With the Mets finally playing well, I probably should be spending more time enjoying my team’s recent success rather than lampooning a local sports writer and his god-awful, inept articles.

I should probably let this untalented author pass off his lazily written, ill-planned and barely thought-out crap as legitimate sports writing for my local newspaper.

I should probably do a lot of things. This week, Pete pens a well written and thought provoking piece on homosexual relationships and their impact on social norms, vis-à-vis acceptance in American culture, citing several noted sociologists and in-depth research. Just kidding, instead, with all apologies to Fire Joe Morgan, funnier and better than mine, blah, blah, blah, here is a vacuous piece of drivel entitled:

When is a kiss just a kiss, and a fan just a fan?

When Pete poses his title as a question, you know it’s going to be terrible.

Well, here’s a subject that ought to bring out the worst in everyone.

And I’m sure it’s a subject that brings out the worst literary ineptitude in the author. I swear to God, that’s his opening sentence. Can this guy write or what?

There was an incident at Safeco Field in Seattle last week in which a fuss was raised when a fan objected to two women kissing during a Mariners game. We have to assume this show of affection had nothing to do with baseball, given how solidly entrenched the Mariners are in last place in the American League West.

HYYYYY-OOOOHHHHHHHH! ZING!

Apparently

Man, this guy needs a new crutch word

the fan –and reportedly it was a woman attending the game with her son - took offense to this same-sex kiss and alerted an usher, who told the women to stop. Now, it gets really murky at this point because some eyewitness accounts say the kiss was a liplock worthy of Madonna and Britney Spears, while others say it was simply a peck on the lips or cheek.

Ah, the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. I come for the shaky, feebly thought out premises but stay for the references to pop culture events that are five years or older.

Isn’t he burying the lede here? Are lesbians hanging out at baseball games?

Sirbrina Guerrero, one of the women involved, has filed a discrimination complaint over the incident. A spokesperson for the Mariners - a woman, by the way- says the club is looking into the matter. Guerrero, we should mention, has been a contestant on an MTV reality series.

I really hate people that speak of themselves as “we.” I wonder how many voices they have in their head. I also hate people that speak in the third person.

So, what does this have to do with sports?

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Only in that it is another example of how ballparks and arenas have become communities unto themselves, where fans have become part of the game and much of what goes on in the real world doesn’t always apply.

First off, I have no idea what “much of what goes on in the real world doesn’t always apply” means. Are ballparks subject to a different set of federal laws like Indian reservations?

And another example of how ball parks have become communities where fans have become a part of the game? Did Ichiro get thrown out stealing third with two outs because the women were kissing? Did the kissing cause Jerrod Washburn to lose the strikezone? How were they part of the game?

Also: “Another example?” Where are the first examples?

Certainly, if heterosexual or gay couples are using a public setting to make out as if it were the back seat of a car, they are crossing the line and should be given a warning, then a room.

Great job stating the obvious. Keep in mind that this is IN THE NEWSPAPER. Also, since he is now referencing settings outside the ballpark I would like to point out that he wrote “much of what goes on in the real world doesn’t always apply.” a paragraph ago.

In fact, there is a provision at Safeco Field that says people showing “displays of affection not appropriate in a family setting” can be escorted out.

That is a poorly constructed sentence. Incidentally, I googled “women kissing Safeco Field” to check up on this story (because Pete sometimes just makes shit up) and every single article was shorter and better written than this one.

But Guerrero and her friend might have a case if they were just exchanging an innocent kiss. How many stadiums around the country have “Kiss Cams” that show a couple on those big screens and encourage them to kiss? We have a suspicion the Kiss Cam has never stopped on a gay couple, male or female. Are these two women victims, or were they trying to make a point?

As opposed to you, who just asks the reader questions and, under no circumstances, ever makes any point, ever. Also: I’ve seen “Kiss Cams” stop on two men, usually wearing a rival team’s gear and sometimes they do kiss (usually it seems like a gag) but I have no idea as to their sexuality.

Would anyone have been offended if they had kissed at the base of the Space Needle?

That is not germane to anything.

To some extent, sports teams have brought this on themselves. Scoreboard messages encourage fans to cheer louder, or boo the opponent as if fans need any extra incentive. TV cameras train on young men with painted chests, young women in shorts and halter tops, and any eccentric they can find. You’ve seen them: the guy making a fool of himself dancing in the aisle, or anyone dressed for Halloween.

