Tradition or not?

[godwulf]

Throwing a home run ball back onto the field because it was hit by a visiting player. Don't know if it's true, but I have heard that this - IMO - really stupid practice began fairly recently at - no surprise, if true - Wrigley. Insights or opinions?

[godwulf]

Did a bit of research, and turns out the rumor I heard was right - it started with Cubs fans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/sports/baseball/chicago-cubs-fans-throw-back-home-run-balls.html

Not sure this is any less dumb, though.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/family-kicked-rockies-game-throwing-ball-back-article-1.2602988

I will confess - I've said in the past that people who throw back home run balls should be treated like anyone else who throws things onto the field, i.e., escorted out...but two little kids attending their first baseball game? Nah, that's too much. Maybe it's the fact that the ball almost hit an umpire when the dad tossed it back.

[sox83cubs84]

True enough, and it's been done at Wrigley Field for decades, often to the brink of criminality. I've been told of kids who had visitor HRs ripped out of their hands by adult bleacher drunks and thrown back on the field. In the last 20-25 years, I've seen a hot female fan doused with garbage for refusing to throw back a Pirates HR, an elderly man and a senior citizen couple being scared to the point of shaking by bleacher asswipes screaming at them, and a guy being chased out of the bleachers for holding onto a Rockies HR. Even the Ballhawks on Waveland are intimidated by these jerks enough to dutifully try to mollify them by throwing a fake HR ball back. The times I got HRs on the street, I refused to appease them, so someone else on the street did it for me.

Moreover, the Cubs seem to endorse this idiotic tradition, unlike the Brewers and White Sox, both of whom have ejected fans for the same act. When I asked the Cubs about this and a related matter, their lame response (offered only after they never bothered to answer my first letter and I wrote a second time) was some garbage saying that it's OK because "the players are expecting it".

The only way this tradition ever ends at the Unfriendly Confines is a refusal to placate the bleacher drunks ends up in physical violence...then the victim can press charges and file suit against the Cubs. Maybe the negative PR would finally get them to do the right thing and ban this idiocy once and for all.

Dave Miedema

[godwulf]

Thanks for a great post, Dave!

People do it here at Chase Field pretty routinely. (Although, ironically, when the Cubs are in town and one of those guys hits a home run, it doesn't get thrown back because the stands are full of Cubs fans and chances are that one of them caught or chased it down.)

I'm usually one of those who say that MLB needs to minimize the rule-making and confine it to the actual game, letting the individual teams and ballparks police their own yards - but in this instance, it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all to see the Commissioner lay down an edict about the practice if most teams continue to let it happen.

[SEAFAN76]

Dumbest thing ever.
I think I saw someone last week throw a HR ball back, and it was a commemorative Edgar Martinez retirement ball............ DOH!!!!

[godwulf]

I just saw where MLB is going to be enforcing a uniform "code of conduct" throughout Major League Baseball beginning next year. Aimed primarily, it seems, at what fans can yell at players and associated punishments for doing so, I hope somebody will think to add the "no throwing HR balls onto the field" into the new rules.

Geez, if I really didn't want to keep an opponent's HR ball, I'd offer it up to the other team's fans in my section to the highest bidder. I fielded - well, it bounced and just sort of rolled up to me - a Barry Bonds Spring Training HR ball in 2001 and I didn't throw it back - I gave it to a little kid in a Bonds jersey.

[sox83cubs84]

I just saw where MLB is going to be enforcing a uniform "code of conduct" throughout Major League Baseball beginning next year. Aimed primarily, it seems, at what fans can yell at players and associated punishments for doing so, I hope somebody will think to add the "no throwing HR balls onto the field" into the new rules.

Geez, if I really didn't want to keep an opponent's HR ball, I'd offer it up to the other team's fans in my section to the highest bidder. I fielded - well, it bounced and just sort of rolled up to me - a Barry Bonds Spring Training HR ball in 2001 and I didn't throw it back - I gave it to a little kid in a Bonds jersey.

I saw that code of conduct article, too, and I'm hoping our wish on this comes true. Although with the Wrigley Field bleacher drunks being so used to doing this and so willing to bully and intimidate fans into doing it, it may be 2 or 3 seasons before the bleacher drillrods finally get the message.

Dave M.

[ballhawknet]

It is a great tradition that should be limited to Wrigley Field .

Other fans see this and copy it by simply chanting at the person until they throw it back . Peer pressure ... you have something I wish I caught...so Im going to bully you into throwing it back. Simple as that.

Some take it too far yelling insults , vulgarities and like Dave M said sometimes take matters into their own hands getting physical . Obviouslythose people should be tossed out if not arrested .

After saying all that ... I must say it is FUN to throw a ball back ( fake ball of course ) Im not going to hit a player and usually it makes good entertainment / tv . Anyone see the Reds players studying the throwback in the dugout last week that was suppose to be Phillip Ervin's first MLB HR ? Well that ball was a little to good .. oops .. not the usual crap I throw back.

Even Dave M used to get in the fun by writing notes to the players on the throwback ball .... remember Dave ? Bring back the brown cubbie bear arm patch ? lol .

Even if you ban it like at some parks fans will still bow to peer pressure ... you are NEVER getting rid of it :)

[sox83cubs84]

It is a great tradition that should be limited to Wrigley Field .

Other fans see this and copy it by simply chanting at the person until they throw it back . Peer pressure ... you have something I wish I caught...so Im going to bully you into throwing it back. Simple as that.

Some take it too far yelling insults , vulgarities and like Dave M said sometimes take matters into their own hands getting physical . Obviouslythose people should be tossed out if not arrested .

After saying all that ... I must say it is FUN to throw a ball back ( fake ball of course ) Im not going to hit a player and usually it makes good entertainment / tv . Anyone see the Reds players studying the throwback in the dugout last week that was suppose to be Phillip Ervin's first MLB HR ? Well that ball was a little to good .. oops .. not the usual crap I throw back.

Even Dave M used to get in the fun by writing notes to the players on the throwback ball .... remember Dave ? Bring back the brown cubbie bear arm patch ?

Even if you ban it like at some parks fans will still bow to peer pressure ... you are NEVER getting rid of it :)

Now that you remind me, Dave, I do now remember writing goofy message on a few of them in my days on Waveland Ave. Never my own dummy balls, but I figured as long as we WERE gonna toss one, we might as well make it interesting.

BTW, Dave, remember when Jimmy the Kid (later a groundskeeper) had someone throw back and oversized rubber playground baseball which bounced like one when it landed in LF? That was so obvious it was hilarious! :p

Dave M.