"Heads Up!"
The soundscape of Indians spring training, 2010.
about 2 years ago
bentausig
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I actually think there would be more relaxed exchanges like this with players if there was less autograph-hounding and CAN I HAVE A BASEBALL, HEY PEREZ, OVER HERE, PLEASE, CAN I HAVE A BALL, PLEASE, CMON!!
I understand getting a foul or home run during the game, but wow, has it gone over the top. I remember watching some Rockies ST games on their minor league fields, with about a dozen other fans behind a short-chain link fence, and you would just toss the foul balls back.
There’s no hope of people relaxing, I know. But its a pet peeve of mine. People sometimes get annoyed when fans bring gloves to the stands, but in my mind, that’s 1000x less annoying then everyone begging and begging for a ball or autograph at every moment.
End of rant.
Why would one find it annoying at all that a fan would bring a glove to the stands?
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Actually, if you’re sitting in the right/wrong area, it is just good self defense.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
You just kind of like being a dick sometimes, don’t you?
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
by USSChoo on Mar 24, 2010 1:19 AM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
I support odradek on the topic of gloves at games, along with other lessons of the school of hard knocks he occasionally recites (my favorite odradek quote, “failure is the way of the world.”)
In the line of seats that aren’t already protected with mesh, it’s extremely rare that an errant ball travels fast enough to harm an adult. It isn’t going to break your hand, and even if you zone out the crowd around you will alert you to the incoming missile. If somehow you miss the warnings and get clocked in the dome or face, it’ll smart, but it’s not that bad. In that case a glove wouldn’t have helped anyway.
I’ve taken a few shots to the dome in my day. I guess that’s obvious.
I guess if you’re with a kid it’d be different.
Yeah, agreed. Nowhere that’s not behind a net is going to put a functional adult in harm’s way except in extremely unusual circumstances, in which case a glove wouldn’t have helped. For instance, if you get hit in the face, what makes you think you would’ve reacted faster with your glove, which you probably would’ve taken off because it’s hot.
And, a batted ball breaking your hand at what’s got to be at least 150 feet from the point of bat impact would be highly absurd. That would require some terrible luck.
Are you guys kidding me? I saw a guy take a scorcher off his sternum just to protect his little girl from dying, and they were sitting down the first base line.
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 2:31 PM EDT up reply actions
I’ve seen more than a few people get injured to the extent that they needed to go to the hospital to get stitches and /or examined. A friend of some of the guys I went to Goodyear with does video work for the Indians and told us that last spring a woman got hit squarely in the eye and was permanently blinded by a ball that went past the netting (which now extends all the way to the ends of the dugouts).
I’m not emotional about iPad...
So dramatic. I think odradek protests the endless monotony of ESPN and Diet Coke. We move from one air-conditioned station to the next, and it’s always pretty comfortable. Only when we’re driving is there ever any danger.
Taking one off your bare palm once in a lifetime isn’t such a big deal, and for most of us it’ll never happen.
You missed the point completely, and that’s that there sure as hell is potential danger to people outside of the netted zone. That’s why you need to pay attention and not be on a cell phone. You act as if I’ve never been hit by a ball, as if acknowledging the danger of a baseball batted by a Major Leaguer makes me less of a man. I call BS.
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 8:08 PM EDT up reply actions
Let’s be fair here. It does make you less of a man.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 24, 2010 8:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Are you guys seriously that concerned about injury? How do you get on the highway? Play any sports at all? Get drunk and shoot guns in your backyard? Are you just horribly terrified doing these basic activities? Yes, they have some element of risk – which we should embrace and learn to love.
Good lord man, you people are totally blowing this outta proportion. No, no one is that concerned about injury. I’m just saying it’s possible. Obviously it doesn’t stop me from going to games.
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 11:09 PM EDT up reply actions
I think you picked the wrong subthread for this one.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Mar 25, 2010 6:21 AM EDT up reply actions
Sometimes you shouldn’t shoot guns in your backyard.
