Guest Post – Heckling the Twins

This is a Puckett’s Pond guest post from Clave Jones.  Clave writes for Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks (his most recent article is about how to obtain Clayton Kershaw for $3) and has a special place in his hear for Major Payne, the Minnesota Twins, and Heckling.

Enjoy.

How to Heckle the Minnesota Twins in 2012

by Clave Jones (@clavejones)

For the Minnesota Twins to have another 99 loss season in 2012 is unacceptable. Fortunately, I have an excellent way for us Twins fans to make a real difference and motivate our team to victory.

Ever since I saw Major Payne coax the chubby kid to do more sit-ups by counting off “one tubby tubby…two tubby tubby”, I realized the inspirational power of tough love.

Well, the 2012 Minnesota Twins need a little tough love. I’m going to tell you how you can heckle the Twins. Physically going to the ballpark and yelling a few choice suggestions is an excellent option to consider to give your team the best odds of winning.

First, a few words on proper heckling technique:

1. The megaphone. If you can smuggle an actual megaphone into the ballpark by stuffing it into your pants, then great. If not, cup your hands around your mouth, point your head toward your intended target, then let ‘er rip!
2. Your timing is critical. The on deck circle is an excellent place for a well-timed heckle. Also, if you can hold off until your intended player is about to catch a fly ball or is batting in a critical situation, then do so. You well-timed heckle may sound harsh, but it’s this public embarrassment that will cause them to hit rock bottom and work harder.
3. Beer. It helps.
4. Repeat. If the player didn’t hear you, then repeat your heckle until it is acknowledged with a grin, shake of the head, or a bat thrown in your direction.
5. Be prepared to exit quickly. Surrounding fans may be irritated by you, but ignore them. You bought a ticket too! Worse though is that they won’t understand that you are ultimately doing this for your favorite player’s own good. Major League players can be big sissies. It builds character for them to get a good, honest verbal feedback. Just be prepared to run out of the stadium, potentially before the ninth inning is over.

Now that that is out of the way, let’s get to business. I’m going to share some suggested heckles with you, but be prepared to go off script. Heckling is something you have to feel in the moment.

Joe Mauer. “Hey Joe, you shave your legs this morning?” Sure, this is a nonsensical reference to last season’s bilateral leg weakness that caused him to stink it up, but at least it’s punchy.

If you use this heckle the surrounding fans will think one of three things about you:

1. You are weird.
2. You are drunk.
3. Or you are the most interesting person in the stadium.

Either way you have an audience for the next heckle, so I suggest you lead with this one. It’s the second heckle where you bring the stadium down, so make it a good one.

One option would have been Tsuyoshi Nishioka, but he unfortunately was sent down. Yelling “you suck” always plays, but with a simple pocket translator you could’ve said “you suck” in Japanese. That’s a money heckle.

It is also unfortunate that Joe Benson was sent down as a great heckle would’ve been “Hey, Joe Benson, what’s up with your hair?!?”

Actually, there isn’t much you can say about that hair. It’s beautiful. Jamey Carroll, on the other hand, clearly gets his hair cut at Great Clips. Use that against him, but be careful that it doesn’t get creepy.

What? Too late? OK, moving on.

Yelling anything nutty and preposterous at Justin Morneau could potentially trick him into thinking his concussion symptoms have returned, but I think we all really want that guy to get his swing back.

Ben Revere is actually too easy to heckle: “Hey Revere, it’s sweet that your mommy lets you stay up for night games!”, “Hey Little Buddy, you want me to tee that ball up for you?!”, or “Revere, where did you get that arm?! You borrow it from your niece?!” Those are all so obvious that it’s not even fun.

The point is that you can work your heckle magic player to player, spurring your Twins to victory!

Wait….

I can’t do this.

I’m a Twins fan and Minnesota Nice won’t even allow me to talk to other person this way, particularly in public.

Let’s switch gears! There is reason for optimism for the Minnesota Twins in 2012. Of course, I don’t know what those reasons are, but we’ll find them together!

Also, it sadly took 700 words for it to occur to me that we can just heckle the

other team. No reason for tough love from us. We’ll shower the Twins with love and encouragement.  It’s easy enough to make that Danny Valencia crack under your breath, and use your megaphone voice for something else.

All together now, “LET’S-GO-TWI-INS!”

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