I went to a Giants-Dodgers game back in the mid-1990s. I am a Giants fan but I went with my buddy who was a Dodgers fan. This is right after the Giants dumped Will Clark, a fan favorite, for that overrated loser J.R. Phillips who never did anything but whiff. Anyway, my buddy keeps calling him “Hey Will,” throughout the game. Phillips gets so irritated he starts staring us down between pitches (we were in the front row) and got caught flat-footed on an infield grounder because he was staring at us and couldn’t make it to first in time to cover the bag. Then I let him have it as the Giants fan. I kept saying “Will would never have done that. Boy, they sure were wrong about you.” He wouldn’t even look our way again. We actually caught Giants pitcher Mark Gardner laughing at Phillips while we were letting him have it. I miss Candlestick.
While attending LSU in the mid eighties the scene at Alex Box Stadium was pretty wild. The serious hecklers and students sat above the 3rd base dugout where the visiting team sat. Hours of tailgating preceeded the game and the crowd was always in top form. I think the best one involved an opposing coach, ole Miss Coach Jake Gibbs would get a certain chant whenever he went to the mound during a game. The backstory is he was the punter on the ole Miss Football team in 1959 when Billy Cannon ran back a punt for a TD on Halloween night for a LSU 7-3 victory. The most famous play in LSU history. Jake was the last guy with a chance to tackle Cannon and he missed. So whenever Jake would go to the mound the crowd would chant, “PUNT JAKE, PUNT”. This was almost 30 years after the fact!
Free agency had just happened. Reggie Jackson is at his first game at old Arlington Stadium with a new contract, new team (Baltimore?). Fans in outfield had been riding him the whole game about his salary, mother, sister. I got his attention and yelled “Hey, Reggie, loan me $5.” Reggie laughed, looked at me, and said “That was pretty good.” For the rest of the game, everyone was yelling reasons why he should loan them some money, preceded by “I love you, Reggie…”
I went to a preseason baseball game in Milwaukee against the White Sox. Being a Cub fan, I could of cared less about the two teams and the fact that it was preseason. The great thing about Milwaukee is the tailgating before the game. By the time we got into the game, I was already half in the bag. In around the 7th inning, the Brewers put world renowned DH, Lenny Harris in at first base. We were only a few rows up from first base. Lenny Harris made an error to begin the inning and I started to get on him since I had nothing else to do. it was so quiet in the stadium the fans in the upper tank could hear me so I knew Lenny did also. Then in the same inning, he had line drive bounce right off of his glove for the second error of the inning. Lenny starts to stare at the glove like there was something wrong. I told him that it wasn’t the glove and that he should stick to DH’ing. With all the stuff I had been giving him, the first base coach for the Sox, Gary Pettit, was cracking up. No kidding, Lenny Harris lets a ball go through his legs for his third error of the inning. Lenny starts to check his shoes. Now I am yelling, “It is not the glove, it is not the shoes, it is you”. I finally yell, “Lenny, what in the hell is wrong with you.” He turned around and shrugged his shoulders like “I don’t know”. Everyone was busting up in the crowd. The kicker was, when the third out of the inning came, he turned with the ball and started looking up in the stands for exactly who was heckling him. I stood up and started yelling “Right here buddy”. He pointed at me and tossed me a game ball. Ever since then, my buddies and I have said Lenny Harris is our favorite baseball player. Very class act!!!!!
Being an avid Cub fan, I have heard and participated in some great heckling in the past. One particular Cubs vs. Diamondback game stands out as a great heckle. The Cubs were up a couple of runs in the 7th when the D-backs made a call to the pen to get Willie Banks up to throw. I was sitting about 4 rows up from the bullpen. Needless to say, I had a few pops in me as did everyone else around me. As Willie starts to warm up, I started in with the usual one liners. The guy behind me yells the following….”Hey Willie, good to see expansion is keeping your Triple A ass in the league”. Willie hearing all of this, turns to us and grabs his crotch. Willie is like school on Sunday, NO CLASS!!!!