Steel Nick
by nickjs21 on Mar 25, 2010 7:31 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. I was at the Jake two years ago, sitting down the third base line, so far down we were in the outfield about even with the fielders. A young man sitting next to me reached out with his bare hand to snag a ball – it hit him on the outside of his thumb and created an instant purple bruise. He laughed it off. An inning later the bruise was almost the size of the baseball (no exaggeration here – a buddy of mine took pictures). The Indians staff insisted in taking him for an x-ray.
I guess if you’rewitha kid it’d be different.
I haven’t taken a glove to a game since I stopped playing little league, but my son and daughter bring theirs along. Not because they need to, but because it’s fun.
by FredOx on Mar 24, 2010 11:02 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
A couple years ago I was in the club seats at the Jake (front row) and this foul ball hit off the facing that was literally about 12 inches from where my head would have been had I not scrambled out of the way. Scared the crap outta me… that thing was movin’.
... Paul Hoynes is a really great guy ...
Here’s what I really don’t like about an adult taking a glove to a game: it demonstrates an infantile association with the ball players. Just as a child will pretend, when observing a fireman, to become a fireman. Or a truck driver, or whatever. Adults who carry gloves, to me, have yet to advance beyond this childish identification with their heroes. They see themselves in their fantastic carrying of gloves as big-league ball players.
When you look at pictures of fans with their straw hats in the 1920s or their fedoras in the 1940s you don’t see any clowns with baseball gloves. Why is that?
The old Tiger Stadium, home of Ty Cobb and Chet Lemon, had the closest and most dangerous front-row seats ever. I doubt lawyers would allow someone to build such a stadium today. You’d be laughed at if you brought a glove to those seats.
When you look at pictures of fans with their straw hats in the 1920s or their fedoras in the 1940s you don’t see any clowns with baseball gloves. Why is that?
Back when adults were adults! Those were the days! You could shine your shoe for a nickle. When we got bored, we went to war!
You’re getting bent out of shape for something that maybe 1% of any baseball-going crowd does. Find some joy in things. Take a few breaths.
Steel Nick
Yo, Nick: I am way more relaxed than you seem to give me credit for. Joy abounds in every sandwich.
So adults who wear baseball uniforms to games—with their gloves—aren’t in some way play-acting and pretending to be a big-league player?
I do think you’re on to something with your ironic assertions of historic adulthood. We presently live among a nation of children. Including people who can’t tolerate views contrary to their own.
If this is directed at me, your view isn’t contrary to my own. I just don’t see the need to a) care, and b) go that extra step deeper and psychoanalyze these people. Honestly, go to a ballgame, and count the number of people you wouldn’t card for beer that are wearing gloves against the paid attendance. You seem concerned over something that amounts to a mole hill.
Steel Nick
To each his own. I don’t see the need to compile lists of the top 2000 prospects, or to parse the intricacies of service-time rules, but I don’t care. I don’t get bent out of shape because someone spends thousands of hours making up insanely elaborate (and risibly inaccurate) team prospect reports, or whatever. I don’t really care if adults go to ballgames with their gloves, but it doesn’t mean I have to be their friend. And it took me far less time to “psychoanalyse” such people than it does to run a progress score.
I don’t really care if adults go to ballgames with their gloves
Here’s what I really don’t like about an adult taking a glove to a game
by Chemo on Mar 24, 2010 11:44 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
And it took me far less time to "psychoanalyse" such people than it does to run a progress score.
It takes you less time to be condescending and judgmental than it does for others to contribute to the understanding of the game of baseball.
…congratulations?
by Voltaire on Mar 24, 2010 5:24 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Action 1: analyzing baseball
Action 2: analyzing fans
I know which I’d rather listen to, judgment or not.
Though I do wish to point out that this subthread began with Dave’s analysis of fans’ behavior. So my observations were not out of the blue.
his focus was more towards the 40 year old autograph hounds, not really the glove wearing 40 year old little kids
Anyway…I have snagged one foul ball in my life. Not on the fly, but as it rattled around the mostly empty seats of Kaufmann Stadium while my brother wrestled with a Royals fan. “Dan! Dan! I got it! I got it!”
Off the bat of Mr. Pat Borders.
