Crabs vs. Steelheads

One: Always accept any cue from the band. If they play the quick horn blasts, get ready to yell, “Charge!” If they want you to sing along with “Sweet Caroline,” just grimace and start singing.

Two: Anyone drunk or inspired enough to stand up and initiate a cheer should get support. There are some limitations: You might not want to encourage these kinds of wayward community spiritual expressions if they are blocking your view or happen during every batter.

Three: Don’t join in with insulting or insipid cheers. I think the level of meanness for college-age baseball players should stop at “whatsamatta with number (insert number of player to be jeered)? He’s a bum!” Remember that whatever not-so-clever cruelty that might be shouted from the stands is likely to get reproduced in Little League games up and down the North Coast.

Four: Use the seating and stadium itself as an instrument. The thumping of hundreds of feet on the bleachers can make a mighty noise. Collective cheering has the possibility for cathartic, even magical moments if we all get louder together.

All of these guidelines left me in a pickle when cheering for the Steelheads. Without a lot of support, I settled in for pro-Steelheads yelps in the brief openings afforded me. Late in the second game, I began getting more boisterous. As the Crabs fans would yell: “Let’s go Crabbies,” I would yell “Steeeeeelheads!” in the pause. This caused my friend Eric, girded in his Crabs T-shirt, to put me in a mild choke hold knocking my barbecue corn nuts to the quagmire below the stands. Regardless of community sentiment (which was clearly for the Crabs), I diligently yelled for the Steelheads through both games.

Baseball is a beautiful sport: the patient smoothness of hits, thwack of balls dead-eyed into mitts, and bursts of drama as players meet briefly at bases. But it is we, the fans, who clap and yell in synergy with the action on the field, who make the games alive.

1 2 SHARE

0 Comments

→ post a comment

Song of the Moment

the hum

Release Me

New CDs from Vidagua, Side Iron, Johnny Render, Martin and Blades, plus Bob D’s birthday and radio news

in review

Fear Fun

By Father John Misty - Sub Pop Records

preview

Recent in review

May 17

Patti Smith

Van Duzer Theatre - May 10

May 10

Free Again: The “1970” Sessions

By Alex Chilton - Omnivore Recordings

May 3

Boys and Girls

By Alabama Shakes -- ATO

Today

44th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship Race

STAFF PICK / events, art, outdoors, sports, for kids, free / 9 a.m.-6 p.m. A 3-day, 42-mile kinetic sculpture race over land, sand, mud and water! LeMans start at the Noon Whistle on the Arcata Plaza. Follow the race through Manila, Eureka and into Ferndale on Memorial Day for the Glorious Finish. kineticgrandchampionship.com. 889-3024.