“You know what’s amazing is they beat each other up trying to get these balls during batting practice and they scrape their knees and elbows, and I’ve seen some fistfights out there. And all of a sudden they gave them up rather easily.”

Sweet, naive Lou Piniella, believing that the balls that come back onto the field are the same balls that left it in the first place.

Sweet, naive Lou Piniella, believing that the balls that come back onto the field are the same balls that left it in the first place.


Seriously; I assume almost all the balls thrown back are ones the fans bought at Wal-Mart and brought with them. Who'd throw back a major league ball?

Although an idea that would be the coolest ever would be having the Cubs have a ball giveaway night with the sole purpose of throwing them back after a home run; Derrek Lee hits a homer and 40,000 balls come flying onto the playing field.

Derrek Lee hits a homer and 40,000 balls come flying onto the playing field.

Someone is unclear on the concept. ;-)

I remember this happening at a Padre game with the Cubs visiting. It was Ball Night, and when a Cub hit a home run, the cascade of balls thrown onto the field went on for about fifteen minutes.

This is what the Cubs get for allowing the ridiculous practice of throwing items on to the field of play in the first place.

Heh -- did the barrage of baseballs coming onto the field remind anyone else of the pretzel-wagon Simpsons episode?

"And heeeeere come the pretzels!"

You can call them Whitey-Whackers

I was at a music festival a few years ago, and right before Tea Party came on a single empty water bottle went flying across the crowd, and just before it landed the sky was blacked out by thousands of them. It went on for abut 15 minutes, and someone had to come on stage and say Tea Party wouldn't come on until it stopped. Me and my friend had to stand back to back knocking down incoming bottles. Another friend of mine got clocked by a 2 litre full of water. It was a fun time.

asshats

Are Cubs fans quickly becoming the most classless fans in professional sports or what?

Painting with a broad brush, are we, GR? "Drunk nutsacks in the bleachers" /= "Cubs fans" generally. Personally, this Cub fan was pretty disgusted by even the remote possibility of the Cubs forfeiting a game that they led by 8 runs in the 8th.

And I'm curious as to what else your sweeping generalization is based on.

Are Cubs fans quickly becoming the most classless fans in professional sports or what?

No, merely the most stupid.

And I'm curious as to what else your sweeping generalization is based on.

Given that it's Gambling Rent, I assume he's also basing this on our race-based hatred of Dusty Baker.

Personally, this Cub fan was pretty disgusted by even the remote possibility of the Cubs forfeiting a game that they led by 8 runs in the 8th.

good to hear it, at least there is some sanity left in the windy city.

good to hear it, at least there is some sanity left in the windy city.

Oh, trust me--I don't take this kind of stuff lightly, and I don't reckon I'm alone. Add "possibility of injuring Fukudome" to "possibility of a forfeit" (along with its being, well, generally idiotic behavior) on the list of reasons why I was pissed.

Unlike a lot of the bleacher morons, most of us in 528 actually watch the damn game and care who wins it...

The only baseball I ever got at a Major League Baseball game was a game I didn't actually attend. I was simply standing on Sheffield Avenue looking at the scoreboard to see what the Cubs were doing before going about my business.

Next thing I know, everyone in the right field bleachers stands up and a ball comes sailing out onto Sheffield Avenue. It wasn't quite the chaos out there then as it is now, but I still had to beat a half dozen people to it. There was, however, a packed house over on the Waveland side.

The ball was hit by Kal Daniels off of Greg Maddux (Daniels hit two that day for the Dodgers). The crowd started yelling at me to throw it back, but I could think of nothing at that moment less likely to happen. I left with my only ball ever from a MLB game, from a game I spent roughly seven minutes at.

If Craig Calcaterra wants to buy the ball off of me to put in his Greg Maddux shrine, I'll entertain offers. Also, if someone happens to have a Kal Daniels shrine, I'll entertain offers there too.

