Together as sports fans, I think we can all agree on some points of revulsion.
We all hate the Pro Bowl. We all hate female play-by-play broadcasters who sound like stuffy-nosed 13-year-old boys. We all hate long lines at the pisser, and even longer lines at the beer stand after visiting the pisser. And we all hate the Yankees. (Yes, even Yankees fans hate the Yankees now, so long as A-Rod is penciled in on their next several postseason rosters. They'll go back to loving the Yankees when he's Lou Piniella's problem.)
But this across-the-board hatred of the Wave?
I don't get it.
An article on AirchairGM.com called it "one of the dumbest incarnations of fan interaction," adding that "if security finds someone attempting to start a wave, they should immediately tazer (sic.) said individual and bring him to the clink." The great Deadspin.com ran a headline stating "Lord Help Us: They're Doing The Wave at Wrigley."
When I was writing my book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History," the Wave was nowhere near making the cut. I didn't even consider it. I mean, how the hell is some silly fan participation gimmick going to possibly compete with real affronts to fandom like Variable Pricing (No. 70), Personal Seat Licenses (No. 42), and Artificial Turf (No. 7 with an ACL-tearing bullet)?
The Wave turns 25 this year. Some believe the tradition began at the University of Washington in 1981, and then spread to Seattle Seahawks games at the Kingdome. Others give credit to a "for-hire cheerleader" named Krazy George Henderson, who claims he debuted it during an Oakland A's playoff game a few weeks earlier. The latter claim dually disturbs me: that there are, in fact, "for-hire cheerleaders" you wouldn't want at your bachelor party; and that George Henderson is not "crazy" but "krazy," which means he's so balls-out insane that customary spelling can't even contain it.
(For the record, officials at Washington acknowledged to the Associated Press that Henderson pioneered the Wave, but the Huskies popularized it, which is like one radio shock jock saying he invented naked lesbians and the other one saying, "Yeah, but I invented them kissing on the air!")
In those 25 years, the Wave had managed to enchant some fans and enrage many others. From my own investigations, and through some informal discussions with the Waveophobic, here are the primary catalysts for the phenomena I call "Wave Undertow":
CONFORMITY: Sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up. Those of us who fancy ourselves as independent thinkers outside the hive mind have a natural allergy to something so homogeneously demanding. While everyone else is acting like they're on some fun wooden roller-coaster, these people are sitting on their hands, complaining about the price of popcorn and wondering why they don't play more Joy Division at the games.
DISTRACTION: With the cost index of attending a sporting event being what it is, the Wave can be an utter annoyance. We're all there to experience the game; the Wave is a separate experience itself. Can you imagine being at the new Cate Blanchett movie, and during one of the most emotionally grueling scenes someone stands up in the corner of the theater and screams, "EVERYBODY ... 1, 2, 3, WAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!"?
Okay, on second thought, that'd be killer funny.
IRONY: Gentlemen, picture yourself in a bar, locking eyes with a beautiful blonde. As you're drawing up battle plans to mack on her, over walks this dumber-than-a-mentally-challenged-cinder-block goofus to apply layers of lame game like spackle on this young lass. She's clearly not into it, turns, and says something to her friend, and leaves you, lame-o, and the bar in her wake.
Your only thought? "Dude, you just ruined it for the rest of us."
I think most of the anti-Wave sentiment is based on this emotion. When you're at a poorly-attended game, sitting in the upper deck, and three morons try to start the wave in a section that only has four people in it, you want someone to cluster bomb them. Yes, we get the irony; but if I'm paying $30 to see a crappy game with a crappy crowd, you don't have to point it out to me with your hipster irony.
They ruin it for the rest of us, these people who try and start the wave at inopportune times — no Waves in the third period or fourth quarter of a tight game, EVER — or simply to make a spectacle out of themselves. There's nothing wrong with the Wave itself; in an era where illuminated scoreboards and ear-splitting music are the only means by which to arouse a crowd from their collective malaise, the Wave is as organic an occurrence as you're going to find at a sporting event.
Like I said: there's nothing wrong with the Wave, just with the people who start it.
Like with the A-bomb, HOV lanes, celebrity reality shows, and political attack ads, we have to remember that as much as we might loathe the invention, it's the inventor we have to hate with every ounce of festering bile and boiling anger we can muster.
You hearing me, Krazy George?
Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book is "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History." His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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