The Kid in the Stands - Proper Etiquette of Foul Balls

(Yeah, kid, I feel your pain every Monday morning)

Some of you may have heard of the raging controversy a few days ago. At a Texas Rangers baseball game against the Yankees, two couples were sitting next to each other in the stands. One of the couples had a three-year-old child with them, all ablaze in Texas Rangers gear.

A foul ball gets thrown into the stands by one of the players, and the guy from the childless couple ends up with it (there is some debate on whether he caught it or it fell to him after bouncing, but that's beside the point). Instead of giving the ball to the kid, Cameron, he gives it to the woman he's with, and they smile and pose for the camera. Meanwhile, the boy starts crying his head off.

Horrible behaviour? That's the general consensus out there in Internet-land, though there have been some new updates to the story since then that show them to not necessarily be the evil villains they're made out to be. Cameron's mother spoke out on the Today show, saying that they were a perfectly wonderful couple who spoke with Cameron a lot. They were getting married on Saturday (so I suppose that means yesterday?) and this was their first baseball game together. In fact, she says that they offered Cameron the ball and she said no, because he's at an age where he wants everything and they want him to learn that sometimes you don't get everything you want.

Yankees announcer Michael Kay apparently went off on them and their behaviour. "'Oh my God. They can’t give it to the kid? That’s awful,' he lamented, adding, 'They’re rubbing it in the kid’s face,' when the couple posed happily with the ball for a photo as Cameron looked on."

The story did have a bit of a happy ending, as the dugout got him another ball. The other couple, Sean Leonard and Shannon Moore, are pretty upset with the sensationalizing that went on around the whole event, especially Kay's comments.

So just what is proper etiquette for kids at sporting events like this? Do they always deserve everything that even comes near them?

Some of the commenters on some pages that had this story agree with Cameron's mom, that maybe kids do need to learn that they can't always get everything they want, and that this would be an important life lesson. Others are of the belief that you always should put the kids first.

Roberto Luongo, goalie for the Vancouver Canucks, always gives his stick to a kid near the front row of Canucks home games when he's named one of the Three Stars, but that's a bit different. It's obviously his intent to give it to a kid, so if some guy catches it instead, he should definitely give it to the kid.

But a random puck or a foul ball or whatever?

Richard Durrett has a good post on this at ESPN. There's also a lively debate in the comments section.

First of all, if a ball (or puck or whatever) is tossed into the stands, it's generally intended for a kid. Players usually don't just randomly toss balls into the crowd, and hey, the good PR of taking care of your kid fans is never a bad thing. So if you catch one of these, give it to the kid it was intended for.

If it's a foul ball or home run that gets hit your way? That's a bit dicier.

My feeling is that, most of the time, you give it to the kid. Do you remember when you were a kid and some adult, especially one you didn't even know, did something nice for you? That adult has created a happy memory that will last a lifetime. The warm glow of a kid's smile should be compensation enough for it.

But what if you have your own situation? Maybe you've got a sick kid at home that really wanted to be at this game but couldn't? You want to bring the ball back to him/her. Or, as with this couple, it's your first baseball game together. Wouldn't this ball make a great memento of this occasion?

If I were in this type of situation, I would try to flag down an usher or somebody official, explain the situation, and ask whether you can either get another ball or whether the kid you're not giving it to can get another ball.

Really, it's not worth the PR nightmare, though in an ideal world that wouldn't be a consideration. I'm getting sick of over-hyping media that go off half-cocked without even thinking about other considerations. Instead, they get instantly outraged and start criticizing without knowing all the facts. Kay should be ashamed of himself, but then again, he's only one of many. How many times have we seen videos like this?

It's in your best interests to just give the kid the damned ball.

The couple says that this incident, and Kay's comments, have caused them to get angry phone calls at their home.

No matter what really happened, that part is seriously uncool. I guess it's a product of the society we're living in right now, this media-saturated 24-hour news cycle where people fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.

If I were them, I wouldn't be expecting an apology any time soon.