I seriously doubt that whether Jose Reyes turns a double play on a short hop ground ball is decided by the shot SNY got of a guy in a clown wig. There is that one time Daryl Strawberry made an error on a fly ball opening up a big inning and caused the Mets to lose a game in 1985 because of my kick-ass Darth Vader Halloween costume.

At least that exhibitionism is generally good-natured. Increasingly, however, some fans are under the impression that purchasing a ticket entitles them to say and do whatever they please. Players aren’t just booed; they’re taunted and verbally abused in a manner that shouldn’t be tolerated. Athletes might earn millions, but that doesn’t mean fans have the right to say things that might subject them to an arrest on the street.

Cry me a river, Sally. God, this is the most boring, worn out “sports” subject ever. It goes:
1. Rose in/out of the Hall of Fame
2. To Boo or not to Boo
3. To Pay/Not Pay College Athletes
4. Instant Replay in Baseball

This is like reading a self-righteous Sporting News Radio transcript. Besides that, the last time I checked, yelling profanity laced or racist taunts gets you escorted out of the stadium. It isn’t tolerated and fans don’t have the right. Your entire point is moot.

We also know too well about players going into the stands during an NBA game in Detroit in 2004 after being provoked, and fans at Giants Stadium tossing ice-encrusted snowballs at players and officials. Some baseball players wear batting helmets in the field as protection from objects being tossed from the stands.

What? Do you watch any baseball? Who wears a batting helmet in the field? First and third base coaches have to wear helmets now so they don’t get hit in the head with foul balls. John Olerud wore a batting helmet in the field but he retired in 2005, and again, to protect against baseballs. Pete would try and have us believe that fans throwing things at players is so rampant that “some players” are wearing them in the field. Either Pete is:

A. Lazy and assumes that his readers are too ignorant to know better.
B. A compulsive liar
C. Ignorant about Major League Baseball
D. A crazy man

Feel free to make stuff up though, Pete.

If Pete wanted to write this story he should have cited the firstbase umpire or the firstbase coach attacked by fans on separate occasions in Chicago or the obsessed Stefi Graf fan who attacked Monica Seles. Those fans were not representative of the average fan, but a better argument than just making something up. If you were going to write a story about unruly fans you shouldn’t have started it off writing about two lesbians kissing.

Wasn’t this article about when a fan is a fan and a kiss is a kiss?

Fans here have not stooped to such levels, but the Monday Morning Quarterback remembers going to a Rangers game with his family a few years ago and eventually requesting that our seats be changed because of an obnoxious, inebriated foursome (two men, two women) behind us.

I was, in fact, a member of that foursome. Ok, I wasn’t, but how great would it have been if I was? I have a theory that they were knowledgeable fans intelligently discussing the Rangers. When Pete overheard them using facts and stats to discuss baseball and not bitching about insignificant, asinine nonsense or bemoaning player salaries, he became offended as Pete, of course, didn’t know what BABIP, OPS, RISP, WHIP or VORP meant so he assumed thought they were drunk and obnoxious. Tell me this wasn’t just and excuse for Pete to bitch about something that offended his fragile sensibilities which coincided with the only time Pete has ever watched a baseball game in his life.

We moved because the attendants were either unwilling or unable to deal with the loud mouths.

This disappoints me. I thought Pete would stand up and smack one of the guys in the face with a batting glove and declare, “Sir, I demand satisfaction!”

NOTE: See what I did there, I made reference to something semi-obscure but not an event that saturated the cable networks for an entire news cycle. I hope said reference resonated with someone, and I’m looking at you, Toasty Joe.

And you wonder why more stadiums have designated areas exclusively for families. Why shouldn’t the entire ballpark be family friendly?

Because I’m for strippers giving lap dances in the seating area, PA announcers swearing during player introductions and hard core porno on the Diamond-vision.

Sports is not the opera, and we’re not advocating that fans sit back in their seats and politely applaud or boo within reason.

Does Pete boo at the opera? That is a very confusing sentence. He is NOT advocating booing within reason? So fans should boo unreasonably or boo without reason? For example, if Michael Young homers, Rangers fans should boo him? I really need to go to the opera with Pete to see how this is accomplished.

But some fans need to be reminded that they are in attendance to watch “The Show,” not to star in it.

Pete starts the piece writing about a story that’s barely interesting for two seconds, and then uses erroneous facts and anecdotal stories to support some kind of non-point in order to end with a condescending preachy condemnation on “sports” fans in general. Pete, you have no respect for your profession, your paper, your colleagues or your readers. Way to go Pete.

You’re an idiot.