Hey, YOU SUCK!

In the last decade or so, fans of every sport in almost every country have come to use the screaming phrase, "You Suck!" as their battle cry towards their favorite teams rivals and opponents. In American sports, especially, fans in stadiums around the country have now gone past just yelling this intelligent put down, they have gotten more specific. "Jeter Sucks!" "Manny Sucks!" Favre Sucks!" Cincinnati Sucks!" and “Other Fans Suck!” These negative and obnoxious chants have made the people who blurt them out look and sound like morons. How much knowledge of a sport does someone have to have, to come up with the term, "BLANK Sucks!”? None. Any fan can attend a sporting event and randomly pick a player, choose one of the cities the two teams are from or just pick another fan and scream that he or she thinks they "Suck". The problem with that is usually what happens next. The evocations of others to either join in or disagree. This then creates the always-popular chaotic mob effect. One person screams, another one screams back and a chain reaction occurs and all the fans soon begin taking sides, turning the stands into an angry sea of drunken looters. While I was at a New York Mets game, sitting in the upper deck, I noticed in front of us, that a fan had told more then one person or player that they "Sucked". This fan was gradually getting intoxicated and he felt that everyone and everything around him "Sucked" and he let us all know very loudly. At first, I kind of laughed it off with my friend, with both of us agreeing that there is no place like New York. But then, as the game went on and this fan inhaled more and more beers, it started to get annoying. A person in a white hat would walk by and the fan would yell, "White hats suck!” Then a woman with a Polo shirt on would walk by and the fan would of course yell, "Polo shirts suck!" No one was safe around our upper deck section and neither were our attention spans. My friend and I began to lose focus on the game and could only hear what this creative individual was spewing. We both looked at each other and knew that if we reprimanded this guy, we too would "SUCK!" and since the stadium was sold out, we had nowhere else to move to. Everyone likes to get a "You suck!" chant in there somewhere during a game, but this fan in particular over stepped his boundaries and ruined the fun. The most interesting thing about this fan was that he was a Yankees fan, who wasn't there to cheer on the Mets, the Braves or anything concerning the games. He was just there to get drunk and yell, "You suck" to everything. The chants finally came to an end when this fan told the wrong woman that "She sucked" and ended up meeting her husband, who didn't agree. Security then escorted all three of them out of the stadium, with the innocent bystanders whom the fan thought "Sucked", missing out on a great ninth inning comeback from the Mets. How much did this fan accomplish when he declared that all things "SUCKED"?? Did he make a statement as a smart sports enthusiast?
When a referee or official like, Ed Hochuli, blows a huge call during a crucial time in a game, a fan has every right to tell him from the seats that “He Sucks!” When a player like, Sage Rosenfels, tries to hurdle two linemen instead of just laying down on the football to get his team a win, he too must be told, “He sucks!” There are so many rules and plays in sports, giving fans numerous choices to yell about. Telling another fan that they "Suck" because they have on a yellow windbreaker is not one of them. Sports have always been and always will be something for fans and non-athletes to argue, scream, fight and agree on. Sporting events are not outlets for people to insult others just for the heck of it. I have been to too many games where I am embarrassed by the way other humans act and sound. When someone clearly has no clue what they are talking about and just compensates for it by screaming profanities and “You Suck!” at random things, it takes away from the enjoyment of sports. Americans are prone to following the mob; this is ever so present at sporting events. But the mob can’t be led into the fire by someone with no regard for the aspects of intelligent heckling.