Up until this last weekend, I thought I’d seen just about everything.
Was I ever wrong.
Sitting in the student section Saturday at Autzen Stadium, I was surrounded by thousands of long, white, skinny tubes filled with air. Then, as the Ducks saw USC’s lead jump even further, these ThunderStix were strewn in the air. It was almost as if I had to watch these things fly by my head more than the game itself.
Then Sunday, while sitting down and watching the final game of the World Series, I noticed that an unlucky Giants player was struck — on purpose — by another stick, this time colored red, as he went to pick up the ball near the outfield fence.
What in the name of the Jeffrey Maier is going on here?
Are fans at sporting events across the nation so inept at making noise when cheering for their team that they have to pick up two inflatable pieces of plastic and bang them against one another as though they were 6-year-olds?
Apparently so. However, thanks to the Pacific-10 Conference, those of us at football and basketball games next season won’t have to put up with these things again.
If you haven’t heard, the good folks in the Pac-10 decided — despite what could be obvious complaints from fans in the future — to ban the noisemakers from future conference football games. That’s going to take effect beginning next season.
As for basketball, noisemakers were already prohibited, but if you ask most opposing schools, McArthur Court really didn’t need those anyway.
I’ll be the first to admit that yeah, when handed those ThunderStix recently at Autzen, I was the first to inflate them and pound them together as though there was no tomorrow.
When in Rome …
But that doesn’t mean I’ll endorse the damn things, or will be disappointed next season when the Pac-10 ban comes into effect.
Seriously, when did Oregon fans need a noisemaker to be loud and support the Ducks? It’s not as though the Autzen expansion took away the home-field advantage.
Well, not that much, at least.
Reportedly, USC head coach Pete Carroll and Oregon Athletic Director Bill Moos were at the forefront of the ban. It’s excellent to see two of the conference’s sharpest minds put into motion a sensible act.
I see a bit of a correlation between winning and sensibility in the Pac-10. Didn’t think I’d ever see John Mackovic from Arizona try to pull a ban like this.
Wildcat fans probably couldn’t make half the noise Oregon fans do anyway.
When I first noticed the things while watching the Major League Baseball playoffs, I never thought that any one fan would be so unruly and ignorant as to use them against a player.
Well, I must’ve misunderstood some of the fans in this country.
Not only did the Angels fan look bad Sunday when rapping Reggie Sanders in the back, she also gave fans a black eye.
I’ve seen fans run on the field, do a striptease on hockey ice and generally just act stupid. But come on, to hit a player with an inflatable piece of plastic is not only stupid — really, what’s it going to do to Sanders anyway — but absolutely pointless.
Besides, whose goal is it to spend upwards of $500 to go the seventh game of the World Series and get kicked out for getting two seconds of television exposure?
Boggles the mind. It truly does.
Hey, this whole Pac-10 idea could be a national craze. Ban the ThunderStix — especially for Anaheim Angels’ fans — and anything else that has no place in stadiums and arenas. There could be a no-horns ban — or, better yet, how about the first fan who does “the wave” gets a free ticket out of the stadium.
I can see it now. Fans behaving like human beings. Verbal taunts are okay of course, but come on, hurling ThunderStix 10 rows down from you when your team is losing is, well, pretty childish.
Come to think of it, though, aren’t most serious sports fans usually children at heart, anyway?
Oh well, I guess the sporting society of this country just isn’t ready for real cheering.
Rat-a-tat tat, rat-a-tat tat.
Oh yuck.