Pete Crow-Armstrong Should Be Allowed To Yell at Fans

Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong got into a bit of hot water this weekend after an NSFW altercation with a fan in the White Sox outfield.

Crow-Armstrong was unable to make a tremendous play at the wall and crashed pretty hard after missing the ball. A young lady decided to chirp him, and he took it up another level by cussing her out. In the real world, if I saw that same altercation, I obviously wouldn’t be siding with PCA; however, a pro sporting event isn’t the same as walking down the street.

Fans have gotten far too comfortable with how they talk to pro athletes. In the social media era, too many people believe that buying a ticket gives them the right to say anything they want to players. This scenario isn’t an egregious act by a fan; she just told PCA that he sucks, a basic chirp at worst.

Nevertheless, it’s more about the premise of fans yelling profanities at athletes. I think it rocks when an athlete gives it right back to a fan. These sports leagues try to portray athletes as larger-than-life celebrities, but at the end of the day, they are still regular people to an extent.

Two things can happen if players start retaliating towards heckling.

One, drunk fans are only going to get worse as they look for their five minutes of fame. Once they know a player might lose their cool, they will have a target on their back and become the center of attention for the worst people in attendance.

In a more positive outlook, maybe fans will realize how childish they look when they embarrass themselves yelling at athletes. If that happens, it could curb drunk idiots yelling at a game, but that’s probably unlikely. What it could do is better highlight these morons, so they receive repercussions from their respective leagues and aren’t able to attend more games.

It has easily reached a boiling point of how much more criticism the athletes can take on a nightly basis. A few drunk idiots are one thing, but social media only makes things 100 times worse for players. I would love for athletes to air out the bad apples so these guys aren’t dealing with the vitriol spewed at them every day. 

These are millionaires paid to play a sport, so I understand that they can still be criticized, but too much tends to cross the line, and something has to stop it.