Fan Etiquette 101

Dave Paisley

While down in Arizona for spring training, it became evident that it's not just the players who are in training. There's the fans, too. After all, while the pace on the field may be relaxed, there's no need for the fans to slack off as well. There's beer to be drunk, food to be eaten, and scrubs to be booed. Indeed, it didn't take long for the first moronic fan mishap of the spring to take the shine off my enjoyment.

There are so many ways that you as a fan can ruin the enjoyment for the rest of humanity that I thought I'd publish my own guide on how to be the most annoying fan you can be. Sadly, this entire list has been compiled from actual experience.

So, in no particular order, here are the top ten ways to be a cutting edge boorish fan of the '90s:

10. Buy tickets as far from an aisle as possible, thereby guaranteeing your subsequent boorish behavior will affect as many other fans as possible.

9. Get as tanked up as possible before the game so as to maximize the required number of trips to the bathroom. With a steady consumption of Bud Lite throughout the game, you may be able to reach beer Nirvana, where you have to go once an inning. This has the extra advantage of causing additional drunken stumbling, which can injure or maim more innocent fans as you cut your swath to the aisle.

8. Arrive at the game in the middle of the bottom of the first inning and insistently demand that everyone sitting and trying to watch the game must get up to let you get to your seats. Bonus points if you can elbow someone in the chest or step on their toes. Double points if you can do it while the home team's star player is at bat. Triple points if he homers and none of the people you bothered saw him hit the ball.

7. Bring your tanked-up bachelor party to the game and buy everyone a beer each inning. Bonus points to the first person who kicks his beer over so that it flows down the rows in front of him, soaking as many items stowed under seats as possible.

6. Bring your whiny three-year-old twins to the game. Deprive them of their afternoon nap so they can get all cranky and start whining, "Can we go home now?" in the second inning. Bonus points for every inning after the fourth you can stand to keep them at the game. Double bonus points if you can get them to rhythmically kick the backs of the seats in front of them.

5. Bring a big card sign, banner, pennant or foam #1 finger and wave it whenever a home team batter is at the plate. Bonus points for hoisting it just as the pitcher is delivering the ball. Double bonus points for maximizing the angular coverage by waving it in the most annoying manner possible.

4. Yap aimlessly throughout the between-inning breaks, and then decide you have to go to the bathroom or concession stands just as the first batter of the inning steps to the plate. Bonus points if the aimless yapping is about how some home team scrub is a great "RBI guy" or "clutch hitter."

3. Two words: air horn. Or two other words: cow bell. Use these to either make people around you jump out of their skins (air horn) or annoy them to death with the Chinese water torture of the "tink-tink-tink" of the cowbell.

2. Get voice training lessons so you can be one of those people that can hit 150 db with your unaided voice and use it to heckle the home town superstar for "not hustling." Bonus boorish points if you work in some profanity or racial epithets.

And the single most boorish thing you can do to be an obnoxious, annoying fan of the '90s:

1. Knock little kids to the ground when foul balls come your way.

about the author

Dave Paisley is currently assembling a posse to take out the card-store moron who patrols the walkway of the right-field Kingdome seats with glove whenever a lefty batter is at the plate. Offer to join the lynch mob at drdjp@strikethree.com.