Bleacher Creatures

[stomperspc]

As a matter of full disclosure, I have never been to Yankee Stadium (new or old) and had previously only been aware of the term “bleacher creature” in the context that the term refers to rowdy fans that sit in the bleachers at Yankee Stadium. Before this weekend, I had no idea that they were an actual group nor did I have any idea how obnoxious they really were.

I ended up going to all three games this weekend since I live within walking distance to OPACY and was feeling good as a result of our recent win streak. For all three games, 15 or so of these “bleacher creatures” sat in Section 80 in the lower LF reserve seats. They were decked out in t-shirts promoting themselves as such and listing the section of Yankee Stadium that they sit in. I go to way too many games so I have seen my fair share of obnoxious fans, but I’ve never seen a group quite as despicable as these people. We sat two rows behind them Friday night. Every time we’d cheer for the O’s, we would get the death stare from them and comments made in our general direction. They would stand for no reason at random times. We started yelling at them to sit down, which of course they didn’t like. One of the woman in the group, who had a MAJOR chip on her should it seemed, responded that they could do what they want, which apparently only applied to their group (more on that below). They didn’t even get along with fellow Yankee fans. They got into it with a group of Yankee fans on Friday night and became absolutely LIVID when a group sitting on the 3B line on Sunday night at the “audacity” to do the lineup chant. Apparently, only official bleacher creatures can do that.

The worst part was on Sunday night when they got really angry at a group of college-aged O’s fans. These guys were just cheering and having a good time, nothing vulgar and nothing directed towards other fans. One of the guys was wearing a “Yankees Suck!” t-shirt, which was the only thing that could somehow be construed as less than 100% polite. The bleacher creatures complained to beer vendors, the ushers, and an usher supervisor about these guys. The supervisor explained that they weren’t doing anything wrong. I posted about this in the game thread as it was happening, actually. That seemed to squash the situation until the original usher checked the O’s fans’ tickers about an inning later, saw they weren’t sitting in their seats, and had them move. The usher ended up high-fiving and fist-bumping these guys. It is bad enough being outnumbered 10 to 1 at a Yankees-O’s game; we don’t need our ushers helping them out too.

Anyway, I ended up reading about these Bleacher Creature people online and it seems they might have even been relatively tame this weekend compared to some of the stuff I have read that they do. Still, they were the most obnoxious and despicable people I have ever had the displasure of coming across at a sporting event. It doesn’t seem to be a gimmick either. There was genuine anger and hostility from these people. There were a few woman in the group who were just as vile and obnoxious as any of them. It really just blows my mind that people act that way. The icing on the cake was getting O’s fans removed from their sears for harmless cheering at their OWN stadium, when they are known for being some of the most classless fans in baseball. Call it entitlement, hypocrisy, or whatever you want; its absolutely ridiculous behavior.

[SammyBirdland]

In Red Sox Nation (outside of Boston), they are called "Bleacher Leesers", because they are only there on a month-to-month basis until the next team blows up big.