The picture above was taken from my seat at Saturday night's White Sox/Cubs game. This was my first anniversary present from my wife. She got tickets for us, the kid and my mom. It was a nice family outing.
I spent the fifth inning tracking down the one cotton candy vendor, because the kid had her heart set on the sugary treat. The Sox didn't win, but we had a great time and there was a really decent fireworks show afterward. I even got a chuckle when Bobby Thigpen's brother started messaging me to bother his brother in the middle of a bullpen meltdown.
There was only one aspect of the game that kept the evening from being perfect. No, it wasn't the score of the game. It was one family, two rows in front of my family.
I was at a Crosstown series, so I expect there to be ribbing and some playful taunting. That just adds to the atmosphere. When it crosses the line, ruining the enjoyment of those around you, is when it needs to stop.
There was a family of three males and two females. The two females were mostly quiet. Around the seventh inning, one of the females even looked like she wanted to shrink down until she disappeared. I'm not sure of the dynamic of the family, so I'll just speculate here. The grandfather was a Cubs fan. The father was a Sox fan. The son was a Cubs fan. Every one of them seemed to be deaf, because the volume coming out of their mouths could drown out tornado sirens.
It seemed to be a two pronged attack against the "father" and the father had no problem dishing out insults and blowhard bravado right back at them. In the picture, he's the one in the Konerko jersey. Every time anything on the field happened, all I saw was that Konerko jersey blocking everything but the outfield. The "grandfather" would block the outfield portion of my viewing area. To be fair, right before the game started, the "father" did apologize and mentioned he would be standing up every time something happened. I swear, he was telling the complete and utter truth, not that prefacing this behavior with his non-apology excused this behavior. It did not. By the time I returned with cotton candy for the kid, I was done being my mild mannered self and started to loudly proclaim grand wishes of being able to actually watch the game that we paid for and the some inconsiderate people suck the enjoyment out of sporting events.
The males of the family continued to ignore my thinly veiled statements, but the females started to notice and that's about the time one of them wanted to be invisible. The other fans around me in my section felt the same way my family did, but chose not to be as loud about it. Oh, did I mention that alcohol was involved? It was, but my family was the one that only had water and Pepsi.
I did get to see the two Saladino plays, mostly because they both happened too fast for the jumping bean scream family to react. I had no idea that Robin Ventura was ejected from the game until I got back to my parents' house. That was how much this inconsiderate family blocked my view and distracted me during my anniversary present.
An obnoxious family like this is what gives team's fans a bad name. While the majority of fans are there to enjoy the game and have a good time, a slim few are there to knowingly ruin the good time of those around them. Well, loud family, you didn't ruin my good time, even though you tried like hell to do so. All your family did was show the fans sitting in section 117, what foul-mouthed, inconsiderate, loud jerks that you can be. Aren't you proud? You've succeeded. Maybe you'll get some kind of rusty award that will result in lockjaw.
Absolutely, you should have fun at the ballpark, but not at the expense of others around you. Be courteous to the fans around you.
One last thing... if you are aware of your behavior enough to pre-apologize for it, you are aware of it enough to change it.
Enjoy the game.
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