In ’95, when Baltimore was playing the Yankees, we were sitting just above Billy Ripkin. This was back when he had the 90210 side-burns. My friend yelled, “What’s with the sideburns Elvis, you know you won’t have a hit.” Billy then proceeded to scratch the back of his head with his middle finger. Every time he came to bat, Ripkin popped up and the Elvis comments continued.
after watching a college catcher go 0 for 4 at the plate, commit 3 passed balls and 2 throwing errors, we heard a guy yell: “you can’t catch, you can’t throw, and you can’t hit, YOU’RE A COMPLETE PLAYER!” hilarious
Though I wasn’t there to here it, I remember hearing this watching it on TV. The Angels were about to finish off the Yankees in the 2002 ALDS (on the way to becoming World Champs) in Anehiem. The cheer that started going up throughout the stadium was a take off of the famous “Lets go Yankees” cheer. It went “Go home, Yankees.” When I realized what was being chanted, I was laughing hysterically.
My senior year of high school, me and a couple of buddies did some scouting on a future opponent for our school’s basketball team. We discovered that the opponent’s head coach beared a striking resemblence to Newman from “Seinfeld.” So the night before the game, we photocoped a few dozen pictures of Newman (the character) to pass out amongst the student section before the game. As the coach was introduced, we all revealed the photocopies and yelled out “Hello, Newman.” Later in the game there was a questionable foul called, and as “Newman” started to argue with the ref, we started chanting “Sit down Newman” (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap). This got him so upset that he would not shake hands with our coach after we won.
We’re at Spring Training in Arizona, hot afternoon, lots of sun, lots of suds to cool us down, some struggling young player trying to make a good impression comes up with guys in scoring position and gets called out on strikes for his third K of the game. Of course, at Spring Training, you’re real close to the field. My buddy hollers loudly as the guy trudges head down to the dugout:
“Hey, Smith, do you know how to spell Double-A…..???”
The crowd busts up big time.
As a Red Sox fan, I naturally hate all things Yankee. I was in Seattle in May ’05 to watch the Sox pound the M’s. The Yankees came to town to play the M’s right after the Sox series, and as we were leaving our hotel in downtown Seattle one afternoon, my friend noted, “Hey look, there’s Jeter and Posada!” Sure enough, they were walking down a sidewalk across the street from us into a shopping mall. I didn’t know what to do, so I instinctively yelled, “Let’s go Red Sox!” My buddy yelled something similar. Jeter, sporting a pretty little silk shirt snobbishly looked at the ground as he characteristically chewed his gum like a cow chews cud. Posada at least mustered a smile before the two Yankee has-beens went into the mall. I find it refreshing that the Yankees can’t escape the wrath of the Red Sox Nation even when they are playing the Mariners in Seattle.
On my senior trip me and a group of friends went to a Phillies at Braves spring training game. Being a spring training game, there weren’t too many people there, so the players could hear everything. When Chipper Jones would come up to bat, we would all chant “Larry, Larry, Larry” since thats his real name and he hates it. When he first heard it he stared us down then struck out so we chanted some more. The next time he came to bat we chanted again, but this time guys on the other side of the stadium picked up on it too. We were in his head and he hit a weak comebacker to the pitcher. He made an error, and we chanted his name. They took him out of the game, and when his replacement came up to bat we chanted “We want Larry!” By this point we had walked over to the other guys, who were also from the Philly area. When the Phillies won, I started singing Fly, Eagles, Fly and they joined in. Needless to say, we were kicked out of the game on 2 seperate occassions, but instead of leaving we just switched sections and started up again. Good times on the senior trip.
