HeckleDepot.com. Give it a look. You have choices from Umpire heckles to Bull Pen heckles to General Heckles and even Fan Signs. HeckleDepot.com is proof positive the internet is a wonderful place to really educate those of us in need of a little bit of coaching.
Heckling is a good thing. No one in baseball should have a thin skin. After all, at the ball parks we are entitled to yell. We can try to distract the pitcher, the batter. We can heap praise, but as well we can dish the dirt. Ball parks are not intended to be quiet. Quite the contrary, let it out! In fact, I am thinking of opening up a sidewalk stand similar to Lucy in the Peanuts comic strip with a sign, “The Coach Be In”. My advise to virtually anyone and everyone, young and old, is the same: “Go to a game, heckle the other team, do that and I am sure you will feel better almost immediately! Five dollars please…”
Not sure about heckling? Just ask that very famous shortstop Sigmund “Make Your Mama Proud” Freud…
In fact, I have even found on line the 8 Rules for Masterful Heckling, which includes “Stay Sober” (damn)… and “Do Your Homework”.
But, home work? Heckle that, although I do agree with “Pick Your Spots” and “Use Your Diaphragm”. Just wondering if you have to be close to the field. Do they let you bring in bull horns nowadays? They should!
Maybe I will pay for one of those copters that drives over the ball park — make sure it is not a stadium whose roof is closed of course — with a banner that reads “Hey (fill in the blank), you suck!”
Or, I may launch an effort to edit “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” so when we sing “Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks”, how about “Heckle the other team and each of the umps, I think we should just call them all chumps”…
Have you noticed there is hardly any bench jockeying any more? Players casually lean against the dug out fence, often seem to be chewing gum, eating sunflower seeds, and simply taking in the game. They root for their own, yes, but I don’t see them bantering much at the other team. What happened to razzing? Razzing is good thing!
Note to self: Seek to prevail upon the MLB to require some level of badgering by one team of the other. After all, Babe Ruth’s alleged called shot was inspired by the Cubs really getting into him on each pitch. Even if you do not believe he pointed to center field before he hit the prodigious blast, we do know for sure the Cubbies were giving it to him big time. They done inspired him!
Ah, the sound of catcalls — “Keep batting – that breeze feels awesome!” And… “Hey Blue, I thought only horses slept standing up!”
The National Past Time should include some good natured heckling, that’s all I’m sayin’… No ugliness! No inciting! Just a hearty bellowing, that’s fine. Let’s call it “The Fair Sport of Heckling”.
Hey, but don’t heckle me!
That’s not what I look like! Hey! You’re heckling poor me? Hey!
All right fine, what’s good for the goose…. I get it.