While not profane, some of the comments are decidedly PG-13. Hey, get the pitcher some Viagra. Some of the stinging comments you know just have to get under a player's skin. Two women new to the Blues games recently joined in the heckling fun, yelling out barbs like old pros and laughing uproariously with the group at the funniest lines. Heckling has been around since the beginning.
Disorderly fans are almost as old as the game itself.
He described a number of famous heckling incidents through history, with hecklers often having a big impact on the game. One was a 1903 game in Pittsburgh in which fans heckled visiting catcher Fred Bowerman so mercilessly during pregame warm-ups, mostly for a previous fight he had with Pittsburgh manager Fred Clarke, that Bowerman refused to play. And because he was the only catcher who could handle the scheduled pitcher's heat, the pitcher was also forced from the game. They were the scourge of visiting teams. During a workout in March, Tony Fernandez of the Toronto Blue Jays reportedly had to be restrained by his teammates after trying to go after some hecklers in the stands.