I caught a BP homer in the picnic plaza at the Jake at a game with my dad my senior year of high school. I didn’t even stand up from the picnic table; it was like it found me. Full disclosure: I was wearing my glove.
Everybody should get ice cream every day.
by Joel D on Mar 24, 2010 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Odradek attends games in old-timey wool suits, a fedora, a newspaper, and Field View Spectacle Goggles. When he runs to first base, it looks choppy and too fast.
by joeee on Mar 24, 2010 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
Flag for putting My Morning Jacket in my head.
by cleveland teamer on Mar 24, 2010 2:16 PM EDT up reply actions
I think, to a lesser degree, they are also childish identifications. Let’s put it like this: if you go to a Kiss concert in full Paul Stanley regalia—makeup and all—you might think you are doing so as an homage to one of your favorite bands. But the people onstage don’t see it that way.
I hear what you’re saying on the indentification issue, although I’m not sure that’s really what is going on here. I think it’s just as simple as the fact that people don’t understand or just don’t care about the odds – they think it would be fun to catch a foul ball. And they don’t mind having the glove with them.
The injury possibility is even more remote, and even then, having a glove probably wouldn’t have helped in the tragic event in Mahoning Valley last year.
I do think most of the complaints are from guys that are just too cool (yeah, I’ve heard that beer ad too).
Aside from that, there’s always going to be some “childish identification” in sports fandom. It’s part of the deal, though it can still go too far.
Who cares why they do it? People who wear jerseys or carry gloves to the game do it because they think it’s fun. We all have things that irk us – I’d rather be surrounded by 20 adults wearing baseball gloves than be next to the guy who drinks a dozen beers and acts like an ass, or be seated in front of a guy in a suit who yaks on his Razr the whole game (Camden Yards, July 4th weekend 2005). If the nerds are enjoying themselves and not interfering with you, what difference does it make?
by FredOx on Mar 24, 2010 1:56 PM EDT up reply actions 7 recs
Yes yes yes. I once saw a guy wielding two Blackberries almost get hit in the dome with a ball while talking on one of them
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions
Went to a Giants game maybe 5 years ago …
The group sitting behind me knew nothing about baseball. They just sat there sipping their chardonnay (!) and texting all their friends in the bleachers/gossipping the entire time.
That has to be more annoying than watching a baseball fan lean over with a glove to try and snag a foul ball.
Gosh how WEIRD would it be if you looked around and saw nothing but rows and rows of silent, polite adults…all wearing gloves. Every one of them. Except you.
Gimme the drunk guy quick!
The drunk guy (Wrigley Field, Cards vs Cubs, July 2009) nearly threw up on my son’s shoes, so no thanks.
And why are we presuming the glove-wearing adults are silent and polite? Is there nothing between silence and jackassery?
So adults who wear baseball uniforms to games—with their gloves—aren’t in some way play-acting and pretending to be a big-league player?
Of course they are. And so what?
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions
This is where I am. I wear a Vizquel jersey to most of the games I attend. I don’t think I am him, I just like to wear a real baseball jersey to a game. It’s fun for me and, frankly, I don’t care what the people around me think.
I can’t remember the last game I didn’t wear a jersey to.
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 8:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Sometimes a glove is just a glove.
I’m not at the game looking at the guy in the suit and tie and thinking “what an aloof ass.” Why do fans do any of the things they do at ball games? Why wear a baseball players cap or a team jersey? Why keep score? Or cheer or boo?
Baseball is, in a way (or at least should be), an escape and anyone going to a game is indulging in a little bit of fantasy. I don’t think it’s particularly telling about an individuals mental make-up that they are wearing a jersey or carrying a glove or running out on the field…no, wait, the latter is pretty telling.
And I am sure you are correct; fans in the early to mid 20th century never brought gloves to a game or engaged in juvenile or silly behavior. And if anyone did make fun of your glove they would be sure to get a cigar put out on their forehead.
Far fewer fans of that era had gloves or jerseys because at that time those items were far more expensive relatively and the teams did not merchandise at the level experienced now.
I don’t bring a glove to defend myself from hard hit foul balls, I bring it because I love the game of baseball and from time-to-time at a game it has helped me to take home a nice souvenir.
