Here we are now

Doug:
Ah, Jesus, just when you think it's safe to open the Globe, there's the CHB with one of his "picked up pieces" ink fahts.

 

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Bill:
Gotta love being a sports columnist. I mean is there any othah job in America where you can just randomly turn in a bunch of half-baked ideas and non-sequitahs and expect people to buy it?

 

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Doug:
You mean any job besides being a politician? Heh.

 

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Bill:
Imagine if your doctah pulled a CHB?

 

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Bill:
You go in to his office all crippled up with ailment and the doc's like, "Yo, dude, I'm having one of my 'picked up pieces" days so here's a random assortment of pills the pharma rep left behind... just start popping them and probably one will work. Don't forget to pay your copay on the way out. See ya, suckah."

 

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Doug:
I'm so glad that when Papi picks up pieces he actually makes something out of it. He's in a groove now.

 

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Bill:
Seriously. Ovah his last 27 games and 24 starts, he's hitting .301 with a 1.037 on-base plus slugging, 14 walks, 8 dingahs, and 17 RBI.

 

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Doug:
Do you feel a certain chagrin in joining the "El Popup" club before?

 

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Bill:
Nah. We're not here to be right. We're here to be fanatical.

 

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Doug:
We're here. We cheer and sneer. Get used to it.

 

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Comments

[Natalie]

"Ink fahts"- LOL funny. My colleague just looked at me over her monitor as I chortled. She's Belgian so I didn't try to explain. :)

Given his alarming propensity for self-delusion and his role in other dubious cultural phenomona (Curse, anyone?), Shaughnessey probably feels that - just as Al Gore invented the Internet - he and his "picked up pieces" are the forebears of Twitter. I am sure the thinks his "fahts" smell like the finest English roses.

[Bob]

CHB drives me crazy. Thank God the Globe is doomed (although, to be truthful, I love a two newspaper town).

Regarding Papi, if I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: he could hit .024, hit one dinger a year, drive in point-two-seven-niner runs, and I'd still love him.

He's David Friggin Oriz. Never forget who brung ya.

[Bob]

And never forget a T.

[Harwich Rich]

Just when I've almost forgotten about CHB,you drag me back in. j/k hb-lol

[buckner was framed]

"We're not here to be right. We're here to be fanatical."

THAT's a T shirt if ever I saw one

[Matt of CT]

ink fahts? don't cephalopods do that?

[louclinton]

I just read the PHB piece.

Aside from the fact that Ray Fitzgerald and later Ernie Roberts were the originators of the sweep-all piece, it's not informative and poorly written. I don't care at all about any of the information that is included in the piece.

lc

[louclinton]

Yikes">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardboard_Tube_Fighting_League">Yikes

[Kaz]

Goddamned beautiful strip today! It fits my experience at the ballpark last night to a goddamned T, you'd think h.b. was in the same row as me...Hmmm...

But first, the tale: It was late in the sixth or seventh inning and we'd taken the 5-3 lead. The game started to slow down a bit. My regular tickets are in the right field bleachers a few rows up from the field. Well within yelling distance of the right fielder. Last night's victim was Ryan Sweeney of the Oakland A's.

I started caterwauling: "SWEEEEEEEEENNNEEEEEEYYYY!" The drunks around me picked up on it. Suddenly Sweeney, the sophomore from Oakland, had his first ever fan club. Random people around me started yelling Fenway greetings at him, the worst being "Sweeney, you suck!", and I noticed a female usher at our nearby ramp took notice. A minute or two later and another drunk gets a little bolder, "Sweeney, you A-Hole!" (literally "a-hole" though). She starts heading up the stairs towards us now.

When she arrives she says, "You can't be yelling at the players like that. You need to settle down." I was stunned. Of all the things I've ever yelled at the field, we didn't even approach demarcation of actual curse words yet! But here we were being given an ultimatum from "Security" about trying to mess with the opponent's right fielder!?! The drunks were laughing and confused. As she left, I spun around at all of them and mockingly whined, "Damnit, guys, baseball players have feelings too!" The whole section was laughing to tears.

Oh, but it doesn't end there, of course. Now we have a mission! I yelled out "Sweeney, we're SORRY!" The guard smirked. I looked around and said, "'Let's go, Sweeney', on 3." We started chanting FOR Sweeney like he was the best player on the field. Random accolades were yelled in his direction for the rest of the night. I yelled "I bet you wish Oakland were like this!" More laughter. It went on like that for the last 2 bottoms of the innings with Sweeney in right field.

I have no idea what got into that usher's fool head. But it was actually dumber and funnier to start mockingly cheering for a right fielder with nothing to do than the razzing ever was. It probably only worked because he's a relative nobody on a relative nowhere team instead of an Abreau/Dye/Ichiro where you'd just never be willing to cheer for them and they get enough cheering that nobody would be able to discern the biting sarcasm in your chanting.

So, that's my Fenway Tale from last night's game. Thanks to the usher who played moral police for us...just don't let it happen again. We're not Bleacher Bums for nothin'.

[Kaz]

TL;DR (too long, didn't read) version:

We're here. We cheer and sneer. Get used to it.

