Stop Waving and Watch the Game

Jason Budden: Un-Common Sense?

Last week I attended the Baltimore Orioles opening day game with other employees from the Baseball Factory. This has become a yearly tradition for our office to help celebrate the start of the MLB season and normally an O’s victory, but not this year. The loss to the Devil Rays, excuse me, Rays…ended a seven game opening day win streak for the Birds. But don’t worry, they’ve reeled off five straight wins since the opening day loss and have the best record in the American League.

But back to the game. It must have been around the sixth or seventh inning when someone a few sections down from us began chanting for “The Wave.” This guy (who was overly energetic and excited, like most people who decide to start the wave) gave the normal, “1…2…3…Wave!!!” chant and pointed towards our section as if we were puppets and he was controlling our actions, trying to send the wave around the stadium. As always seems to be the case, the first few attempts failed to make it further than a few sections. But his persistence paid off and a few minutes later the wave was swinging around the stadium, to the delight of many of the spectators.

Now this was probably one of the worst waves I’ve seen, based mainly on the fact that O’s fans weren’t happy to be down 6-2 and many of them had taken off already (or even worse, never showed up). So, I understand that for some people, baseball games can be long. And I also understand that it was a dreary day, the O’s were losing, and the game wasn’t filled with action. But is standing up in your chair while going “whoaaaaaa” really that much more exciting than watching the game?

This is opening day! We’ve been waiting for meaningful baseball for over five months. Watch the Game! Better yet, get out of my way so that I can watch the game! The only good wave would be an “anti-wave” wave that sweeps across the nation’s ballparks and removes this tradition from our sporting events.

Some notes for people who can’t help themselves and need to wave:

1. Put down your drink and popcorn before standing up and raising your hands.
2. Sit down as soon as you have done the wave. The entire idea is to be able to see the wave move across the stadium because it “looks cool.” If you keep standing after doing the wave, you are defeating the point of the wave!
3. Don’t high five to celebrate a successful wave. It isn’t cool to begin with, and celebrating the wave is even worse than participating in the wave.
4. Questions like, “Did the inning end?” or “What’s the score?” should not be asked if you are doing the wave. This removes any baseball spectator credibility that you may have once had.