To My Friends With the Palm Beach Cardinals - FUCK YOU!!!

Last night (Tuesday night August 17) the incomparable Bradenton Marauders took on the hapless Palm Beach Cardinals in a Florida State League game in Bradenton. The game was particularly important because before the game the Cardinals led the Maraurders by two games in the rush to determine who is the South Division winner of the second half of the season. The way the playoffs go, the first half winner plays the second half winner for the Division championship. That team goes on to play the North Division winner for the League championship. The Charlotte Stone Crabs beat the Marauders in the first half so we MUST win the second half to have a shot at the South Division championship. Tonight's game got us one game closer to that goal.

This year I have taken on a new philosophy of heckling baseball players. Before I used to do it mainly to follow the instructions of my little league coach in the 4th grade who told me "I don't care what you say, I want you to make an ass out of that batter." Generally for the last 50 years that is exactly what I have done. However when dealing with professional players it takes a bit more and this year I have taken on the Karl Rove philosophy of attacking the strength of your opponent. Just like Karl did when he was defending Away Without Leave George Bush against triple purple heart winner John Kerrey in 2004, I have gone after the strength of the team with my heckling. Tonight was no different.

The Palm Beach Cardinals are not a team to take lightly. The best hitter in their line up was Alejandro Castellenos with a .271 batting average (before tonight's game :) With few exceptions, their "worst" hitter is catcher Luis de la Cruz with a .231 average. With averages that close among professional players it is obvious that nobody is a stand out but everyone is a stand out. That is what the Marauders faced tonight.

Marauder Pitcher Nathan Adcock who, I think, deserves to be at the AA level or maybe AAA level, started off the game throwing 3.1 innings of perfect baseball. It was beautiful.

I gave the Cardinals the typical amount of heckling through three innings as I learned who they were and how they batted. Then in the fourth inning I started to lay it on thick. D'Marcus Ingram, the Cardinals excellent center fielder led off the fourth inning hitting into a 5-3 force out. He was followed by shortstop Ryan Jackson who, the night before, hit into a 9th inning double play ending the game for the Cardinals. Tonight he hit a double and eventually scored the first and only run for Palm Beach. His hit caused me to go into over drive. Niko Vasquez followed Ryan and flew out on a solid hit to center field advancing Ryan Jackson who had stolen third. Jackson became the only Cardinal run of the night. Niko was followed by Alejandro Castellano who despite having the best batting average on the team, had also struck out 97 times this year. This was the fault of his that I focused on and sure enough with considerable encouragement Alejandro ended the inning with his 98th strike out.

It was about now that two Palm Beach Cardinal pitchers, both starters,both assigned to run the radar guns on their pitchers, and both seated three rows behind me, started to take exception to the comments I was making about their team mates. One can only expect this to happen. What they didn't know and soon learned, was that heckling the heckler is not a productive way to spend the evening.

The principal loudmouth who made the mistake of going after me and my heckling friends was Deryk Hooker .

Palm Beach led off the fifth inning with their very good hitter Richard Rocobaldo , an overall nice kid from Marlton New Jersey. However given the ethnicity of his surname and the location of his home town, Richard received a huge ration of shit beginning with "Hey Richard, is your name Norwegian or Swedish? I can never keep those two straight." I then continued with "is Marlton near Bayonne? I hear you have an uncle Guido in Bayonne who knee caps people. Capish?" Richard didn't like this or did the two pitchers sitting three rows behind me. Of course with enough encouragement Richard struck out (his 85th strike out of the year) and this was met with a chorus of invective from myself and fellow hecklers around me including Wisconsinite Dave Hilsheimer who jumped on Richard with me. It all went down hill from there.

By the sixth inning with the Marauders leading, the amount of heckling increased geometrically. This tended to piss off the two Palm Beach pitchers who started saying to me "You're going to need surgery you asshole."

Just what I wanted to hear and I poured it on even more.

The Cardinals went down 1,2,3 in the top of the 7th inning and during their at bat I got on Richard Rocobaldo big time because he was the 1,119th pick in the 2009 baseball draft. Of course that is 1,119 positions higher than anything I was drafted for but I didn't let him know that. I hammered him on being the last person picked last year. Deryk Hooker, seated behind me, commented with a smarmy tone "so asshole, where were you in the draft?" Undaunted I said "I caught 4 years for the University of Wisconsin and was drafted 37th in the 1973 draft. I decided to go to graduate school and get a job so I didn't play beyond college. Were you drafted 37th"? Deryk was silent.

