A Brief, Semi-Pompous Analysis of Booing.

One of the items of recent discussion has been over whether or not it is appropriate for fans to boo their own team. I've been one to take multiple sides on this issue, unlike the unwavering rock everyone has come to know me as. First of all, I can see the school of thought that says that booing, especially in a sport that is so individually driven as baseball, that booing a player will not increase his performance in some magical, "Oh shit! I guess I really haven't been trying. I'll show them!" epiphianic moment. For the record, I have never booed my two favorite teams for poor performance. I have booed and threatened with physical harm officials who I felt were not doing their job...and mascots, but that's beside the point.

Just as I agree that booing largely has no positive effect on the players in question, I disagree with the argument frequently made on PTI and other inferior knockoffs like Around the Horn and Cold Pizza that it's somehow a bad thing that "People pay their money and think that that entitles them to say whatever they want to a player," because actually it does. You are allowed to cheer, heckle, whatever as long as you have a seat and believe that the player or official in question is in earshot (most likely not). To say that it does no good to boo, then it's just as logical to say that it does no good to cheer. Should fans sit on their hands the whole game?.....OK, sit on them more than usual?

After all is said and done, as ineffective as booing may be towards the end of improving a players performance (cough Corey Patterson, Latroy Hawkins, cough), it can send the message to the front office that the team is not performing up to the standards of its customers, and changes need to be made.