The Fool in the Stands

So it’s Back to the Future Day. The day that the Cubs were supposed to win the World Series against Miami (ironic that the Florida Marlins changed to Miami a few years back). Well, while that obviously is not going to come true this year (though the Cubs still might have a shot), the results of last night’s Kansas City and Toronto game brought a slight smile to my face.

It’s not that I inherently care which team wins the series – though there was a time back when the Expos were still around that I was hoping for an all Canadian World Series when they and the Blue Jays had both made the play offs that year – but if Toronto ends up losing, that would be OK with me, and it’s all a result of the actions of the fans during their game with the Texas Rangers last week. The short of it was that the Toronto catcher was throwing the ball back to the pitcher and instead hit the Kansas City batter who was preparing himself in the batter’s box. The ball rolled into the infield, allowing the KC runner on third base to score the go ahead run in the game. The Umpires ruled it a live ball, after review, and thus confirming that the run was good. It seemed that there were few who disagreed with how it played out – except for the Toronto fans.

As a result, quite a few of them in the stands decided to show their displeasure with the result by throwing things on to the field. Of course, most of what was tossed never made it out of the stands, and in fact, a woman and her baby were nearly hit with a beer can (the baby ended up getting sprayed with the contents of the can as it sailed near them). Needless to say that those types of reactions are a complete disgrace, but unfortunately, it seems to be more the norm in the sporting world – be it the fans acting unruly, or the athletes themselves engaging in a round of fisticuffs (or worse) with someone – usually their significant other of the moment. And it’s not just limited to American sports – heck I think it’s even worse overseas when it comes to Soccer (or Football as is proper for that neck of the woods).

 

I do give credit to the Toronto players who were trying to get everyone calmed down so that the game could continue. Personally, if I was a player on the team, I would have grabbed the stadium microphone and told those people straight up that they need to stop acting like a-holes and get a life. As a player, I would have been ashamed to have people like that rooting for me.

Maybe it’s me, but I find it hard to understand people who get so involved and worked up in a sporting event that they someone feel that these kinds of actions are an appropriate response when something doesn’t go the way of their team. I’ll root for teams and players, and I have my favorites in a few sports, but ultimately, whether a team wins the relevant championship in their respective sport or not, has little impact on most people’s lives – unless of course you’re a gambler and have money riding on the outcome – but’s a story for another blog perhaps.

My team just won the game?

            Woo hoo … now let me get back to vacuuming the floor. After all, I don’t think Peyton Manning nor Chase Utley are coming to my house to clean my toilet any time soon.

             I just can’t get all that excited over the results of a sporting event in which I am not actually a participant. I couldn’t even tell you more than a couple players at the most who are on any team that I root for. I always find it amusing when someone starts engaging me in conversation about a particular team or other if I happen to be wearing a hat or t-shirt with their logo on it. I just nod my head and try to offer an opinion or two that sound fairly plausible or credible, but I pretty much could not care less about what the franchise management is doing to the team. I still have to go to work. I still have to feed the kids and the animals. I still have to clean the house. Nothing about the outcome of a game is going to change any of that, or make my life any better. For people to act like they do on the outcome of a game or a play is just asinine to me, especially when it escalates to the point that it did in the Toronto game.

             So maybe because of that, I am a little more engaged than I normally would be in the outcome of the series between the Royals and the Blue Jays, and am rooting a little bit harder for Kansas City to come out on top.

Oh yeah – and go Cubbies!