So what are your thoughts on this? Should you put the kids first? Or is it ok to keep the ball as long as you didn't physically push the kid out of the way, or reach over his head, to snatch it out of his hands?

The NHL is becoming a joke

It's Saturday, three days after the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the disappointment still lingers a bit.

But that's not why the NHL is a joke. Or at least that's not when it became obvious to us that it is becoming one. It just reinforced the issue.

The NHL, under Gary Bettman's tenure, has turned into an organization that is destroying our love of the game of hockey.

(Thanks to...well, you can find this picture EVERYWHERE)

The Stanley Cup Finals just showed a spotlight on everything that we're growing to hate about it.

It's becoming a league where thuggery is not only being allowed, but encouraged.

Now, I'm not one of those "ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, get fighting out of the game!" type people. I love a good fight between two willing combatants, when one guy comes to the defense of a teammate. I love me a good body check, and even more so a good hip check.



That, along with the goal-scoring, is what hockey is to me.

It's not cheap shots after the whistle, or even during play.



It's not slashing somebody to the point where two of their fingers are broken (like the slash Alex Edler received in Game 6 of the Finals, making him largely ineffective in Game 7). The organized, post-whistle activities were just sickening to see.

But again, this isn't just about the Finals, and it's not a whine-fest about the Canucks losing. This sort of thing has been going on for a while now.

There's the inconsistent standards of officiating, where what a penalty is doesn't just change from game to game, but from period to period. It's gotten to the point where the players don't even know what a penalty is anymore. Is it any wonder that there's an epidemic of diving going on? When somebody gets cross-checked in the back ten times, with no penalty called, I wouldn't blame somebody for thinking they have to dive to make sure the ref sees the play.

It's not just the penalties, but the supplementary discipline as well. There were two horrible hits in the Stanley Cup Finals. First, Aaron Rome knocked Nathan Horton out of the series with a huge open-ice hit that was late. It was a hockey-play gone wrong (it was definitely late and should have been a penalty for that), but it earned him an unprecedented 4-game suspension. Playoff games are widely considered to be worth double a regular season game, so it would have been 8 games.

The reasoning for this was given, among other things, as the lateness of the hit and the severity of the injury. Yet in Game 6, Mason Raymond gets a compressed vertebrae after being crunched into the boards by an extremely late hit. No penalty on the play, and no suspension.

What the hell?

Personally, I don't think either should have been suspended, because they were hockey plays gone wrong. But if you use that reasoning to suspend Rome, you have to be consistent and suspend the Bruin player too.

Suspensions during the regular season have been just as questionable, mostly on the "way too low" side. Somebody gets run into a stanchion and almost breaks his neck, and there's no suspension for it. Vicious slashes and cross-checks to the head get a game or two at most.

The on-ice product has deteriorated markedly since the NHL lock-out supposedly "fixed" things by calling the rulebook as it is. There would be no more hooking and holding to slow the game down. It would be called no matter when it happened.

Over the years, that standard has slowly disappeared. It's not completely gone, and fast teams can still play well in the regular season. But it's now inconsistent. What's called in the 1st period probably won't be called in the 3rd.

These issues have made it a lot less fun to watch hockey.

I'm a Canucks fan through and through. I bleed blue and green. I will never stop supporting the Canucks.

We have season tickets, but we have seriously considered dropping them because of what a gong show the NHL has become. Every year, we have to make that decision to renew, and every year, we come close to saying "no more."

But we keep coming back. Because these are the Canucks. Would dropping them be cutting off our noses to spite our faces? While the Canucks do have to give a cut of the money to the NHL, we would be hurting the Canucks by abandoning them more than we would be hurting the NHL.

The Canucks players, to a man, talk about the wonderful fanbase in this city, and how well they're treated (despite the intense scrutiny that they receive, and the sometimes unwarranted criticism by fans who get on players way too easily). They talk about taking less money to play here because they love the organization and they love us, the fans who support them. How can you turn your back on that?

