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player ready...On behalf of the sane section of Chicago, which is anywhere but cap-grabbing distance of the visiting bullpen, may I express my unconcern that we allowed John Rocker to pass through our town, spending an extra day at that, without showing excessive disgust or misplaced approval of his essential Rockerishness.
We scattered souls at the rain makeup game Thursday had enough room for a running start to do any number of preposterous things and, yet, we remained, contrary to recent reputation, entirely civilized, manageably sober and mostly in assigned seats.
This is the way it has been for almost every one of the baseball games ever played at Wrigley Field, with stronger spirits, greater passions, more despised opponents and fewer security guards.
We do know our place, which is not on the field. And we do know our role, which is to make the visiting team uncomfortable. Courtesy is earned and sometimes given, but it remains our option.
I can name a half-dozen places, Atlanta included, where peril comes with a game ticket, inside and outside the park.
We do not, of course, have the stake in Rocker that New York does and as far as I know the June 29 return of Rocker to Shea Stadium is still, unofficially, Rocker Battery Day.
But we had every chance to do as the fellow in Los Angeles who ran onto the field and mooned Rocker, drawing this precious response from Rocker teammate Chipper Jones, “I laughed my butt off.”
Desperately, to fill all those empty seats Thursday, a quick promotion might have been patched together as it has been by a hole-in-the-ground town out west. The team from Butte is going to honor a neighboring burg conveniently called Rocker, Mont., by allowing anyone in free whose last name is Rocker, is nicknamed Rock, is from New York, has ever ridden the No. 7 subway, is a young mother, has purple hair or whose first language is not English, a condition that would include the bulk of Georgia. Everyone seems to want either to proselytize or prosper from the notoriety of the goofy left-hander. In Chicago’s case, Rocker came, Rocker left and Chicago yawned.
So now may we call off the idiotic overreaction to fans being fans, to the silly notion that somehow the bucolic and tranquil North Side ballyard has been befouled by louts and contemptible trespassers? That’s us we’re talking about.
There has been an almost unreasonably Rockerish zeal to correct a non-problem, it being that Wrigley Field, that all ballparks are outdoor saloons and have been long before the Dodgers violated the wall and accosted paying civilians.
Politicians and blue noses and piggy-backers are scandalized by this disclosure and want something done. Stop selling beer, close down the bars, put up a barricade between those innocent athletes and the dangerous derelicts who, as has been reported reliably, will yell insults at relief pitchers.
In a legal sense, anyone who yells “Kill the Umpire,” which is as American as yelling “Cold one here,” could be thought of as inciting violence, except everyone knows nothing is meant by it.
Rather than checking ticket stubs and giving Breathalyzer tests to fans, I suggest frisking the Dodgers the next time they are here.
I don’t know why I have to explain this every time one of these infrequent violations between fans and players occurs, but “fan” does not come from “fanatic,” but from “fantasy.” This is not the real world, and we know that, just as we know that Tony Soprano is made up and Harry Potter can’t fly on a broomstick.
We know that Rocker is a relief pitcher and Bob Knight is an overbearing inconsequence and that the New York Knicks are better without Patrick Ewing. We know what we briefly try not to know. If we had to face sports sober, there soon would be few sports.
Sports is a relief from life and not a replacement for it. When our suspension of belief needs prolonging, there had better be a beer vendor handy or the whole fragile business comes crashing down.
Only half an ear is necessary to know that cheers are louder and more frequent than boos. So few of us violate the agreement between athlete and admirer that to legislate against the fool is to condemn the core.
It isn’t just restricting beer sales or overpolicing enthusiasm, it is the assumption that all of us are suspects. The crowd is an assortment, not a stereotype.
If we’ve learned anything from John Rocker, it should be that.
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