[louclinton]

the reverse gooch in action at The House That beer Built. nice.

[NolaSox]

hb, love the dr scenario. Perhaps that explains he-who-has-been-named-far-too-often-in-the-last-two-weeks' demise

">http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/07/jury_sees_photos_of_cash_in_wi.html"> another reason he is called the dough boy
Mrs. Jefferson: Damn it, Bill, I just made the filling for an apple pie - get yer ass to the store!

[Bob]

Nice story, Kaz. I can see it all in my head. Except for that see-you-next-Tuesday usher who should be ushered out of a job.

"A-Hole" gets a warning?

In the bleachers?

Let's just say there would have been words spoken to her from my bleacher section. Bad, bad, naughty words.

[Bob]

My fav "oh, I'm offended from section 39 (from my best buddy Robert):

"Shut your pie-hole, we're in the bleachers at Fenway Paak. If you want tame, fly to Vegas and see Segfreid and frigging Roy."

[Jeff in NC]

Maybe the usher is on loan from New Skankee stadium? where you can't even piss during the nightly 7th inning citizenship ceremony. I suppose she would patrol the restrooms and make sure if you were mid piss when the fat bastard starts singing, you either choke it off or at a minimum take your hand off your johnson and put it over your heart while you turn to face the flag on the wall while pissing all over the next guy's leg all while singing loudly and by the rules?

[Kaz]

Jeff, the Yankees won't be enforcing any acknowledgment of the song any more.

[h.b.]

Ugh. The Nanny State is everywhere. If you can't raz players at Fenway, where can you raz players?

But what a great way to twist things, Kaz. You're right. The false cheering was a much worse razzing than what you were doing before the usher's interference.

[ponch in jerz]

"We're not here to be right. We're here to be fanatical."

effing awesome.

[Kaz]

h.b. when our ire turned at the usher before we started with the mock cheering, I also pulled out my iPhone, turned to everyone, and said, "Look! It says on Wikipedia that Ryan Sweeney is dating an usher at Fenway!"

It was really the only explanation I could come up with that made any sense for her actions.

[h.b.]

Kaz, Another possibility -- Maybe her last name was Sweeney?

I mean it's a common enough Boston name that I chose it for one of the characters, "Mike Sweeney."

[Natalie]

What that usher did is worse than Nanny State-ism... she is attempting to fundamentally alter the game of baseball. What I mean is, no other sport has "chatter." That "hey batter better, swing batter!" is part of the very fabric of the game- historic, traditional, and, in my mind, sacrosanct. Next they'll be banning rally caps, and telling us that hat brims are meant to be worn in the forward position only... Jeebus.

[h.b.]

Nat,

So true about "chatter" being such an integral, time-honored, part of the game, even in Little League.

As for the Nanny State and baseball. How long until peanuts are banned at ballparks because of the people with allergies? How long before hot dogs are banned because hot dogs are worse than Hitler?

Ugh. Don't get me going. Govt. interference in our lives is my biggest hobby horse.

As Tocqueville predicted: “The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling.”

[Jeff in NC]

Kaz - I saw the changed Stadium rule too. I was thinking maybe she needed somewher else to work since she could no longer enforce the hand to johnson to heart rule?

piling on.. yes, she is affecting the game. chatter is what makes certain stadiums buzz and others seem like a ghost town. what's yankee stadium mystique and horror w/o the din of the crowd and the bronx cheer? what's Fenway w/o throwing beer at Sheffield? (ok, not a great example of behavior, but I'll bet Sheff felt different about going near the stands after that).

Unfortunately, the pussification of the ball field begun years back - littel league and dixie youth baseball in many places no longer allows "taunting of the batter". Perhaps Milton Bradley would be differnt today if he'd have been manned up back when he was little?

[Kaz]

Little League in my day* had "heeeeyybattabattabattabatta..." chants that rivaled the tree cicadas.

* My day was the early 1980s.

[Jeff in NC]

and h.b., peanuts are not far from gone. We already can't smoke a cigar in an open air stadium. They say 2nd hand smoke, I say time honored tradition. Without peanuts to shell and eat, what exactly is one's 8 year old supposed to do for the last 7 innings of a game? stay interested? without laser fire and flying superheroes? not gonna happen.

[Jeff in NC]

Kaz - exactly. heybatteraybatteraybatterSWING! HA - YOU MISSED! heybatteray...... you could here it all across the park and then some.

done gone kaput roadkill on the highway of "making things better for our kids".

I never like to get to geezin' on how things used to be, so instead of being "anti-progress" I'll call these rants "pro-retro".

[bigyaz]

"I mean is there any othah job in America where you can just randomly turn in a bunch of half-baked ideas and non-sequitahs and expect people to buy it?"

Yeah. Bloggah.

[Kev]

Late 80's LL chants from my area:

Scotties skunks live in tree trunks!
Williams Cleaners suck their wieners!

Heh.

[h.b.]

bigyaz,

So true *but* you don't pay for it nor is it a "job" in the sense that one could make a living from it. :) But otherwise, yes, same thing.

