But they do expect there is a chance they’ll hear some boos. And if they don’t expect that, they’ve got to realign their sense of reality.

I think there’s a balance (that if I may be so bold, I walk quite nicely) between disrespecting the other fans and the players, and expressing oneself in virtually the only way that the players will hear.

“What we do know is that MLB players bust their ass more than the average person and in more ways than the average person just to get there and to stay at that level.”

Had to drop a comment to this one – you’re right, they do. They work 10 times as hard as the average person. And then they get paid 100 times as much. Of all the aspects of this debate, I’m not going to lose any sleep over the hard-working ball players.

You want to boo someone who isn’t trying, fine. I don’t like it, but it’s at least understandable. The only problem is that we really can’t tell when someone is trying or not. If Soriano jogged after a fly ball we might think he’s not trying, but then we might find out he has a sore knee and has played through it for a month and rather than be subjected to abuse, we might praise the guy for playing through pain. Simply put, as a fan we have no way of knowing what is actually going on down on the field when it comes to effort. We don’t have enough information. What we do know is that MLB players bust their ass more than the average person and in more ways than the average person just to get there and to stay at that level. That we know for a fact. We know for a fact that they all bust their ass and in reality, work harder than any of us in perfecting their craft. What happens in an individual game we don’t know why it happened and unless we know why it happened it’s kind of silly to boo, don’t you think?

You may think you’re booing someone who isn’t trying, but as I already pointed out with Soriano, we didn’t know the whole story and despite not knowing it, he’s showed little sign of it. He’s busted his ass in ways that the average person simply could not do. and you know what? He’ll get repaid for that by fans booing the next time he fucks up.

What annoys me most of all about booing isn’t that it’s ridiculing or abusing the players. It’s that I have a reasonable expectation of going to the ballpark with my family and being able to enjoy the game. i don’t ask for much. I’m not asking for anything other than the people around me to consider that I may find that behavior atrocious. Unfortunately, I no longer have the reasonable expectation that will happen. I can now reasonably expect the fans around me to be complete assholes and not care at all about me. It’s selfish. It’s rude. It’s annoying. It’s childish. And a whole lot more. Most of all, I can no longer go to a game because people feel they must pay lots of money to a team and then show their displeasure in the way that has the least amount of impact.

You may feel as though I went too far as you said in your response, but it was you who went too far. It was you who disregarded how others feel about obnoxious behavior. It was you who then justified those childish actions. It was your selfish actions that makes me think two or three times about actually going to a game. It was your actions that have made me not attend a game in Chicago in 8 years (I go elsewhere to watch the Cubs because of you). It was you who told me flat out that you didn’t care if you ruined the experience for me and others around you. You’re like the person at the movies who keeps talking. you don’t care about the people around you. I didn’t feel as though I owed you an ounce of respect at that point. You’re the one who has to look in the mirror and justify childish, obnoxious and unruly behavior. You’re the one who said Fuck You to me.

I simply pointed out how much it irritated me that someone would have no disregard for others around them.