Cellphone static (annoying baseball fans go away)

Boston Globe ^ | May 4, 2004 | Stan Grossfeld,

[anncoulteriscool]

Just as Tampa Bay's Paul Abbott was poised to deliver a pitch to Jason Varitek in a game at Fenway Park last week, two women in red sweatshirts, cellphones in hand, jumped to their feet from their box seats behind home plate and waved frantically toward the center-field camera. Abbott later said he didn't see them, but such antics -- now commonplace -- seem to aggravate a lot of people in Red Sox Nation. Cellphone wavers are up there with meter maids, telemarketers, and perhaps even (gulp) the "Evil Empire" in New York.

[anncoulteriscool]

3 Cheers for Fenway park people...its about time someone did this....I am so sick and tired to seeing these blankety-blanks who think they're so cute...they get on their cell phones and they wave and say "hey its me look its me i'm on tv yeah its me i'm at a baseball game do you see me there i am hi its me i'm waving yeah its me". Someday when we pass the constitutional amendment banning the DH maybe we can do something about these people. I feel better now ! LOL!

[jra]

How can someone argue against the travesty that is the DH, and in the same breath make laudatory comments about any American League fan, much less an uber-obnoxious Bostonian???

[tiamat]

My Grrrr! ( get the referance? LOL! ) is cell phones in restaurants. People always YELL into them!

[anncoulteriscool]

*****One section over, in the second row behind home plate, was Lauren O'Shea and her fiance, Alex Kallianidis. They are very polite cellphone wavers; they never wave above the ear. But their cellphone activity started immediately after the national anthem. (You could call it, "O'Shea, can you see?")****

Yes we cant be bothered with a baseball game we need to talk about my 401k for 2 hours.....to paraphrase Rodney King, "cant we just gove it a rest?".

[Russian Sage]

Solution: use that computer generated advertising technology to place computer generated fans behind the plate.

[Rome2000]

Its a tossup between Ragheads, Democrats, and the douches on cellphones who wave at baseball games for the most annoying humans on earth.

[stylin_geek]

Yeah, watching a pitcher wave cluelessly at a pitch or striking out while trying to bunt is certainly the pure way to play baseball.

[jolie560]

When the TV cameras are on, people will "perform". And the cameramen and networks know it.

Check out fans at any game where "roving cameramen" are used. Guaranteed every fan in the lens area is facing the camera and performing something. Especially if they have their face-paint or costume on.

Check out people at any event in Iraq. Guaranteed every person in the lens area is facing the camera and performing something.

[supercat]

Yeah, watching a pitcher wave cluelessly at a pitch or striking out while trying to bunt is certainly the pure way to play baseball.

Actually, it opens up many strategic issues and possibilities that don't arise in a DH game. For example, if a team's pitcher will be in the hole at their next at-bat, this will factor into the decision of whether to (1) bring in a short reliever with the intention of pulling him at the end of the frame, (2) keep the current pitcher until the end of the frame, (3) pull in a better reliever with the intention of having him bat; (4) pull in a better reliever, doing a double-switch so he won't have to bat for awhile.

AL baseball has no such strategic issues. Also, some pitchers can actually hit, and that can add interest to the game.

If one wants to keep the DH as a position, one could add back some of the NL strategic issues by adding the following proviso: any time the pitcher or DH is removed from the game, both must be pulled and either replaced with another pitcher and DH or with a pitcher-batter. A pitcher-batter who is pulled from the game may be replaced with either a pitcher and DH or with another pitcher-batter.

This would return many of the strategic issues to the game, while allowing pitchers who don't want to bad to avoid having to do so.

[anncoulteriscool]

Roger Clemons is very thankful for the DH!

[supercat]

Roger Clemons is very thankful for the DH!

Would those like him not receive the same benefit from my modified-DH proposal?