Paul Daugherty

pdaugherty@enquirer.com

Woooo this, RedsFan.

What’s it been, three woooo! years? Four? Seems like a million.

Tuesday night, it reached a new low. On FS1, against the visiting New York Yankees, two first-place clubs, each playing good and exciting baseball and all we could hear half the time was half-wits wooing. Where do these people come from? Work release?

It was bad enough that only 22,000 folks could make it Tuesday night and by the sound of it, half were Yankees fans. The other half, presumably Reds fans, spent the latter innings sounding like a cross between a coyote and a guy slamming his thumb with a hammer. Tuesday’s woooos were especially bad, detouring from the annoying everyday woooos to a feral howl.

We look ridiculous, Baseball Town.

The Reds say they get the occasional complaint. I get more than that. Here’s a typical rant, from a fed-up fan, received Wednesday afternoon:

Doc,

I agree completely that the howling is an embarrassment. It got so bad last year that my wife and I decided to stop attending weeknight games because listening to those idiots is like fingers on a chalkboard. In fact we have no intention of going to games this year and the howling is one of the main reasons. When watching on TV I simply change the channel when the howling starts.

Ric Flair, the fake wrestler, was apparently the first to incorporate Woooos into his act. He could have invented typhoid fever and been kinder to humanity. Some (dis)credit Pittsburgh fans for starting the Woooos. So we’re imitating Pittsburgh now? Great.

It used to be, Woooo flourished in the late innings of blowout mid-week games, when Pretty Good American Ball Park was as empty as a fraternity keg at midnight. Woooos stumbled around the ballpark caverns like a drunk seeking a stool. It was unfortunate. But not devastatingly annoying. Like now. Now, Woooo comes early and stays late, further evidence our national IQ is taking a beating.

Yankees fans Tuesday night actually chanted for their team. You could hear it on TV or radio, when the Woooo-ers weren’t woooo-ing. Fans here in Baseball Town had little time for that. Their team doesn’t woo (impress) them. They just wanna sound stupid.

Who are they? Did they get picked last for dodge ball? Did they forget to take the Antabuse before they came to the game? Do they even know where they are?

Hey, there’s no birthday party here for me. . .

I’d rather take a fastball to the tympanum than hear one more Woooo. I’d rather go to the Sabermetricians Ball with Goose Gossage or talk hitting with Bartolo Colon. Mark Mallory, tell me about first pitches.

Baseball can be aggravating enough sans Woooos. Ten throws to first, four pitching changes in a half-inning, $9 domestics, obnoxious KissCams and the kid in the middle of the aisle who has to go to the bathroom eight times.

It’s not football, it’s not basketball. It’s not even soccer. There are moments to go nuts, yes. They are separated by long stretches of watchful quietude. This is a good and decent thing. Baseball fans are not mouth-foaming lunatics, getting oiled three hours before the game.

You wanna Woooo at a Bengals game? Have at it. No one will notice.

Wooooing is worse than the entitled little darlings who storm a basketball floor after a big win. At least those people are annoying just once. It’s worse than people in the row above you who spend an entire Bengals game swearing, knowing your 5-year-old is right below them. At least they’re vocalizing your frustration.

It’s worse than just about anything. And it needs to stop.

The Reds train their ushers in the ways of courtesy and pleasantness. They should also train them to identify Wooooers and warn them once to take a damned pill. Second woooo, banish them the rest of the game. Sentence them to doing something terrible, such as acting civil.

The pleasure of the many should not be sacrificed to the dumbfoolery of the few.

Sit down, shut up, watch the game.

Woooo that, people.