Hail to the Redskins

Image via WikipediaA few weeks ago, I entered my name into a raffle for Redskins tickets at my office.  My company either has, or was given, season tickets.  They gave away a set of four club level seats and a parking pass for each game of the season.  I was fortunate enough to win the set of tickets for today's Redskins/Cardinals game, which the Redskins won 22-21.

Sports have always been an important part of our family life.  My wife and I had our first date on opening day of the Baltimore Orioles season 20 years ago.  Since our son is away at school, and we had two extra tickets, we invited my brother in law and nephew to go with us since our nephew is also a huge sports fan.  I don't think that he had ever been to a Redskins game so it was a big deal for him. 

To be honest, we have sort of soured on attending professional sporting events.  We much prefer the atmosphere of minor league and collegiate events.  I think part of it is the fanaticism that is often on display at professional level.  A lot of it probably has to do with the amount of alcohol consumed by the fans in the stands.  Sure there is alcohol served in minor league parks, but the atmosphere is such that people rarely get out of hand.  It could also be that with the much higher cost of a ticket at professional games that the fans feel a little more entitled to fanatical behavior.

Maybe fanatical behavior is the wrong choice of words to use.  After all, the word fan is simply a shortened form of the word fanatic.  I guess what I probably should say is that at pro games people are more prone to what I consider obnoxious behavior.  I am not talking about just simply being loud and screaming at appropriate times during the game.  Nor an I talking about folks wearing the team colors in support of their favorite team, though I may have to draw the line at face paint, especially on fat, middle age men. 

All too often at the professional games, there seems to be an increased amount of foul or abusive language.  Or there is the example of the type of person who was sitting a few rows in front of us.  While just about everybody else in the stands would sit and watch the game, cheering loudly or standing during a big play, this guy felt the need to direct the crowd.  Before every play he would stand up and wave his arms and turn to his fellow fans exhorting them to get louder.

I don't know, maybe I am just continuing to get more cranky as I get older, but the guy just looked foolish to me.  OK, not as foolish at the guys that were wearing the burgundy and gold face paint, or the person wearing a Tigger costume.  The other thing that happened today that had not happened before, and I think is an indictment on where we are as a society, is that every fan was patted down upon entering the stadium.  The NFL claims it was not in response to an idiot Cowboys fan (I know idiot and Cowboy fan is redundant) sneaking in a stun gun in to the Jets/Cowboys game last week, but you have to wonder.

Related articles

• Redskins Beat Cardinals 22-21, Move To 2-0 (huffingtonpost.com)

Opening Night!

Tomorrow night is the home opener for my hometown team, the Bowie Baysox.  My brother in law bought tickets for my wife and I to attend with him.  Sometimes these April games can be bitterly cold and wet, but they are calling for fairly nice weather tomorrow, so it should be a good time.

I always look forward to going to the Baysox games every year.  My son absolutely loves going to the games and all of the between inning activities that the Baysox offer.  It has become a very big part of our family life as we all have a good time at the games.  In fact, my wife and I went on our first date 20 years ago for opening day for the Orioles at the old Memorial Stadium, so baseball was a big part of our lives before our son came along to join in on the fun.

It is going to feel a little bit weird tomorrow night since my son is still away at school.  I can not remember the last time my wife and I have been at a Baysox game and not had him sitting in the seat between us while we watched the game.  My son does come home next Tuesday for spring break, and we plan to take him to a couple games while he is home.  Unfortunately, his scheduled weekends home from school do not mesh well with the Baysox home schedule, so we will not be able to enjoy as many games as we usually do.    

Related articles

• Baltimore Orioles Minor League Beat April 11th: Break Out the Bats (bleacherreport.com)
• Eastern League Recap for April 10 (thebaseballblog10.wordpress.com)

A Major League Tantrum

When I was a kid, I was a huge Washington Senators fan.  When they left DC to go become the Texas Rangers, I eventually became a Baltimore Orioles fan.  During those years, I got to see several animated arguments from their manager, the legendary Earl Weaver, over the years.  Not that Earl was the only one to get a little over the top with his arguments.  There was also some pretty good disagreement from the fiery Billy Martin.  Lou Piniella also had some pretty good ones too.

These days, most of the baseball games I see are minor league games.  For the past 10 or 12 years, we have become avid fans of the Bowie Baysox, usually attending 15-20 games per season.  In those games, we have seen a few arguments with the umpires, but nothing that compared with the likes of Earl, Billy, and Lou.  I guess I always thought that those types of major hissy-fits were reserved for the major leagues.

But no more.  I found this video on Yahoo! this evening.  It features manager Gary Robinson of the State College Spikes (a class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates of the New York-Penn League.)  Robinson is debating a call where the umpire ruled a batter hit by pitch.  He thinks that the ball hit the bat instead of the batter and should be ruled a foul ball.

After the usual yelling, kicking of dirt, and gesturing, he gets thrown out of the game.  He walks over to first base and pulls the bag from its base.  Instead of tossing the base onto the field a la Lou Piniella, he does something I have never seen before.  He takes out a pen, signs the base, and hands it to the fan.  Truly a major league tantrum and a great souvenir for the fan.