Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins called an air strike in on his own foxhole complaining about Phillies fans booing players. While the mighty-mouth All Star takes aim at fans Rollins apparently forgets it's Phillies owners and management who failed to build one single pitching staff in the past eight-years capable of achieving his off-stated goal of winning a championship. When fans boo-Jimmy listens. Rollins isn't the first player to get his panties wadded by fans booing let's take a walk through that field of dreams I like to call, If Loving You is Wrong I Don't Want to be Right...

On May 15, 1912--Peaches Ain't Always Sweet
The Detroit Tigers face the hometown New York Highlanders. Behind home plate, Highlanders fan Claude Lueker gives Detroit's Ty Cobb the business and then some. Lueker rides Cobb like a hobby horse every time the Peach bats.

Cobb warns the Highlanders and umpires if Luecker isn't ejected there's going to be hell to pay. When Luecker calls Cobb a "half-(racial epithet used primarily in rap songs)," Cobb takes to the stands and starts viciously beating Luecker. Fans beg Cobb to stop because Lueker has no hands. Cobb without missing a beat, punch or kick replies, "I don't care if he's got no feet!"

May 12, 1991--The Splinter Relents
Ted Williams Appreciation Day at Fenway Park, Ted Williams pulls a Red Sox cap from his jacket and tips it to the crowd--the only time he does so in his illustrious career. Williams considers Red Sox fans no better than wolves.

May 17, 1950, after being booed for fielding mistakes Teddy flips Fenway fans the bird three-times. August 7, 1956, after being booed for dropping an easy fly ball Williams spits at Fenway fans and is fined five-thousand dollars. He tells the Boston Herald he has no regrets, "I'd spit again at those booing ####s." Teddy was just warming up. July 23, 1958, after Kansas City fans booed him for not legging out a ground out Williams spits at the fans and earns a $250 dollar fine. Sept. 21, 1958, Upset after popping out, Williams hurls his bat in anger and hits a woman in the head sitting behind Boston's dugout. The hit doesn't count because it isn't an official at-bat. Williams pays a $50 fine.

In a pre-game speech before the final game of his career, Williams says, "I must say my stay in Boston has been the most wonderful thing in my life. If I were ever asked what I would do if I had to start my baseball career over again, I'd say I would want to play in Boston for the greatest owner in the game and the greatest fans in America." A fitting bookend to the quote Williams began his Red Sox career with, Aug. 14, 1940, Williams opines in a Boston newspaper, "I don't like this town. I don't like the people. I want to get out of town, and I'm praying that they trade me." The truth falls somewhere in between.

May 11, 2007--Junior goes XXL
The Reds face the Dodgers in LA and Dodger fan Matt Schafer starts heckling Ken Griffey Jr. "You suck ... shouldn't you be on the D.L.?... too old for center,...etc." But Junior takes it in stride.

"He was just on me every time I came in...Him being a little larger than normal, I just asked, 'Shouldn't you be wearing a support bra?'" In the sixth inning Griffey sends someone to find the largest brand new jockstrap in the clubhouse. They write the number "3" and "JR" on it, brown paper bag it and Griffey throws the bag to Schafer when he runs back onto the field.

Schafer dumbstruck by the response twirls the jockstrap in the air and the entire section breaks out in laughter--winning Griffey a new fan, Matt Schafer. When Griffey returns to the dugout Schafer apologizes for the things he said.

Bottom of the Ninth
So Jimmy ain't the first and won't be the last athlete booed. Fans are what they are down through the ages. How you handle it is a whole 'nother issue...I'm sure all of you have special memories of your favorite ballplayer showing fan love so feel free to drop a dime on them below...special thanks to Ty Cobb for his quick wit.

Whoever said life imitates sport was right on the money but what if real life held some of the answers for sports? A nonsensical notion at best but what if sports started paying attention to the unimportant world around it? Maybe it would look something like this...
                          
$20 million 'virtual' border fence scrapped
The US Government is pitchforking $860 million taxpayer dollars into this boondoggle that makes the newly clothed emperor look naked yet smart.
                       
