The Wave - What's to be Done?

It made sense for a sport where there is some kind of long break in the action and people had nothing to do but sit around and wait -- but when does that happen any more anywhere in professional sports?  If there isn't some kind of half-time show, Dot Racing, or the equivalent distraction going on, everyone has rushed out to the concession stands and the toilets.

But how to stop it? I believe the Saint Paul Saints once had signs in the stadium declaring it to be a Wave Free Zone.  I'm just about to go home for a couple of weeks, so will check it out and perhaps ANers could make similar signs.

On the other hand, I would hate to give the infrequent baseball fans and teenagers (who seem to be the most likely to do the Wave) the idea that the Coliseum is Grace Cathedral or Davies Symphony Hall, where people are meant to sit in reverential and attentive silence and only make noise at the appropriate moments.

Which brings me to my next point, every wave I've seen seems to go counter-clockwise. Anybody ever seen a wave that went clockwise? Maybe they go that way in the southern hemosphere. :)

I don't have a problem with the wave but I don't like it at crucial junctures in the game, especially when the other team is hitting. But I have kids, and if it's something fun that makes it them want to go to games, I'm all for it.

You can't complain that we don't have high enough attendance on one hand and then complain about activities that make the game more fun for the casual fan on the other. It just goes with the territory.

If you don't like it, don't participate, but there's no way to prevent people from standing up or sitting down.

I remember being at the Big Game 3 years ago, where Cal finally won for the first time in 8 years.  The game was essentially decided at halftime, and so the anticlimactic second half was basically a big party for most of the sellout crowd.  I have to say that, in a bowl-like stadium such as Memorial Stadium, the wave looked pretty cool, and was a nice way to celebrate.

That's the beauty of the Wave--in an arena packed with people, it's a human phenomenon that rises out of any one human's control ... it becomes as inevitable and unstoppable as waves in the ocean.  It is its own weather system, a massive crowd's spontaneous need to appreciate its own force.  

Absent the Wave, a routine game crowd will never have any occasion to appreciate its own mass.  As a fan I am consicous only of individuals within my own section ... the rest of the stadium is just background.  The Wave provides an opportunity for the crowd to make itself known, for the right-field bleachers to make themselves known to the plaza level infield.  Don't protest the waves; ride them!

You won't see the LF Bleachers Crew doing it... it's just dumb.

Anyhow it really distracts from the game. I've been to a lot of games in Anaheim and they do the wave almost every game down there. Dodgers and Padres fans love it too. I think we should leave the wave, beach balls and monkeys and botox injections to our SoCal friends.