UPDATE: Thanks to Baseball Reference and Retrosheet, I'm almost positive it was this game.

I've seriously come to hate today's faux bleacher bums.

Bringing a spare ball into the game isn't anything new, though...

I attended my first Cubs game in 1983 - and I never forgot an old ball hawk who was nice enough to chat with a starry-eyed kid, and pulled out his ratty, mangled 'replacement' ball, and told me that I should always bring in an extra --- so I could keep the real ball, but still throw an enemy tater back.

It's like the whole scale of what crosses the line from a cute, and really, kinda endearing tradition -- and turns it into stupidity. So far as I know, the tradition of throwing back enemy HRs started with the 60s Bleacher Bums - these guys were no angels. During the '98 season, me and some buddies shared a beer with a guy that claimed he'd been to over 1200 games dating back to 1970 -- and we went back and forth trying to one-up each other on things we'd gotten away with in the bleachers. He won easily... but neither of our stories involved making parents nervously cover the ears of their children. None of them had us hurling anything onto the field (beyond the single enemy HR). None of them included arrests or even an usher needing to step in.

Somewhere along the line, there became this need to up the amperage rather than just participate in the tradition of it all -- or heaven forbid, enjoy a sunny afternoon with the lake in the background, a beer in hand, and watching Bill Bonham/Dick Ruthven/Jose Guzman/Shawn Boskie/Ismael Valdez/Jason Marquis get his hat handed to him by whomever was in town that night.

If we can lump all Cubs fans with the bleacher idiots, can I lump in Padres fans with Gambling Rent?

Piniella was laughing, and noted that some of the fans “may have had a few more cocktails before they come to the ballpark” because it was a night game at Wrigley Field.

And in the caffeine thread Piniella talked about mixing Red Bull with vodka. He's obsessed with alcohol.

If we can lump all Cubs fans with the bleacher idiots, can I lump in Padres fans with Gambling Rent?

Touche.

I went to the Cubs-Cardinals game at Wrigley where the Cardinals hit 7 HRs to tie their all-time record (I want to guess 1996-2000, but my first pilgrimage was 1986 and the latest was 2007, so...). My memory is that SIX of them were caught by Cardinals fans, none of whom were eager to toss it back. One of them took 2-3 batters, but Cubs fans cajoled that fan, too, to surrender.

Another one was from the Dawson era.
HoJo hits one for the Mets, onto Waveland Ave (yes? I'm from 700 miles away). I'm standing room only. I watch the guy pick it up. He looks up, sees me looking, and yells, "Who hit it?"
I tell him, and he shakes his head in the negative.

He then winds up fires the ball OVER the bleachers, heading to the field.
I'm the only one observing this, so I yell, "Andre, look out!" and he turns around in time to see the ball miss him by only a few feet.

This story sounds impossible if you haven't been to Wrigley, so some Chicagoan can please back me up on this one.

This story sounds impossible if you haven't been to Wrigley, so some Chicagoan can please back me up on this one.

Absolutely.

Although - if you were telling the Hawk to watch out, the ball hawk on the street was probably throwing from Sheffield.

Yeah, right field corner....

thanks

If he had nearly tagged Dawson from Waveland, the Cubs probably would have tried signing him. :-)

I don't know how it is with the new bleacher additions, but when I last was at Wrigley (2003), the bleachers were quite low. Any person with normal strength could get a ball from Waveland/Sheffield back into the bleachers, and someone with a good arm could certainly get it back on the field. Me, I got a rag arm, so I would've probably clocked Howie in the head by accident...

Did anybody notice that it was William Ayers (who got a comp ticket from the Obama campaign) winging that baseball at Ken Griffey Jr, who was wearing an American flag pin?

Are Cubs fans quickly becoming the most classless fans in professional sports or what?


Hey, if a small percentage of bad actors can colour your perception of people, wait 'til you find out who stole Guy LeDouche's bike!