned, EVERY new stadium should be built on the water so that HRs can land in the drink. I can’t explain it, but it just feels so damn…right. As for the park itself - great place to see a game. Good sight lines, awesome view from the upper decks, good bleacher crowd. Two good things they do - they release 500 bleacher seats day-of-game only, and you can watch a few innings for free through a couple fences in right field. Just make sure you get your drinking in before you get there - 12 oz. Bud $6.75. Ouch.
And everyone that interferes with a ball in play should fucko off. I do like the rule that if you do so, they throw you out. Amid raucous boos and a shower of garbage, of course.
Sunshine, I would like to meet that woman and vigorously shake her. Seeing as how my Blues have never even been to a Stanley Cup (in my lifetime) I have a hard time believing she could / would sit there reading a book. Avalanche fans - they just don’t know what they’ve got there. Ugh.
Dooku, we seldom see the wave even attempted at Busch stadium. Ocassionaly, one might get going in the upper deck because there are a lot school/church groups with kids that normaly wouldn’t be at the game, but it never lasts. Walk towards the light Dooku, into the light.
(3,000,000+ fans a year can’t be wrong).
Oh, don’t I know it. Busch was and still is my temple. Too bad they’re building a new one - I’ll miss the old girl at 250 Stadium Plaza…
Gotta disagree on the cell phone thing. Unless the person is yelling into the cell phone and being a distraction to 40 people in the surrounding seats, I’ve got no problem with somebody talking on a cell phone at a sporting event. It’s not like the opera, or the theatre, or something where silence is needed to hear what’s happening on the stage/screen. It’s a sporting event, not church.
Besides, if there’s any sport that lends itself to having a few minutes to relax, it’s baseball. I defy anyone to prove to me that when they go to the park for a 2 1/2 hour game, their entire attention is completely focused on the field for the whole time.
Another annoyance (not fan though)…
PLEASE, please, please, show me the lineup. Before the game, between innings, leave the lineup up on the scoreboard. Do not take it down and show stupid graphics of fireworks, or flags, or the damn team logo - let me get the lineup.
Thank you.
No, that was Phil Rizzuto. Phil also had/ahs the habit of leaving games in the middle of the 7th inning so as to get home for dinner with his wife.
That I admire.
One of the few people who seem to get that it’s a fucking game. That none of it really matters in either the long or short term in terms of any sort of impact on the world.
Sheesh.
Dooku, These days I’d say more then 60% of foul balls are line drives, especially with all the new stadiums having no foul territory, therefore the ball goes screaming into the tsands.
And you can break you finger(s) on a “can of corn” foul pop. I’ve seen it happen 3 times myself, in addition to 8 or 9 dislocated fingers.
Bringing my glove along.
Sauron, If I can hear that one-sided phonespeak at all, it’s distracting, and I paid to watch the game. If I can’t hear it, fine, but that’s almost never the case. 2-2 count, 2 outs, runner on first, hit and run is on…“She DID? No!!! What did YOU do?..no WAY!!!” Ugh.
Oh please. Does anyone here not realize that? C’mon. Do you stroll into Cafe Society threads and say things like “It’s a fucking movie. None of it really matters in either the long or short term in terms of any sort of impact on the world.” How about MPSIMS threads? “It’s a fucking labia. None of it really matters in either the long or short term in terms of any sort of impact on the world.” ATMB? “It’s a fucking message board. None of it really matters in either the long or short term in terms of any sort of impact on the world.”
Sheesh yourself.
WSLer is right, there are too many things flying into the stands fast these days. If you sit down low, particularly if you bring children you may want to defend, a glove can be quite useful. Besides the kid at the hockey game (was she named Cecil?) a kid a couple of miles from me took 200 stitches this year when a BAT at a Mets game flew into the crowd (Burnitz?). I saw 4 people helped at 1 game in Baltimore a couple of years ago - an old women, a middle aged woman, a boy around 12(who got booed), and a drunk who held his hands a foot apart (who got laughed at).
This does not apply to adults in the upper deck. Do recall being at a game in old Tiger stadium, a foul went into a nearly deserted upper deck. A guy was sitting there with his drink, stuck up one hand and caught the ball without getting up. Considering the Tigers, they shoulda signed him.
And any adult who catches a foul ball should give it to a kid, if not at the game, when he gets home. Momentous home runs which may yield large dollars may be kept.
If you can be distracted at such a climactic moment by a person on a cellphone, perhaps you are not showing baseball the proper reverence yourself.
Just curious – do you tell the beer vendor to be quiet?
Alas, no beer vendors in any stadiums in California. But if he were sitting right behind me and talking too loud, then yes I would.
Oh, I knew what you meant, I’ve just never heard it called Chez Ravine before. One of us is trying, and failing, to wow the other with his baseball knowledge, I just don’t know which of us it is.
No. Every new park should be built so HRs can land on Lansdowne Street (or, in a pinch, Waveland Avenue).
Ah. I see now. I have a good friend that lives in LA, and he calls it Chez Ravine. I just assumed everyone called it that, but it could be his own creation. I claim no extra-special baseball knowledge.
I guess we should just agree to disagree about the glove thing. I can see the various reasons for bringing it along, but I’ll still harass the guy using it to catch an easy pop foul.
I will never agree with the cell phone thing. Disrespectful. I wish I could tune it out, but I can’t. And I don’t think I’m alone here.
Leaving work now - I won’t read any new flames until Monday…