They're programmed to ignore the insults hurled from the stands by heckling fans, but Barnstormers players admit it's not always easy to tune out the taunts.
Barnstormers' mascot Cylo strikes a pose Friday night as fans applaud team's efforts against the Camden Riversharks.
By By Jason Guarente
Published Aug 14, 2006 14:07
Every sarcastic comment, every insult hurled their way is supposed to slide past them like a face in the crowd.
It doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes, when the circumstances are right, a fan’s words can really get to the guys on the field.
“I have to admit there have been a few times in my 10 years that I’ve retaliated a little bit,” Barnstormers designated hitter Keith Maxwell said. “Some guys have said some offensive things. You feel bad when you say something back to them.”
The relationship between spectator and ballplayer will always be mercurial, even in the minors, where salaries are low and talent is diminished.
Some fans will shout constant encouragement to their favorites. Others will revel in trying to make a player’s job miserable.
The players hear it all, even if they pretend like they don’t.
“You don’t go deaf because you go out on the field,” manager Tom Herr said.
The smaller the crowd, the more each comment resonates. In Atlantic City, where the Surf often draws fewer than 1,000 fans for a game, it’s like playing in a library.
“They have a guy that’s there every day,” Herr said. “He sits down the third-base line all by himself and he yells the same stuff every night. You kind of get it memorized by the end of the trip.”
At Clipper Magazine Stadium, home of the Barnstormers, it’s a mostly friendly environment. Sure, the fans might boo during a bad inning, but they generally embrace the players as Lancaster’s own.
In other places, whether big or small, attitudes are different.
“If you go through a city like New York, those fans are brutal. They are for the Yankees and the Yankees only,” said right fielder Eric Crozier, who played in the big leagues with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“When you go through that, you have to let it ride off your shoulders. Some of it might even make you laugh. You think, ‘How do they come up with that just sitting there?’ You hear a lot of creative things and some of it brings a smile to your face.”
Occasionally, smiling is the furthest thing from a player’s mind.
When he’s having a bad night and someone is there to rub it in his face, he’s forced to suppress any negative emotion he might feel.
“When they say something from the first or second row and I’m walking off the field after striking out, there’s a lot I want to do,” catcher Lance Burkhart said. “But you’ve got to keep that to yourself.”
It’s all part of the challenge of this profession.
In addition to the daily grind that comes with competing, and frequently failing, there’s the mental task of tuning out the smart alecks who believe they can perform better and who get to scream about it from a safe distance.
The natural boundary between the stands and the diamond can bring out the worst in some fans — who won’t hesitate to insult a player, his looks, his family, whatever comes to mind.
“They know they’re protected,” Burkhart said. “Would the same person say the same thing to me if I was at the mall? Or if I was somewhere else? I don’t think so.”
While attitudes vary from city to city, there is one constant: A fan’s boldness rises in direct proportion to his alcohol intake.
Just imagine if those beers weren’t $5, or more, a pop.
“A lot of times you don’t even hear a guy until the fifth or sixth inning when he has six or seven of them beers in him and he’s acting like a fool,” Maxwell said with a smile. “You really have to try to ignore them, but it does get annoying.”
Because of increased media attention, fans know more about their favorite teams and players than ever before, even in the low minors. There’s television and newspaper coverage, talk radio shows, Internet blogs and message boards.
The result is a different mentality than once prevailed in sports — a more demanding mentality.
Why do the players think fans are critical?
“Maybe they think it’s their right,” Burkhart said. “When they buy a ticket to see you play, they think they can say whatever they want. To a certain extent, they can.”
No matter what gets yelled, positive or negative, players crave a lively ballpark. Crowd noise adds to the excitement of the game and takes away from the tediousness of the long season. It makes it feel like the stakes are higher.
If you polled Atlantic Leaguers, most would prefer a game in Lancaster to a game in Atlantic City.
“When rallies occur, the crowd gets excited and players pick up on that,” Herr said. “That’s why you see teams have big innings. It kind of snowballs and I think the crowd plays a part in that — if not to inspire the home team, maybe to unnerve the other team.”
One of the keys to being successful on the field is staying calm and stoic no matter the surroundings.
It’s not always easy, but it’s an occupational requirement.
“You’ve got to have a thick skin,” Crozier said. “You can’t let something that comes from the stands upset you to the point where it rides with you.”
For a ballplayer, sometimes that means acting like he can’t hear a thing.
——— Jason Guarente is a New Era assistant sports editor. He can be reached at jguarente@lnpnews.com
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