"Ha ha. You’re not a real fan. Nice RED shirt when our opponent’s main color is RED"

No, because I’m not calling into question their fandom.

The wave at baseball games is totally stupid but that doesn’t mean that people who do it aren’t real fans.

I’m very much of the “live and let live” approach when it comes to attending a sporting event. If you want to do the wave, knock yourself out. If you want to get one of those giant foam fingers, and wave it all game, great. Not things I would do, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want other people to have the option to do them if that’s what they want.

But if they call me a crappy fan/person first, and then I respond to them telling them why there are reasons that their behavior is detrimental to my enjoyment, no matter how stupid it seems to them, I don’t care if it’s justified or not, I will act like a jerk to them. They’re a jerk to me, they get it back.

I rolled my eyes when Willie Bloomquist got cheers years ago, and I yelled “Get off the roster!” at Sexson, Vidro, etc., and I can tell you for a fact, I never once yelled “You’re stupid for cheering for Vidro/Sexson/Willie!” or “If you do the wave you’re just a fat baby!” or “You’re not a true fan because you’re sitting down in this high leverage situation, dickwad!” I mean yeah, I stand up, turn around, and try to rouse the crowd to stand in high leverage situations, but I’m not going to yell at them if they don’t.

I will yell at them if they yell at me, however. If someone says “Why don’t you stop booing Vidro and support him” I say “I want him to succeed, but I DO support the team, I want him off of it so it can get better.” then they come back with “A real fan just cheers for who is on his team!”—trust me, it happened exactly like this multiple times last season, then yeah, I’m going to yell at them.

and deal with the situation in a mature way rather than to try to spoil other people’s day at the park.

And furthermore— how do you not know that these people don’t care about whether the team wins or loses? It seems like a dumb assumption to make.

If you feel cockpunched at the end of a tough loss, it’s not the fault of the person two rows in front of you that wanted to start the wave. Accusing them of ruining the game experience for you would be like walking out of the park and kicking a homeless guy in the teeth because the Mariners lost.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel passionately about the Mariners – it’s great that you do, and I hope that continues. It’s just that taking your frustrations out on other fans because they don’t behave in a BrettJMiller-approved way is pretty ridiculous, really.

When I was a kid my family was dirt-ass poor. I was ecstatic to be able to go to the Kingdome, and while it wasn’t as fun if the Mariners lost it was still easily the best day of my year.

And also, you’re making the assumption that people who don’t behave a certain way don’t care what happens on the field, and that’s unfair.