Deryk was the 232nd pick in the 2007 draft but he didn't know that I was bullshitting him. I like it that way.

In the sixth inning, after hapless Niko Vasquez hit into a fielders choice ending the inning, I heard Mr. Hoover say "Watch it asshole. You're going to need surgery after this game." Color me stupid but to me that sounded like a threat. I made a mental note of it.

The Cardinals went 0-3 in the top of the seventh inning and during the seventh inning stretch I turned around and faced Deryk and his mealy-mouthed side kick. I first asked him "what's it like to play for such a lousy fucking team?" This tended to piss him off and he unloaded on me with a few choice comments that were met with similarly choice replies. He made the mistake of saying "I don't like the way you talk about my players" to which I said "Look, if you can't handle us here in Advanced A you will never make it in the Show."

The stupid bastard said "so you've been in the Show". It was right out of the scene in Bull Durham. I couldn't resist and, quoting Kevin Costner verbatim from that movie said, "yeah, I was in the Show once for 21 of the greatest days of my life."

This seemed to catch the stupid bastard off guard.

I then continued saying "Heckling is a part of baseball, kid, and if you can't take it here you'll never make it in the Show. I know I was there."

Deryk shut up as my friend Dave hammered him from a different angle.

Eventually the seventh inning stretch was over and as the Marauders came to bat I left the stands and went to the boys room hoping that one of these two little cretins would follow me. On my way back to my seat I saw two Bradenton police officers having lunch. I stopped by their table and told them that I had been threatened by these two kids. I added "Its probably all bravado but I wanted you to know." One of the cops said "Do you want us to throw them out?" I told them they were players and that wouldn't work. One of the cops then asked where I sat and when I told him said, "You keep up the good work, OK? We've got your back."

And they did.

I retook my seat and during the eighth and ninth inning laid it on thick. I had also told another heckler friend what I had been told so when he sat down he turned to the pitchers and said "So, I hear you don't like the way we talk about your players"? Deryk replied "We don't have a problem with what you're saying." My heckler friend said "you better not or we'll break your fucking backs."

Palm Beach took on an entirely different view of things after that comment.

Bradenton went on to beat the Palm Beach Cardinals by the score of 5-1 giving Marauder pitcher Nathan Adcock his 10th win of the season.

As the ninth inning seemed to be winding down, I noticed that the two Bradeon police officers sort of sashayed over near me and were standing behind the two Palm Beach pitchers when the final out was committed by none other than Alejandro Castellanos. The cops didn't need to say anything and the Palm Beach kids certainly didn't say anything. It was a perfect ending to a great game.

Right now the Marauders are 1 game behind Palm Beach for the South Division championship. There are 16 games left to play this season so every game is crucial. On Wednesday night the Marauders begin three game stand against the worthless Jupiter Hammerheads in Jupiter. The Hammerheads are about 10 games out of first place but they can pose problems. Given how badly I got on their case last week in Bradenton I am thinking about driving over to Jupiter for the Thursday and Friday night games solely for the heckling that I could get in. Maybe it will help.

Already this year I have 1) pissed off the St. Lucie Mets to the point that the team and their coach were heckling me, 2) upset the Charlotte Stone Crabs to the point that a friend of mine was confronted by several Crabs players who thought he was me. Alan later said "You have really pissed off Charlotte Craig." Great!! 3) I was confronted by a Lakeland Tiger player who was waiting for me by the team bus after a Marauders victory, and 4) I know by the number of bats smashed into the dugout wall that I pissed off most if not all of the Jupiter Hammerheads last week. So, from a heckling standpoint, and because my team is doing so well, my heckling seems to have helped a bit. Maybe if I went to an opponents home field my heckling would upset them even more. I think they are going to find out.

And by the way, I recorded only two instances of BSADW tonight (that's the acronym for Bats Slammed Against Dugout Walls). Both happened in the 8th inning when Ryde Rodrequiz and Dommit Bolivar struck out swinging. You can guess who slammed their bats.

Hey...that is the game of baseball. If they can't take it then they need to go into basket weaving or something productive.

Source: http://watchingthesunbake.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-my-friends-with-palm-beach-cardinals.html