I don’t wave.
Don’t get me wrong. If you go past me while I’m on my bike, or running, or walking and raise your hand to me in friendliness, you will definitely get that in return. Heck, you’re apt to get that before you even wave to me.
When I say I don’t wave, what I mean is, I refuse to participate in that stadium gimmick known as The Wave.
OK, the first time I saw it maybe 30 years ago, it was sort of clever. When fans rise up and then return to their seats in that falling-domino fashion, it really does resemble a wave as defined by my Rex Putnam High School physics teacher, Dave Cox: “A disturbance propagating through a medium.”
Mr. Cox, incidentally, grew up Albany and in retirement lives about a mile from the DH; I know he’d be proud of me for remembering that definition lo these many years hence.
And the “disturbance” part of that description is particularly apt for the sports arena Wave because the whole thing is just generally sort of disturbing, as in mildly obnoxious. It’s a type of comfority/mob mentality — a gentle one, I realize, but a type nonetheless — that I just want no part of.
When I’m in the stands at a sporting event, I’m there to watch the game, shoot the breeze with whomever has accompanied me, loudly cheer good plays by my team, applaud those by the other team as well, disagree with the officials when necessary and generally enjoy myself in a spontaneous manner.
I will, however, gladly take part in organized cheers such as “O-S-U, fight B-E-A-V-E-R-S.” That seems perfectly natural to me. But The Wave isn’t a cheer, it’s just a goofy pastime whose novelty long ago wore off.
What got me thinking of The Wave, btw, was a clip I saw the other day on the MLB Network. The network is a treasure trove of baseball-related footage and commentary that’s fantastic as long as you avoid any program — and there seem to be many — that feature former Boston Red Sox utilityman Kevin Millar, who is most definitely a disturbance unto himself.
Completely unrelated to either The Wave or Millar was a recent show hosted by Bob Costas that looked back at the 1965 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Minnesota Twins. The seven-game series was notable for many reasons, including the fact that LA ace Sandy Koufax opted not to pitch the opener because it fell on Yom Kippur.
Starting in his place was Don Drysdale, also a future Hall of Fame, but the Twins pounded him. His sense of humor remained intact, however.
When manager Walter Alston arrived at the mound to replace the roughed-up right-hander in a game LA would go on to lose, Drysdale told his skipper, “I bet you wish I was Jewish.”
But alas, there was atonement in the end. Drysdale won game 4 with an 11-strikeout five-hitter, and Koufax took the deciding game with a three-hit shutout.
