Chuck You! And Vacuum That!
What do you do when you’re hitting .168 and you’re tired of hearing your own fans boo you when you’ve struck out again? According to lip-readers, San Diego Padres infielder Ian Kinsler’s answer is scream at them to go do unmentionables to themselves after you’ve just hit a home run to win the game.
Although the sentiment is justified in virtually every office setting, strangely, it’s frowned upon by the uptight folks who attend baseball games. I suppose it does have the possibility of offending perhaps one or two people out of several thousand who paid money to come see you play a game. We have a word for those people:
Puritans.
The social media outrage over Kinsler’s childlike expressions of joy is totally overblown and based on what? A few thousand amateur lip-readers on Twitbook?
I for one, (I can’t be the only one can I?) am not convinced he actually said what he’s accused of. After dozens of seconds of painstaking analysis I thought I would offer up possibilities as to what Kinsler might have said.
You know, it’s entirely possible (likely even!) that Kinsler is a responsible father and he was looking into a camera that he knew would be seen by his children at home so that he can remind them to do their chores, “Vacuum the hall!!!”
I’ll bet their house is very clean.
Or perhaps a pal was in the stands and Kinsler had been good enough to leave tickets for him, “Chuck!!! Will Call!!!”
All kidding aside, we’ve all had our bad days —or seasons in Kinsler’s case— and we’ve all had a moment where we have triumphed in spite of those factors that have frustrated us. In Kinsler‘s case it’s a horrific start to a season that is not typical of someone with a .270 career batting average, 20 homers a year and an occasional Gold Glove.
But there’s no reason to tell anyone to clean house or pick up tickets. And if he really did say what we all think he said, which seems apparent since he apologized for it yesterday, he shouldn’t be surprised if boozy fans continue to try to get a rise out of him.
So cover the kids’ ears next time the Padres come to town. There’s going to be a lot of chucking and vacuuming going on.