So today was an interesting sports evening.
Tonight I went to a couple of sports contests in Columbia, Missouri. I like to think I have a good handle on sports, but apparently I am not the kind of fan I should be. I heard the most interesting comments from fans today and I didn’t even have to spray N2Oin the stands to overhear some real gems from my fellow spectators. These people were superfans and we can all learn from their example.
Game #1:
I was told there was a big volleyball match at a local high school so I went to check it out. Unfortunately it was a girls game–which is not a bad thing, but I was expecting boys. Anyway I went into the gym and sat down. Then all the Yuppie-type parents sat all around me to watch their daughters play.
At one point in the JV game, the home team was ahead and in process of winning the second game to seal the match when #8 of the home team made a fairly big play. She was a notably attractive girl whose notably attractive parents were sitting quite near me.
As the other parents were congratulating the parents of #8, another father turned to #8’s dad and said (and remember she’s a fairly attractive young lady): “Now that one’s gonna be sleeping around; you’ll have to keep a GPS tracker on her.”
Silence.
And Crickets.
The other parents (and I) were floored. I couldn’t bring myself to look for who said it, because as a colossal wuss, I was afraid he would put me in his mental notebook of people-to-kill-with-drano-and-shove-in-a-garbage-sack. That man is less than three months from jail I am sure.
At the end of the JV game, I was torn. The baseball game accross town was about to start and the varsity game didn’t hold much promise of being real exciting. I made the obvious choice, wished the parents well and went to the baseball game.
So on to game #2:
Columbia, Missouri is home of the vaunted Mid Missouri Mavericks, unafiliated pro baseball team in the Independent Frontier League. They have a set of heckling fans who happen to be the worst hecklers the mother nature ever created.
Starting in the first inning, they commenced the chants, the rants, and the slants of third graders. All the comments were the kind of thing you hear from hecklers in the 8th inning who are 5-6 beers into a drunken stupor. Except these guys weren’t drunk yet. When they got drunk, it got worse. Keep in mind these guys are all wearing crimson shirts that say ‘Red Heck’ on the front:
Idiot # 1: “Hey #15 do you work in a meatball factory?”
Idiot # 2: “You’re throwing meatballs!”
Idiot # 3: “HA HAH! Meatballs!
Idiot # 1: “You’re wearing toe socks!”
Idiot # 4: “Toe socks, good one Joe.”
Idiot # 2: “Your mom wears toe socks!”
Idiot # 1: “Can I have your autograph?”
Idiot # 2: “Your autograph has a backwards r in it!”
Idiot # 4: “Backwards r…”
Idiot # 3: “You wear a backward mullet!”
Idiot # 2: “Yeah, your mullet is backwards.”
Idiot # x: (Stupidity and uneducated little league banter…ad infinitum…ad nauseum.”
They carried on that way for all nine innings. They also bought at least 25 beers from the same average-looking beer girl. Despite her averageness, they esteemed her to be a Red Heck hot hottie because they were getting drunker and she had a short skirt on.
I have been to games and done my fair hair of heckling, but I have never, EVER been guilty of such horrible humor. I commented to them once how they sound like the two brother-characters on Saturday Night Live who sit in the bar and feed on their own pathetic humor and laugh at their own jokes. I don’t know what emboldened me to say such a thing since, as I mentioned before, I am a colossal wuss. Somebody had to say it. They didn’t like that too much, but they didn’t come after me either–which is good.
Yeah, Superfans are awesome.