Our compromise is to never buy any merchandising, as the NHL gets reams of money off of that. We will not be getting NHL Centre Ice this year (NHL Centre Ice is a package for your digital cable TV package where you can watch almost any hockey game that's on, rather than depending on what your local stations are showing). We will not be spending a cent on any kind of merchandise with the NHL logo on it. It's sad that the Canucks can't sell anything without that logo, as we'd love to give our money to the Canucks. But we just can't do it.

The NHL (and the Canucks, admittedly) made a mint during this Stanley Cup run, with Canucks merchandise flying off of the shelves. I wonder how many people who were buying stuff are bandwagon fans, not even caring about any of these issues.

(Thanks to Hockey-Jerseys.ca)

And I wonder if the true fans who continue to buy the products have thought about how much of that money is going to an organization that is running hockey into the ground.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy anything. That's a personal decision, because the Canucks (or the other teams, if it's their stuff) are getting a big cut of that as well.

But it's not something that we can support. The Canucks will get our ticket money. Their TV broadcasts will get our viewership (not that we're a Nielsen family anyway). They will get the one Diet Coke that we buy at the game every time we go.

But the NHL will not be getting any of our money directly.

And if we ever discover that Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini voted to keep Gary Bettman in place as Commissioner of the NHL, we might abandon the team as well.

Yet another reason not to eat food at sporting venues

Do you go to a lot of sporting events? Do you find yourself eating there? That can be quite the expensive proposition. We go to Vancouver Canucks games at GM Place (It will take me a while to start calling it Rogers Arena), and all we buy is a large Diet Coke that lasts us the entire game. The prices are outrageous!

A rather small cup of Molson beer (basically equivalent to Budweiser as far as market saturation goes) costs over $7!! And if you want a "good" beer, like Okanagan Spring, it's over $8! Even our large diet coke costs $4.75 ($5.25 if they're doing "collector's" cups). I can't imagine trying to take a family of 4 to a game, and actually trying to feed the kids.

So do you really need another reason not to buy food at the ballpark?

I don't care. Here's another one!

Want to get sick?

ESPN has published a report on health inspections at various sporting venues around the US and Canada. It's categorized by state an then venue within that state, and some of the results are rather shocking.

Here's Tropicana Field, where the Tampa Bay Rays play baseball:

"Vendors with critical violations: 100%
Inspection report excerpt: Several violations addressed dirty countertops, utensils and equipment. Although every report indicated a critical violation, all vendors met basic inspection standards to keep operating."

That's heartening, isn't it? Here's another Florida stadium, American Airlines Arena, where the Miami Heat play basketball:

"Vendors with critical violations: 93%
Inspection report excerpt: Critical violations included several safety issues related to electrical wiring and such equipment as gas boilers."

Or how about this statement, from Sun Life stadium, where the Miami Dolphins and Florida Marlins play?

"In June 2009, an employee complained anonymously that small insects and other debris were blended into frozen alcoholic beverages at a stand where equipment wasn't being cleaned. When inspectors checked, they issued a critical violation for a buildup of slime inside the frozen drinks machine."

Thankfully, GM Place Rogers Arena only has 9% violations, with the statement: "A sushi display cooler was malfunctioning, and the temperature of the sushi rose above safe levels. Inspectors also cautioned one stand regarding properly heating donairs, which have been tied to E. coli outbreaks elsewhere in Canada."

Not *too* bad, right? I avoid sushi anyway.

Is it too much to ask that these venues pay more attention to cleanliness? You're servicing 15,000-22,000 people in arenas and upwards of 50,000-80,000 people in outdoor stadiums. I'm surprised there haven't been more issues with this.

Kudos to those venues that have 0% violations, like Nassau Coliseum (where the New York Islanders play hockey) and Scottrade Center in St. Louis (home of the Blues). Of course, you New Yorkers could go to Madison Square Garden:

"At one stand, inspectors found "53 mouse excreta" (38 on top of a metal box underneath the cash registers in the front food-prep/service area and 15 on top of a carbonated-beverage dispensing unit)"

Ok, maybe I should have warned you not to read this while eating dinner.

Enjoy the game!

(h/t to somebody who posted this link on the Game Informer discussion forum)