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Pastimes : G&K Investing for Curmudgeons -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Buckley who wrote (21256)	4/27/2003 10:53:18 AM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22706

Michael, there's finally a use for cell phones that might appeal to you. Posted on Sun, Apr. 27, 2003 And here's the pitch: It's a cell phone from the cheap seats By Mike Cassidy Mercury News Ah, the freshly mowed infield. The crack of the bat. The thump of a Nokia on the noggin. It's all part of baseball's new poetry. All part of the great Major League Baseball Cell Phone Toss. Yes, fans have found a new way to reach out and touch someone -- namely by clocking players with flying cell phones. I blame Moore's Law. As Gordon Moore's Law dictates, the semiconductors that power our modern lives will grow more powerful and cheaper as time goes on. Cheaper chips. Cheaper phones. Silicon Valley's first commandment now means that cell phones are so inexpensive that some fans don't think twice (or at all) about launching them onto the baseball diamond as a signal of discontent. The latest phone chucking came at Wrigley Field, where drunken Cubs fans have grown tired of tossing home run balls back onto the field. In the eighth inning Thursday, some imbecile winged a cell phone instead and hit San Diego Padre Sean Burroughs in the foot. And no, that is not what Burroughs gets for playing home games at a stadium named Qualcomm. This wireless wigginess broke onto the scene eight days ago at Oakland's Network Associates Coliseum when some clown tossed his phone at Texas Ranger Carl Everett. The phone hit Everett in the head. ``Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack. I'll toss my phone and the spare power pack.'' OK, right here I've got to say that throwing things at ballplayers is despicable. It's rude, dangerous, criminal and a sign of sheer stupidity. (No truth to the rumor that during a grandstand brawl earlier in the Cubs' game the fan who threw the phone was heard to yell: ``Dude! What's that 9-1-1 number again!!?'') This trend does say something new about fans' inhumanity to man. Yes, drunken slobs (and I'm talking about the fans here) have always done idiotic things at baseball games. Earlier this year, a White Sox fan bolted from the stands at U.S. Cellular Field across town in Chicago and tried to tackle an umpire. (U.S. Cellular Field? That's asking for trouble.) And throwing things -- beer bottles, batteries, LP records (see Disco Demolition Night, Comiskey Park, 1979) -- has always been high on the list of pursuits for the drunk and disorderly. But technology marches on. And now the missile of choice is the cell phone. Light, aerodynamic, cheap. (``Buy one. Get one free.'') And who can figure out the calling plans, anyway? So unruly baseball fans have given us one more reason to hate cell phones. But really. Assault with a cell phone? Crime Stoppers Notebook: It's your phone, idiot. With your phone number. No, these phones aren't showering down from the Mensa group ticket section. The guy they arrested at Wrigley was at least bright enough to get a story together. It wasn't his phone. It was his buddy's. And he was only throwing it because the phone was driving him nuts. (I'm guessing it rings to the tune ``Pop Goes the Weasel.'') He's pleading cell phone insanity. I'm not buying it. Still, get him in front of a jury and he might have a shot.