The worst problem facing baseball is not PEDs, player/owner greed, competitive balance or ticket prices. It is the fans themselves. Specifically, I'm talking about the exhausted ritual known in sports as 'the wave'.
I was in Fenway Park on Thursday to see the Red Sox take on the California Angels. The Sox were going for a sweep over the team they will in all likely-hood be matched up against in the ALDS next month. Josh Beckett has just tossed eight strong but given up the tying run on a wild-pitch strikeout that should have ended the inning had Jason Varitek done what he usually does. Now in the ninth inning, Billy Wagner was on to preserve the tie. It was a sellout crowd, no one had left, but I think I was the only one watching the game. The fools sitting next to me in the centerfield bleachers insisted on starting the wave. I screamed at them to sit down but to no avail. One wave circled the entire park not once, but two times, to a loud roar of self-approval from the many participating jackasses. Howie Kendrick hit a bloop single over second base to push ahead the winning run, I wonder how many people actually saw it.
If I were in charge of a baseball team, I would eject anyone who dared start a wave. They would be tarred and feathered, sent out into the streets and given a one-year ban from the stadium. To me, wave-starters are worse than people who run on the field. In fact, I think running on the field actually can have its place at the right time in a blowout.
So please, next time you are at the ballpark and a wave comes by your seat, just stay seated. Don't feel obligated to jump up and flap your hands like a seventh grade girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. Be loud, be obnoxious, support your team but have some dignity and watch the damn game.