.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
by JimmyAB on Mar 24, 2010 2:20 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I was expecting to hear the “gloves were too expensive” theory. Not sure I believe it. People were just as stupid in 1920 as they are today, but they were more adult in their behavior. Public childishness was tolerated less than it is today.
More adult in their behavior in the 20s? Really? Didn’t most parks ban/frown upon females from attending baseball games because of all the raucous and lewd behavior at baseball games?
by talonk on Mar 24, 2010 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
If a man took his shirt off during a baseball game at League Park he would be ushered from the stadium, and probably given a taste of the billy club. Much of what passed for raucous or lewd behavior in 1920 wouldn’t get a mention today.
No doubt. The standards for attending a game back then was similar to going to the theater, etc. (not that makes it better).
That still doesn’t mean they acted like civilized people. Not at all.
If you don’t like how people behave at the stadium now, go to a Braodway show instead. Seems to be more your speed anyways.
There’s no need to get personal. I have refrained from saying where I think you might be better off going.
If any adult wants to dress up like a cowboy and play cowboy and indians, they should go right ahead. If any adult wants to play Joe Satriani air-guitar in front of a full-length mirror, more power to him or her. We live in a free country.
I don’t like drunks at the ballpark. I don’t like people on their cellphones at the ballpark. I don’t like drunk people on their cellphones at the ballpark.
I liked going to games at Municipal when you wouldn’t have anyone within 30 rows of you, when you could watch the game and enjoy being outside.
Carrying a glove doesn’t make a person a better baseball fan than anyone else. Nor does it make a person civilized. I think it’s infantile, and if you disagree, fine. That’s just, like, my opinion.
And, furthermore, I cannot stand Broadway musicals!
That last sentence would be a pretty good sig.
by cleveland teamer on Mar 24, 2010 6:09 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t like drunks at the ballpark.
Sad to say, you are rarely, if ever, going to experience this at any ballpark.
I don’t like people on their cellphones at the ballpark.
While I agree with you on this, in the digital age, this is virtually impossible as well.
I liked going to games at Municipal when you wouldn’t have anyone within 30 rows of you
So what you are really saying is that you want the Tribe to continue to tank and finish behind the Royals year in and year out.
There’s no need to get personal.
My comment to go to a theater still stands (but since you hate Broadway, try an art gallery or museum instead), and wasn’t a personal attack. Based on what you just described in this post, can be accomplished at any “civilized gathering”, not at a sporting event. You seem to have taken it to a personal level by “psychoanalyzing” and calling it infantile.
And you still haven’t refuted my stance that the crowds back then were just as uncivilized as today. They just looked civilized. There were many more fights in the stands in the early 20th century and plenty of hooliganism, even if they weren’t dressed like hooligans.
All told, as much as I like the Rijksmuseum, I’d rather sit in the upper deck on a summer night.
What is referred to (not by me) as “psychoanalyzing” is simply an observation, nothing more.
I do prefer empty stadiums to full ones, but you’re right, that’s a thing of the past. Or I just may have to wait for another golden age of baseball.
I also used to go to games in Cleveland and Chicago and New York in the 1970s and 1980s when a lot of extremely rowdy behavior (drug use, drunkenness, fights, people having sex in their seats) was tolerated. Fans were far rowdier then. I think crowd behavior follows various cultural standards, and as the 1960s and 1970s were a more permissive time, people behaved more wildly in crowds.
From what I’ve read, there was a lot more civic or public order in the 1920s than today. Cops were allowed to be far more brutal. Crowd control was accomplished with truncheons.
Cops were allowed to be far more brutal. Crowd control was accomplished with truncheons.
This is what you want to bring back?
Here is a story for you.
The most serious bottle-throwing incident occurred on May 11, 1929, in a game between the Indians and the Athletics. A controversial umpiring decision resulted in Indians fans hurling bottles onto the field, killing one fan and seriously injuring umpire Emmett Ormsby. “Any man who will throw a bottle or any other life-endangering object from the midst of a crowd at any official or player is the rankest type of coward. He is a low-down cur that has no place in modern society,” editorialized the Cleveland Plain Dealer several days later.
