Washington Nationals broadcaster Rob Dibble saw something at Wednesday’s Nats-Marlins matchup that must have stunned him. Two women were sitting in the stands, in the best seats in the house, at a baseball game. Imagine that!
Here’s what Dibble first said about the women (transcript courtesy of Dan Steinberg’s DC Sports Bog):
“Those ladies right behind there, they haven’t stopped talking the whole game,” Rob Dibble said in the sixth inning of Wednesday night’s Nats broadcast. “They have some conversation going on. Right here,” he said, circling the offenders. “There must be a sale tomorrow going on here or something….Their husbands are going man, don’t bring your wife next time.”
Funny thing is that Dibble, who was so sure that the women must have been talking about shopping, went on and on about these female fans so much, instead of talking about the game itself. As Dan Steinberg noted, Dibble brought them up again and again, noting that — OMG — they were “eating ice cream and talking at the same time.” Right, unlike ballplayers, who chew gum or sunflower seeds, and, um, talk at the same time.
Finally, fellow broadcaster Bob Carpenter said something to Dibble about the potential offensiveness of his yakking about the female fans:
“I just got an e-mail that said there’s a lot of women who come to the games — while their husbands are the ones at home — because they love this game,” Carpenter noted, briefly touching base with the 21st century. “Tread carefully, Mr. Dibble.”
“My wife loves to come to the game, but they’re right there, still talking,” Dibble countered.
“Well, better there than the two seats behind you on an airplane on a five-hour flight,” Carpenter said.
“Yeah, that’s true,” Dibble agreed.
I’d rather sit in front of these women on a plane than hear those two yak about nothing, but that’s me.
Of course, Dibble didn’t get the hint from his cohort about his comments being over the top. He finally settled on a theory as to why these women were in the ballpark, telling Carpenter in the eighth inning:
“I was just thinking, those women, there’s a new series Real Housewives of D.C. that just came out, he said. “Maybe they’re filming an episode?”
Or maybe they’re filming an episode of “The Real Moronic Ex-Pitchers of the National League,” and Dibble was just trying to come up with something memorable for his spot in the series.
Look, I don’t know what these women were talking about, but neither does Dibble.
I also know that there have been a lot of fans acting badly at ballgames this year, doing a lot worse things than being caught on camera talking. Like the Phillies fan throwing up on a kid, the Orioles fan who ran around the field disrupting the game, the Red Sox fan who got ejected for interfering with a play, and the Astros fan who ran away from a foul ball instead of protecting a date. And they have something in common — they’re all male.
But their gender should matter as much as the gender of the fans behind home plate talking to each other and eating some ice cream. And in the Nats’ fans case, the women didn’t set out to make spectacles of themselves. No, that job went to Dibble.
Lisa Swan
Lisa Swan, a lifelong Yankee fan, grew up in Passaic, N.J., where her favorite player was the talented but insecure Reggie Jackson. Today she lives on Staten Island, where her favorite player is the talented but insecure Alex Rodriguez. A former senior new media editor for ...
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Tracey says:
For another edition of male fans behaving badly: a 24 year-old drunken fan FELL ONTO MY HEAD from two rows up at Coors Field at the bottom of that now-famous 8th inning during which the Rockies scored 15 runs against the Cubs. Ask me how my concussion is going.
I have been a lifelong baseball fan, and I know the difference between OBP and batting average, but I'm not sure I'm heading back to the ballpark anytime soon.
Stephen O says:
Firstly I wanted to thank you for the wonderfully written article on Rob Dibble and his crazy antics during a very exciting Nationals vs. Marlins exhibition baseball game.
I have yet to deem what is more infatuating, the fact that these women were able to find such great seats with a sell-out crowd of 15,031, or the fact you are listening to the world class MASN announcers instead of watching the current league leading Nationals fielding squad.
I once upon a time wrote my first sports article too. It was about this caterpillar that kept interrupting my viewing of a Philadelphia Eagles football matchup. I was writing it for the sports section of my Middle School paper. I was tasked with writing an article on how Rodney “Pistol” Pete interacted with the rest of the team and the city of Philadelphia during the not so good 90’s. The problem was I did not get to watch much of Pistol Pete because I was distracted by this caterpillar. So for the rest of the night I decided to write about what I knew best and that was caterpillars.
I feel as though this is similar to your article on defending women in sports, would you not agree? I applaud you for pointing out 4 examples of males in sporting environments. I agree there was ZERO chance the Astros fan had of moving out of the way of the ball as she paid close attention to the game, and not receiving updates on the next Calvin Klein sale happening THIS WEEKEND in participating locations (where?!) Personally I thought I wrote a great article and all of the women that worked in the sports section of my newspaper agreed it was well put together. But then I proceeded to receive letters about how much of a loser I am, how irrelevant this article was, and a waste of everyone’s time and I should not be writing anything relating to sports ever again.
After all of these hate mails, I went into my room at night, put on my hammer pants, drank my sunny delight and cried myself to sleep listening to my newly acquired Right Said Fred cassette in my Sony Walkman. It was at that point that I decided to never write a sports article again.
I hope this is not the path you take as you might upset the hundreds of thousands of readers of your Sports Blog one of which is my 8 year old daughter. She really likes your writing, even if at times your articles are a tough read for her and her 2nd grade girlfriends.
It would be a shame if you stopped now and didn’t do your “little turn on the catwalk”.
Lisa Swan says:
Tracey, what a nightmare! Sorry to hear about that.
Stephen, I guess you had a point somewhere in that 10,000 word comment of yours, but I just couldn't find it. Bummer.
Stephen O says:
Lisa,
I was unaware of what the word bummer meant, so I looked it up on dictionary.com. I was intrigued to find out that it means "one who habitually begs for a living." Where-as I do not understand the context you are bringing bums in on, I figured maybe this is a segway for you to talk about how bums dont get the respect they deserve when passing by and writing an article on it.
I think bums are a lot smarter than people give them credit for. Why work when you can live in the publics image for free, get a free suntan, fresh air, and change if you wear ragid clothing. They also have the street smarts to live through each night which many take advantage of.
I once had to live outside in a tent with my wife and two kids, and eat beans out of a can that we bought at the local wal-mart. Also at night, we had a run in with our neighbors house cat who decided it was necessary to walk by our tent and hiss, making me believe we had a mountain lion on our hands. That very much scared me and I would have weilded my Samarui sword on the creature had I not remembered that in our Arlington, VA gated-community neighborhood, mountain lions were far less likely than polar bears. So in order to please the polar bear and save my family from immenent death, I placed a coke outside the tent and surely enough it was gone the next morning.
Which also reminds me that in the recent couple of decades, woman have been doing a lot worse things than writing articles on sports. These include driving (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4202199.stm), politics (sarah palin), and just thinking in general.
Tyrell says:
i think the real issue is these women were at the game while their husbands were at home w/ the kids. how is that allowed?
Jay Sutel says:
"I have been a lifelong baseball fan, and I know the difference between OBP and batting average"
I know the difference between an Alto and a Soprano, can I be an opera singer now?
Lisa Swan says:
Jay, I don't remember Tracey saying that she was capable of being a baseball player (the equivalent of an opera singer in your analogy), just a baseball fan.
patrick says:
That's why we love Vin Scully so much. And Tommy Lasagne.