Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images
A complilation of heckling stories that have arisen in baseball since the start of the year.
...We’re gonna cheer and boo and raise a hullabaloo at the ballgame today!
I am unabashedly, unapologetically pro-heckle, be it the opposing team, be it the
Dodgers. Don’t cross me; I am here to have fun at the ballpark, and
I have been known to leave barbs that leave permanent psychic damage.
I have
famously booed and heckled Kenley Jansen, who responded by not giving up another hit in my presence for the rest of the 2021 season.
I should clarify that when I am forced to heckle the Dodgers, I bring a certain manic unhinged irony to the proceedings (the actual boo is at 1:36).
If I am forced to have ironic fun, things get weird, but baseball is supposed to be fun.
My shenanigans are cheeky and fun. But you know what my shenanigans never are — cruel and tragic,
which are not shenanigans at all, really.
When the mood strikes me, I bring Adric to pose and essentially make
live-action The New Yorker comics that may or may not involve Dodger personalities and may or may not involve food recommendations.
Please allow me to introduce myself~~~ I am a man of (some) wealth and taste~~~
—
Michael Elizondo (@elidelajandro.bsky.social) 2025-06-01T00:34:18.910Z
For that fact alone, the fact that I have to write this essay breaks my heart. But before we get to Max Muncy, who quietly did the right thing earlier this year, we must contrast a few stories that likely slipped below the collective radar.
Old friend snaps in Comerica Park
In mid-June, old friend Dennis Santana had an incident with a fan at Comerica Park in Detroit. It’s pretty ugly, and the league fined and suspended him, which is currently under appeal.
Coincidentally, I was sitting in these seats in 2024
when the Dodgers imploded against the
Detroit Tigers right before the All-Star Break.
Poor Ricky Vanasco got heckled and imploded with the rest of the bullpen on that balmy Saturday afternoon. Granted, Vanasco’s hecklers did not have the presence of mind to film themselves being jackasses.
But things were even worse at Rate Field on the south side of Chicago in late June.
Don’t go there
People seem to be getting meaner at the ballpark.
Initially, this essay was prompted by news that someone told
Boston Red Sox Jarren Duran to kill himself during a game. This fact is odious enough until one remembers he publicly talked about his issues with mental health and suicidal ideation in a Netflix documentary.
This essay kicked into high gear with what happened to Ketel Marte.
No one can know what losing a parent is like before it happens, as the pain is generally universal and can only be understood once it is felt. On June 25, the
Arizona Diamondbacks played the
Chicago White Sox at Rate Field. Typically, this matchup would not merit much notice except from the participants.
During the seventh inning, while Marte was up to bat,
something resembling but not being a human being in a
Chicago Bears jersey started to heckle Marte about his dead mother, who passed away in a car crash in 2017 while Marte was in Chicago playing against the
Chicago Cubs.
This person was roundly condemned, ejected from the stadium, and is now indefinitely banned from all 30 MLB ballparks. To their credit, the South Side disowned this person and rallied around Marte.
Grief is a funny, terrible thing. You can be puttering along and then — bam. Fans in Chicago and Phoenix have embraced Marte, and this story will work itself out. Rich Eisen covered the story, along with some video of Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo just being a decent human being.
Eisen summed up the situation succinctly: yes, you can boo and heckle as a paying customer when you go to the ballpark.
At some point, what you say and do says way more about you than it does the person you are heckling. Some have lost the capacity for shame, especially when the verbal jousting leaves the ballpark, which finally brings us to Max Muncy.
Muncy was the better man in Chicago.
In late April, after the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs finished the last of their season series at Wrigley Field, Max Muncy got on the team bus to head back to Los Angeles. One of the things that stands out at Wrigley is
how close the team bus pick-up spot is to the regular entrances to the ballpark.
An unidentified man decided to beclown himself by swearing and using racial slurs towards Muncy. We present
the video below unedited, as there is so much swearing removed from edited versions, one would be forgiven for thinking the microphone was on the fritz.
To his credit, Muncy looked equal parts annoyed and confused, but he stayed on the bus and did not escalate the situation. About a month later, Muncy spoke about the incident to the Foul Territory podcast and explained what prompted his annoyance: swearing in front of kids.
Max Muncy isn't a fan of people cursing around kids when they're heckling a player.
"As players and athletes, we're trying to set models for kids."
pic.twitter.com/5sNuHlUHE0
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV)
May 26, 2025
The host’s exhortations aside for Muncy to have done something that night, Muncy was the bigger man during that incident and should be commended.
At this point, why people are getting meaner at the ballpark is an open question.
It would be easy, if not partly accurate, to blame the proliferation of gambling on baseball. For some, it is harder to tolerate a 0-for-5 night with three strikeouts, if one was dumb or desperate enough to put money on a game.
To end this essay on a positive note, let's turn our attention to a professional heckler whom I have encountered on numerous occasions.
Trevor Gilmore, professional heckler
Trevor Gilmore, aka
@trevschirps, is a professional heckler. He happens to be an avid
San Francisco Giants fan — I know, no one is perfect. While he may not be everyone’s cup of tea, his unique brand of insults and praise makes me chuckle and is a balm to this series of stories.
I would do the same thing in my younger, rowdier days. However, age and traveling alone have mellowed my temper.
Gilmore has been doing his bit long enough that his career path has paralleled mine. I am still waiting on my WGN interview, but there is no accounting for taste.
I ran into him by accident
during my final road visit of 2023 outside Oracle Park. Oddly enough, I have a bit of a
Sam Sheepdog / Ralph Wolf rapport with him, where we patter about the Dodgers and Giants.
He has been quiet on that front lately. I did promise that if the Giants were in contention in June, I would actually learn some of their names apart from “hey you” and “will run a Home Depot when his playing career is done.” To be fair, he has been crisis-crossing the country as a professional heckler who is a Giants fan rather than a professional Giants fan who heckles.
While I have my issues with the San Francisco Giants, the city of San Francisco (no Lego store except the one at the airport — really?), I will sass anyone who sasses me at the ballpark and said sass ends when the game is over. But there is an art to the heckle, which I fear may be lost due to rancor if we are not careful.
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