Sure looks like the cops had a handle on that crowd that day, even if they were dressed in the fedoras and ties.
by talonk on Mar 24, 2010 6:48 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
That’s an interesting article. But fans were, presumably, able to have bottles in the stands up until 1929. That says something about public behavior.
or it could have been that was the only way they could serve beverages. Plastic was a long ways away, as well as taps at ballparks.
Allowing them bottles doesn’t mean they were civilized.
I’ve read many accounts of fights in the stands in the early 20th century. That rarely happens today.
I’m presuming they banned bottles in parks after the 1929 incident.
Vendors subsequently sold beer in waxed paper cups (vessels in which beer tasted surprisingly good). I’m sure they had beer taps at League Park way back when.
You can see fights most games at U.S. Cellular Field. Yankee Stadium used to be good for regularly occurring donnybrooks.
The more I think about it, they werent’t serving beer during Prohibition. Most of the bottles, I would speculate, were carried in by the fans: half pints, etc. Most of the soda and “near beer”—if they sold it—would likely be dispensed in wax cups by vendors. The margins would be higher that way. It being Cleveland, of course, the fans were unlikely to be sober.
Gloves and such were definitely more of an expensive luxury item at least through the 50’s. Today a decent glove costs a pittance compared to it’s equivalent in the first half of the 1900s.
My father just told me a story about how his dad was ready to beat him for losing his first baseman’s mitt. It had cost 30 dollars and there was no way my grand parents were going to shell out that kind of money again in 1955(ish). That is equivocal to several hundred dollars today.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
by JimmyAB on Mar 24, 2010 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
The cost of gloves has gone down, sure, but I don’t think many adults were interested in buying their own gloves anyway. That’s a historical projection.
Perhaps. I think what typically happens (now more than then…?) is that one who is inclined to bring a glove to the game probably stays with the one they’ve had since their teenage years. At least until it starts to fall apart, is lost or stolen or you retire it for sentimental reasons.
I had 3 gloves but the one I exclusively brought to the ball park was a late 50s Richie Ashburn model that my father had used as a teenager and passed on to me. I used it all the way up through high school. It was a rather small mitt but was wonderfully broken in and molded perfectly to my hand. It looked like it had a few hundred stories to tell and in fact it did.
The point of having it with me at a big league game was not to protect myself or imply some greater connection with the professionals on the field; it was to continue a tradition I had shared with my father and family and friends over many years since childhood and be a reminder of all those games past I had experienced with them all. The wonderful conversations I engaged in with kids and adults alike about that glove (and theirs) were invaluable as a bridge between not only generations, but ethnicity and fan bases as well. If a foul ball came my way and I was lucky enough to get the glove on it, all the better. I had to put it away 2 years ago because it had gotten to a point beyond care and repair. I’ve replaced it with a new glove that will continue the tradition and someday, hopefully, I will pass it on to a child of my own who will do the same.
Frankly, it never occurred to me that someone would have the attitude you’ve expressed. Not once in my life has anyone at a game or anywhere else ever put forth the notion that they were annoyed at fans bringing gloves to a game. Or maintained that it was juvenile/infantile or wouldn’t be my friend because of it.
You are entitled to your opinion of course. I do think the way in which you put forth your views on this are self righteous, pompous, somewhat alienating and not reasoned very well. I think you are ignoring that others may very well have intelligent, adult thought behind such an innocuous thing as bringing a baseball glove to a baseball game.
And your comments on what it was like in the old days versus current times are gross generalizations at best and have no real historical back bone. I don’t really want to turn this into any more of a debate than it has already become (wtf?!?) but if you want I’ll assemble some “evidence” of why the yester years were perhaps worse in terms of fan and player behavior than what we have now.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
by JimmyAB on Mar 24, 2010 8:03 PM EDT up reply actions 7 recs
I am surely pompous and self-righteous, for which you must forgive me, but I don’t know where you get off suggesting that anything I say is “somewhat alienating.”
I am honestly not looking for a fight on this; perhaps USSChoo’s comment is more appropriate.