It's not a fence but a bunch of iPhones stapled to poles that pinpoint illegal aliens crossing our border and then take a pretty picture. While an "actual" fence is centuries-old proven technology costing 10% of the "virtual" fence, virtuality leapfrogs the whole fuddy-duddy fence as a physical barrier concept and replaces it with cutting edge stupidity. "Oops" the first $20 million dollars just got flushed down the drain...
                         
Sort of reminds you of the Detroit Tigers doesn't it? They built the best "virtual" baseball team in the off season for $130 million dollars and right now the 8-year, $152.3 million dollars they dumped down the Miguel Cabrera drain is looking all systems go. Swatting a very ordinary, .263 with 5 dingaroos, Fatty, as his teammates like to call him, waddled over to play 1st base after a grueling three-week stint at 3rd.
                   
Meanwhile Dontrelle Willis and his $7,000,000 salary are nestled safely on the DL with zero wins, just two-starts, a hyper-extended knee and a 7.20 ERA. Willis has all the fixin's o####iant floparoo of a season. After notching 9 wins out of twenty played the Tigers are tied with the dismal KC Royals who managed to spend a paltry $57 million dollars for the same result. It looked real good on paper.
              
Israeli Airstrike Targeted Syrian Nuclear Reactor
Despite being years away from completion and based on a photograph of a Syrian wearing a I Helped Build a Reactor at Al Kibar & All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt those wacky guys at the Israeli Defense Ministry bombed the snot bubbles out the Syrian site. Their policy of Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry is simple, bomb first and refuse to answer questions later.
                    
That same solution might be perfect for those New York Knicks, after a 2008 season where Isiah Thomas redefined imploding, coughing up millions for his #### lechery to childish squabbling with Stephon Marbury, he topped it all off with, Whoops there go all my real jobs. Winning 56 games over two years and losing 108 as coach Thomas is a certified triple threat, he stinks at being President, GM and Coach. He singlehandedly destroyed basketball as we know it in New York City.
                
Kept on out of spite to wring a nickel's worth of value out of the money paid him, Isiah the Useless was peremptorily bombed by his successor Donnie Walsh the other day with the announcement Thomas is banned from having any contact with members of the team! While he doesn't have an office, desk, phone or chair Thomas can still speak to Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan, but only after saying "Donnie may I?" Walsh strafed the smoking rubble of Isiah Thomas' career in a recent interview saying, "He's answering to me and nobody's reporting to him." I wonder what the question is?
            
Life and sports intertwine in ways so wacky you can't even make it up...

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's ####es after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft... Purported victims claimed sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear...

We finally know why the Patriots lost the Super Bowl to the Giants...

Here at the Fowl Line I try to take a whimsical approach to the right conclusion, I guess I could have talked about RISP's and other such statistical boogery to support my conclusion that the A's and the Tigers are headed for the American League championship series.  I could've gone to a gypsy and paid her $50 to read tea leaves or bury my paycheck with a rooster's egg to tell me the same thing.  I could've just played both series on my Play Station and drawn the same conclusions. 

But I didn't.  Nope I just looked at the names on the A's and then on the Twins and realized the Twins had no shot.  Call it a hunch, intuition, a lucky rabbit's foot, whatever.  The simple fact is it was darn good sports reporting.  The meaty, beefy Dinty Moore kind that sticks to your ribs and makes your dog beg to lick the sharp can lid. 

Same thing with the Yankees.  They had no chance against the dollar store Tigers.  Oh sure the Yankees have the best lineup, the best pitching, best coach, but see I'm from Philadelphia and I know something you don't.  They have Bobby Abreu and he's a jinx, a moosh, he sucks the heart out of any team he's on.  The kind of player sabermites love because they don't actually watch his gutless tiptoeing in right field, or his worthless homeruns he only hits when the team is down by a hundred, nope, if there's one thing you can bet the ranch and dog on, it's Bobby Abreu will never get a WS ring.

So in the future when you need the kind of insightful sports blogging sadly bereft elsewhere on FoxBlogs (except all the blogs I have listed in my favorites and the usual gang who are nice enough to comment on my scribble), look no further than the Fowl Line.  If it's bloggable you'll find it hidden inside the creamy nougat of this blog...

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