Crashing The Wave

If you have been to a sporting event, or watched one on television any time in the past thirty years, you have seen it. It is one of the most annoying sports occurrences, distracting viewers from the action on the field. It has spawned an entire generation of ‘fans’ who know nothing about the teams playing, or the sports in general, but who want to go out to the ballpark for the experience. It sucks people into it’s trap like a spider and a fly. It is the wave.

To rip apart the wave, one must understand it’s origins. The wave began in the early 1960′s, when a male cheerleader named Bill T. Peterson would run around the court at basketball games for Pacific Lutheran University, urging fans to rise up as he passed. From that point, it disappeared until it unfortunately resurfaced during the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and then in the NHL. Yes, this is a good time to blame Canada. Eric Cartman would be proud.

An alternative theory on the origins of the wave lays the blame squarely at the feet of one ‘Krazy’ George Henderson, who started it during the 1981 AL Championship game between the Oakland A’s and the New York Yankees. He claims the wave was inspired by accident when he jumped up at an NHL game while trying to lead cheers in the arena.

First, who are these people that think it’s their right to perform such a distracting and mindless task? They continually cajole and demand for people to stand up and do the wave, even in situations when it is not appropriate. Yeah, do the wave in a game when your team is losing 15-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning. Yeah, that’s the perfect time. Who cares if the game is out of reach and there is a better chance of Jesus, Nero, Hitler, and Charles de Gaulle performing a conga line through the aisles than of your team winning? The wave is FUN, and you just want to say you where there.

The wave is, in part, the beginning of the ‘pink hat’ phenomenon, leading people to want to have fun and hang out as opposed to watch the game. Go to Fenway after a Red Sox home game, find one of those pink hat fans (they are everywhere), and ask them basic baseball questions or questions about the game. At almost every moment, they will be unable to answer the questions. Yet, they will gush on about singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ or about doing the wave, or how they drank a lot of beer.

Do not think this is an epidemic only for the Red Sox, because it is not. The Jets have that annoying twit Fireman Ed, who prances around in the stands, leading cheers by force until he gets his ugly mug and white fireman’s hat on television. The Yankees have ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ playing for the seventh inning stretch. The Braves have the tomahawk chop. And it goes on, and on, and on. The rot has infected every stadium.

In the end, it all comes back to the wave. If not for that, all of these other ballpark gimmicks befitting independent minor league teams would not be around. Real fans know when it’s appropriate to engage in such things according to the game. Real fans understand the sport they are watching, and actually pay attention to the games. Pink Hat fans and those who just want the experience participate in the wave and singing songs that make rational people want to puncture their own eardrums if only to get the song out of their skulls. Which one do you want to be?