Having said that, I don’t believe the tone of some of your comments left much room for interpretation; if you are an adult and wear a glove at a professional baseball game you had better be on the field because if not, then you are annoying, infantile, and need to mature and stop fantasizing, and don’t even ask to be my friend…
I’m being reductionist a bit here…just saying that is how you were coming off.
I’d still sit next to you at a ball game and have a civil chat. I’d maybe even put my glove away if you asked me to. I am, after all, a grown man.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
by JimmyAB on Mar 25, 2010 1:26 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Once I went to a late-season game with my father at the lakefront, and he pointed out a man in the seats wearing a glove; “Look at that idiot,” he said. “He thinks he’s going to catch a foul ball.” And he laughed derisively.
You might think so, but it was actually a longstanding familial joke we had about people who claimed they took their gloves to the park to protect themselves from vicious line drives.
by odradek on Mar 25, 2010 2:09 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Actually, that’s not entirely accurate:
“[P]eople who claimed they took their gloves to the park to protect themselves and their families from vicious line drives.”
I go to every game wearing an umpire’s chest protector circa 1980. For my family.
Steel Nick
by nickjs21 on Mar 25, 2010 7:36 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Well, that explains it.
I remember a game my dad took me to at Municipal Stadium in the mid-70’s, it was one of the first few I’d gone to and my dad caught a foul ball on the fly with the glove he would later give to me. I don’t remember any type of laughter, only the clapping and cheers as he handed me the ball. I smacked the ball over and over into my mitt and thought “My dad’s so awesome!”
I'm emotional about my glove...
by JimmyAB on Mar 25, 2010 2:25 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I’ll come clean. I brought gloves to games till I was 20. The idea that you bring sports equipment in case you are briefly called on to act out the mechanics of the game is kind of adorable and probably unique to baseball.
As a fan, you have to prepare for hat tricks in Detroit.
by YoDaddyWags on Mar 25, 2010 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions
You call out odradek for taking excessive offense at your tiny gesture, then you reply with a 6 paragraph, sanguine/saccharine defense of the glove. That’s not exactly balanced.
Some think it’s a cool tradition to bring gloves to the game. Others think that makes you a dork. Neither agrees with the other. Okay.
It would be OK, except only one of those two groups starts by insulting the other and suggesting that they should change their behavior. Not sure why there’s so much calling out people around here for being dorks and nerds. What is this, middle school? Do we need the internet equivalent of wedgies and swirlies to make you feel adequately superior?
I, odradek, pledge as a member in somewhat good standing of the Let’s Go Tribe internet community, that I shall hereafter refrain from suggesting, stating (either directly or indirectly), declaring or otherwise intimating in any form that my fellow LGTers are in any way nerds, dorks, weenies, weaklings, infants, spewers, crybabies, etc.—even if said LGTers go on at exhausting (and occasionally absurd) length about Star Wars, frozen foods, TV shows, or any other unspecified idiocies, etc.
I shall also further refrain from commenting about trite, mawkish, ham-fisted evocations of one’s youth, one’s family, one’s father, etc. Sentimentality can prevail safely here, with dancing unicorns and golden sunsets, with no coarse intermediations from bitter, shriveled mean people who never enjoy anything and who carry a dark grudge with them through their constrained unhappy lives.
I feel better already! I guess I just hadn’t realized how much Cleveland has changed!!
by odradek on Mar 25, 2010 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I mean, we have institutionalized diss words for committing the social/moral faux pas of being a Yankees fan. They have feelings too. Or the perma-goat clecommers, who are “dumb.” That sounds like superiority to me. The only difference I can see is that it’s on topic. But if you like sports, good beer, and make sense to the hundreds of readers, how big of a dweeb are you, really?
Wow, I can’t believe the animosity towards people that bring gloves to games. I always just thought that’s what you did.