[COD]

//hat "hey batter better, swing batter!" is part of the very fabric of the game- historic, traditional, and, in my mind, sacrosanct.//

It'll be dead by the next generation. It is flat out not allowed in youth baseball at any level. I coached for 8 seasons starting when my son was 6. The kids were basically not allowed to speak, other than to encourage their own team mates.

[Bob]

The world has certainly changed. When I played Little League, I pitched and played 1st base. We were vicious little bastards. Our arch rivals used to throw at our heads, and I certainly aimed at theirs. I knocked more than one helmut off those jerks, and had mine plunked a few times.

And now you can't be in the bleachers at Fenway frigging Park and call an opposing player an a-hole?

It's the world turned upside down.

[Jeff in NC]

my son's teams are allowed to cheer for their own as long as it's a positive cheer. so we end up with a little league boys dugout that sounds like the prepubescent girls softball team on the next field doing cheerleading rhymes at the top of their soprano voices - next they'll be huddling up between outs, gimme a fucking break. sorry ladies, nothing against girl's softball - it rocks - but I want my boys to throw at the other guy's head and call him names and tell him he sucks after strking out. that's baseball.

When can we get a mike on Varitek during the game to hear the smack he's laying down to the opposing hitters?

[COD]

I was quite happy when my son retired from baseball last year at age 14. Coaching got less fun every year as the kids got older. I had 14 year olds that had played baseball every year since t-ball but had no clue about cut-off throws. I had a SS that didn't know the play was at 2nd on a ground ball and a guy on first. How the hell do you play the game 8 years and not pick up the stuff that should have been taught in T-ball - the stuff you should learn just watching the game on TV?

And I sure as hell couldn't teach all that in the 6 practices we had before the season stared.

[Jeff in NC]

COD - Amen to all that. The skills the kids don't have is amazing. the basic knowledge of the game they lack is unbelievable. However, when I look at most of the coaches (not all) involved in LL, they themselves do not know anything about the game. they do not watch the game on TV, they do not study the game, they do not teach the game. They start the season late and have no time to practice before getting into 3-4 night/wk game schedules. Learning is not at all important. I'm ranting...

[steve2]

Hey guys, what planet do you guys live on? The competitive intensity and commitment level of youth sports today much higher than anything I faced growing up in the late seventies/early eighties. Our 10 year old son is on a travel team and kids are throwing junk, laying down bunts and playing solid baseball. Frankly, I worry more about the burnout factor than the wussification factor. Many of these kids have been playing at a high level for something like 80 games a season since they were very young. On the other hand the competition is so intense at the higher levels that they will never make the highschool team if they don't go through this process. Just sayin'.

[louclinton]

I live on Urf

[COD]

I was talking about county rec league baseball. But the travel teams are probably part of the problem. The kids with skills get drafted out of the public leagues early - so the role models on how to play the game are not there for the other kids. Babe Ruth and the usual leagues we all know become the leagues for kids not good enough for a travel team. A message the kids probably hear over and over at school.

My son fences now - which is a totally different ballgame. No worrying about teams - it's a one on one battle - requires a whole different mind set. He's a much better fencer than he was a baseball player!

[Bob]

I used to be a fencer in grammar school. Laid out miles of barb wire around my grandpa's cattle ranch.

(So sorry. That's just very, very, extraordinarily lame. Although it's true.)

[soxdownunder]

When I first took mrs sdu to
http://www.kitezh.com/gkw/whistle/colling.htm "> Victoria Park
she was delighted (homaphobia notwithstanding) by the Maggie faithful singing to the West Coast star fullback:
'Jacovic takes it up the arse do-dah, do-dah
Jacovic takes it up the arse
Oh do-dah day!'

No-one seemed to mind but I guess it would be unacceptable in the bleachers at Fenway.

Meanwhile I was delighted to see that the person who was ejected from the Toilet for going to the toilet got $10,000 while his lawyer got $12,000. Cool.

[Jeff in NC]

Steve2, I live on a planet called southeast NC. Its a long way from a MLB park and short drive to the boondocks. It appears COD and I ahev had similar experiences as parents of recent youth athletes. I agree with you - the travel teams are playing real ball and getting real coaching and experience. But all the other kids are eating shit to be frank. And to be clear, one of my son's plays on a travel soccer team so he can get the good coaching, high competition, etc. - so, yes, I have helped a bunch of local rec league soccer players eat shit in his wake. But the problem remains - the large majority of kids are learning ball from whichever parent has time (all my respect to volunteers - seriously) which is not necessarily the same thing as learning from someone who knows anything about the sport. Hence no more Hey Batter SWING! Do I have a solution to this? No - I'm waiting for lc to offer a sunset for nostalgic LL geezers. Hoping the price is around one bucket of Dubble Bubble.

[Bob]

//Hoping the price is around one bucket of Dubble Bubble.//

That's another thing, Jeff.

When I was in Little League, we all did chaw. (Well, snuff.)

Yes, it's un-PC these days, but damn it, we all wanted to be big leaguers and they all had giant wads of tobacco and gum in their cheeks.

[soxdownunder]

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/80440/default.aspx "> I'm exhausted, tired and emotional

Perhaps we could beat Kansas tonight?