I’ve been sitting in the right field bleachers frequently this year, so the recent string of ejections has me worried. My buddy Mischa G, who also frequents the right field benches, has written a little something-something about the whole situation. As Ben’s mother pointed out yesterday, the Fascism in Yankee Stadium is not limited to the bleachers, but it’s certainly more emphatic there.
“Yo! Melky!”
So begins most home games this season in the right field bleachers. With Bald Vinny standing, surrounded by the most die hard of fans, Yankee Stadium’s Bleacher Creatures lead as the right field bleachers chant each Yankee’s name. As they player waves back, the fans move onto the next player, from Melky in center to Matsui in left and Bobby in right. And so on. After A-Rod’s name is chanted the fans turn to the section of box seats just across the divide and chant “Box seats suck!” several times before Vinny instructs everyone to “Sit down and shut up!” and the ball game really begins.
Except recently there’s a new tradition. Starting around the series vs. the A’s at the end of June, the chant of “Box seats suck!” was met with ejections. In fact a zero tolerance policy was instituted in the right field bleachers, far beyond any enforcement in any other section of the park.
Pointing at out-of-town fans and singing “Why are you gay?” during the YMCA is now met with immediate ejection in the bleahcers, and rightfully so. Those doing so are usually not the regulars anyway. Instead, those leading the stadium tradition of roll call have often been thrown from games before the first out for so little as shouting “sucks”. The enforcement is highly inconsistent from day to day, but is generally strict.
Slowly the Bleacher Creatures, saluted on billboards outside the park, are being killed off. Their cruder rituals like the gangbang song, have long since gone the way of the dodo in the stands. Now you only hear whispers of “Mets Suck” sung to every song piped through the stadium. “Box Seats Sucks” has only been chanted (and not met with ejection) a few times in the last month. The wave even occasionally ripples through the right field stands.
So these days roll call often ends a different way.
“Rob-in-son! Rob-in-son!”
“De-rek Je-ter! De-rek Je-ter!”
“A-Rod! A-Rod!”
“No Fun Allowed!”
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