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Mar 24, 2010 2:33 PM EDT up reply actions
And this is the biggest point. It has become a social norm for such a thing to happen, just as in the early days of baseball it was social norm to wear a shirt, tie and hat. All the ranting and raving doesn’t change that. Just like everything else, the social norms for sporting events ebb and flow. Currently, this is one for baseball games.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
To make it easier to pick them out in a crowd…?
by joeee on Mar 24, 2010 2:02 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
The nerds want the ball. You really are just contrarian for the sake of it sometimes. You’re that kid in 61* who rooted for Maris just because everyone else liked Mantle.
Steel Nick
“Nerds want the ball” is different than saying you’re carrying your glove to the game for protection.
I think anyone who says that might be kidding themselves a bit. The foul pop-out is far more likely than the screaming liner.
Steel Nick
My only experience with a foul ball was a high pop into the seats along first at US Cellular. My friend screamed “I got it! I got it!” so I put my head down, to get out of his way, and kept eating my churro. He scrambled out of his seat and stood in the aisle, watching the ball strike me square in the back.
He had no explanation for his behavior. He really thought that was the best way to catch it.
Yes. They have a lot of good refreshment options. It’s actually a pretty good park minus the stupid fans who throw things at you.
Who needs affection when you can have blind hatred?
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Evan Lysacek: 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist ♥
by ClemsonGirl on Mar 24, 2010 11:14 PM EDT up reply actions
Yankee Stadium. Joel Skinner. Maybe his awesome .626 OPS year. Took a long foul fly off my noggin when I’m jostled from behind at the crucial moment. Might have caught it in the webbing had I worn a glove. No long term effects, maybe, but I’m not sure my doggerel now is as good as it was pre-Skinner.
Anyway, what he says.
I always figured people wore gloves to Yankee Stadium so they wouldn’t leave any prints.
by YoDaddyWags on Mar 25, 2010 11:17 AM EDT up reply actions
I never claimed that is actually why you should take it to the game, I just said it could come in handy in certain situations. Amazing what you try to put in my mouth from a single sentence.
Welcome back, Sandy! ATALECG...
I’ve caught 2. One on the fly and one coming off the upper deck facing. Nothing nerdy about bringing a glove to a game.
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Friend of mine caught a foul ball with his glove instinctively – right in front of his face. If he didn’t have his glove he would have broken his hand, and if the ball had gotten past his hand I don’t want to know what could have happened.
I am a nerd .. no doubts about it. And yes I bring a glove to the stadium. Not to pretend I am on the field or anything. But since I don’t play baseball anymore (or softball for that matter) and since my travel schedule does not allow me to join a team, going to a game is the only time I get to wear the mitt my wife bought me as a birthday present.
For those questioning the veracity of this, we were sitting directly behind home plate, about 40 rows back, almost with our backs against the concourse. Yes, there’s netting behind home plate, but foul tips can travel up over the netting and spin down into the stands, which is exactly what happened in this situation. Tony Sipp fastball, foul tipped backwards.
I bring a glove to the game if I’ll be sitting anywhere with a remote chance of a line drive. If I’m in pop-out foul territory, I may or may not bring my glove to help me catch the ball. I have a good time, I don’t interfere with anyone else.
Apparently I’m a man-child who hasn’t given up his kiddy dreams. I clearly don’t own a fedora.
Apparently I’m a man-child who hasn’t given up his kiddy dreams. I clearly don’t own a fedora.
If we go to a game sometime I’ll wear a fedora to balance things out. We should be safe that way.
I really don’t think the ball would break his hand. We have all sorts of reports here of people being bruised and “would have” but does anyone actually know someone who has broken their hand on a foul ball?
Putting this here because I can’t think of any where better:
I added some new/further edited photos from Goodyear on Flickr if you’d care to have a look.
And thanks to whomever edited the post to include the “jump”. Obviously, I didn’t have that figured out .
I’m not emotional about iPad...
Surely relevant to all of these conversations is Matzah Ball: A Passover Story, which I read as a child in my Sunday school library. The product description is as follows: “Aaron must bring a bag lunch to the baseball game during Passover, but while his friends are off at the concession stand, something wonderful happens.”
SPOILER ALERT
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Lucky Aaron snags a Cal Ripken home run ball by deflecting it with a piece of Matzah.
From, Ben
by bentausig on Mar 25, 2010 12:17 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
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