Bob Collins
It started as a joke, but maybe there’s some life to the “stop the wave” movement that’s growing in — where else? — Texas?
The end of the “wave” may be coming.
“If fans would get on their feet and make noise with two strikes in first innings, I’d love that,” Chuck Morgan, the Rangers’ senior vice president for ballpark entertainment, said on Thursday to mlb.com. “Nobody has banned anything. We just put up a couple of funny messages. Do what you want, but we just say to consider doing it at a time that does not take away from the game. Players say the wave is OK as long we’ve got a blowout going.”
What’s the big deal? It’s that the wave is a big deal, a bigger deal than it should be, and too often a bigger deal than the game itself. The website, StopTheWave.net, for example, points out that in last night’s game in Detroit, only two people behind the plate were paying attention to an 8th inning homerun in a one-run ballgame, because everyone else was doing “the wave.”
The video says that’s not exactly accurate. But it’s too important an issue to be left to facts.
After this effort succeeds, maybe the organizers can turn their attention to the practice of throwing an opposition’s homerun ball back on the field.
