Dear dimwit on the phone

Softball chants are the best. Haven't heard "We love free bases" yet, but that dad really needed to hear what the hell he was saying. And the fact he shouted it twice made it even worse.

 

I love how every single softball team has the same chants, too. Like there's a Big Book 'O Chants somewhere that they all buy and study up on. Or one of those "Freedom Rock" type albums that they buy that's full of softball chants, and they listen and practice on road trips.

 

Posted with regrets, since there's at least one like that Spartan Squad alluded to. But in the interest of the healthy discussion of the topic:

SoftballSongs.com :: Offense

 

What in the actual fuck?

 

Watch the pitcher. Watch, watch the pitcher.
Is she high? Is she low? Is she fast? Is she slow?
Is she purple? Is she green? Can she dance like Steve Urkel?
Go, Steve Urkel! Go, go, Steve Urkel!

 

That's supposed to be "I see a gap and (batter's name) is going shopping!"
Heard that one too many times to count. It's clever the first four or five times. Not so much the 200th time.

A few years back I did a quickie feature story trying to unearth the origins of these chants. I think the general consensus was that it's sort of like dirty jokes or curse words -- no one really knows where they come from, they just hear these things at tournaments or wherever and pick them up to use as their own.

 

That makes more sense.

It seems like these chants are ways to keep younger players engaged and paying attention to the game. Saw a youth baseball coach constantly reminding the kids to do the Harlem Shake when they started talking about Pokemon or what ever little kids talk about these days.

 

Softball chants are the worst, especially when a team is down 10 runs or so.

 

Rain wasn't in the forecast. Turns out several players were sick with whooping cough so they didn't have enough to field a team. While I do check on weather reports, I don't do health checkups.

 

Been toying with doing the same feature. Could you pm me a link, if one exists?

 

I feel bad for the "Why don't you run all the baseball box scores" callers.

 

My thought the first time I heard this chant at a juco game here this year: "At least they've finally graduated from Natty Light."