So I was at an Angel vs. Blue Jays game a few years back and I was sitting directly 5 rows behind the opposing teams *deck* this kid went up to bat (first time, no score, no rbi, no nothin) So he goes up to the plate and I start yelling “EASY OUT” over and over and over, getting on the *guy on deck’s* nerves. First pitch, STRIKE! Continue yelling “EASY OUT, EASY OUT”. Second pitch, STRIKE! So again, “EASY OUT! EASY OUT!” He put’s his hand up to pause game so he can get consentrated, “EASY OUT! EASY OUT!” He takes a step back, get’s it together (so he think’s) goes back to the plate “EASY OUT!!!” Third pitch, STRIKE! I got the poor kid to strike out! The whole time I did this the guy on deck was giving me “the evil eye”. One of the greatest games ever.!
(You have to be old enough to remember the horrible trade between the Reds and Orioles that involved the Reds trading Frank Robinson to the Orioles for Milt Pappas. Pappas was a good pitcher, but he could never live down being traded for a hall of famer like Frank Robinson. It bothered Pappas for years, as this story will illustrate.) I was at a Cubs/Cardinals game many years after the Robinson/Pappas trade. By then, Pappas was playing for the Cubs. We had bleacher seats. The Cubs pitchers were shagging flies and running in front of us. As a dedicated Cardinals fan, I knew it was my duty to heckle these guys. So, I began to get on Pappas. Whenever he couldn’t get to a fly ball, I said “Robinson would have got that”. Or when he ran, I would yell “Robinson is faster than you.” Finally he had enough. He tossed ball at me. I knew I had hit a sore spot.
I was umpiring a game this weekend and I heard a fan heckle my partner who was working the plate, and I couldn’t help but fall out laughing. He called a low strike then a high strike on the batter when the fan yells out \”Come on Blue, That\’s one high and one low, what do we have a poker game going here?”
Well, I was playing baseball one ordinary Satirday and i got called out on a strike that was clearly below my ankles and in the dirt. I told that umpire that i was going to bring my golf clubs next time we had him. So, i put my clubs in the back of my dads truck, just in case. Sure enough, next game, same umpire. He called me out on a strike that again was very low and in the dirt. So next time up i brought up my 3 wood like i told him. I walked and that umpire never called a low strike on me again.
5 of my buddies (we’re all Yankee Fans) drove up from NYC to see the Bombers play up at Fenway. We get to the game real early and are watching the Sox warm up on the field. Nobody is really around. Trot Nixon is next to the seats signing autographs for a few fans and Pedro Martinez is standing in left field talking with Derek Lowe and Tim Wakefield. Anyways…Pedro has an extreme resemblence to Willis from Different Strokes so me and my buddies start yelling at him, “Hey Pedro, you look like Willis from Different Strokes!”. Everything is clearly audible and he can obviously hear us. Trox Nixon is giving us a wierd stare. Then we break into the the Different Strokes Theme Song. All 5 of us simultaneously singing “The World Dont Move, to the beat of just one drum”…Trox Nixon starts hysterically laughing, even though his own guy is getting heckled, IN HIS OWN BALLPARK. at least the guy has a sense of humor.
I was watching a New York Mets game on Opening day a few years ago on TV from Shea Stadium..In the top of the first inning someone hits a solo home run to lead 1-0 when all of a sudden the tv shows a fan holding up a sign that read “Wait till next year!!” That was funny IMO
While attending a local Little League game, the home team manager was getting his butt stomped by the visiting team (from another league). I was keeping the scoreboard up to date, it just hit me. I yelled to the home team manager, you better get some Icy Hot, he replied for what? I told him the visiting teams 3rd base coach is going to need it after waiving all those runs home. He obviously didn’t think it was too funny. I almost fell over with my side splitting.
It was about 4 years ago and the Indians were in a pennant race. The Tigers were lousy that year (big suprise) but they had a habit all year of beaning our players. The game before they had hit Manny Ramirez and almost had a bench clearer. It was sunny that day so the whole bullpen put their chairs on top of the dugout to watch the game. Then it came, a high heater that almost hit one of our players. I proceeded to yell-HEY!_ and the whole bullpen turned to look at me (5 guys). I then yelled- You better not hit one more of our guys or were gonna come kick your butts! They all glared at me as the whole section broke up. They kept looking back all game.