Being a Guide for the Grouchy Grandstandee.
These "do nots" have been arranged, compiled and hammered together with a view to rendering assistance to the spectator whose thinking machinery climbs out over his collar, and who shows symptoms of being dazed and disorderly during the progress of a game.
- Don't have any regard for the feelings of your neighbors. Get up on the slightest provocation and yell. To make matters more exciting you had better get up on the back of the seat also.
- Don't stop to make a careful selection of the English language before addressing the universe at large when the play is not to your liking. Say the first thing that comes into your mind. Doubtless, it will be glad to get out.
- Don't pay any attention to the fact that ladies are in the immediate neighborhood. Your money is just as good as theirs. Besides, it's a man's privilege to swear and make a howling idiot of himself.
- Don't fail to keep up a running comment on the general inefficiency of the visiting club. The majority of those who sit near you came out to the game especially to hear your views on this subject.
- Don't neglect to call him a fat-headed renegade every time one of the home players makes an error. The home players need to be reproved at times, and nothing is quite so reproving as the term fat-headed renegade hurled at them by a bibulous gentleman with a subterbeerean voice.
- Don't hesitate to tell all who are listening--and, if your voice is as convalescent as usual, everybody in your section of the Western Hemisphere will have to listen--that you know more about the game than Pop Anson and Pop Anson's younger brother, Methuselah. Under certain circumstances modesty is a crime; therefore, you should not commit a crime by withholding this information.
- Don't forget the umpire. Don't forget him for one little moment. He will notice it if you do, and become miserably unhappy. Tell him what you think of him unceasingly. There is nothing so pleasing to an umpire's ears as the sweet strains of a whiskey-trimmed voice ringing softly on the evening air: "Hey, red-light, youse is a robber an' a thief!" Umpires love to be criticised in this manner. With every criticism they brace up wonderfully, and their straying sense of justice returns. You've noticed this fact, of course.
- Don't hesitate to insult a player on the field. Remember, it is very hard for him to pick you out of the crowd. Besides, if he does, and jumps over the rail for the purpose of putting his imprint on your slats, you can scream for help. The police will probably wake up and come to your assistance.
- Don't forget to use the most blood-curdling and decorative style of language now on the market when you engage in the pleasing duty of hurting a player's feelings. This will attract attention to you from all quarters, and will stamp you as a gentleman of the aber-nit style of architecture.
- Don't pay any attention to the uneasiness displayed by those about you who came out for the selfish purpose of enjoying the game. If they cannot enjoy you and your lung-power exhibit, they should stay at home. Keep right on utilizing your vocal chords. Chatter on incessantly. Be a consistent ass until the last man is out and the umpire crawls into his cyclone cellar. Then go home and bathe what's left of your voice in witch hazel, and get ready for the morrow.