Crossing the line: When heckling goes too far

When umpire Bob Davidson ejected a fan in Philadelphia for profane and sexually explicit heckling, he received a chorus of cheers from Phillies fans.

“People cheered me, which is unusual in this town for me,” Davidson relayed to a pool reporter following the game Tuesday.

It appears Davidson would have received the same support from Jays fans, some of whom said Wednesday that the ballpark, especially when children are present, is no place for such language.

“I definitely understand that our reactions to sports are emotional and passionate, but there certainly is a line, and baseball players deserve to be treated with a basic level of respect like any other human being,” said Stacey May Fowles, a baseball fan and writer in Toronto.

“Beyond that, heckling more often than not ruins the stadium experience for other fans — no one wants to listen to someone constantly yelling insults and obscenities when they’re just trying to enjoy a game on a Saturday afternoon.”

Tom Childs, a Jays fan wearing a Jose Bautista jersey outside the Rogers Centre at lunch hour, said most fans will take it upon themselves to hush a heckler whose language crosses the line.

“Oh yeah, I’ve gone up to guys who’ve said a bunch of stuff like that, and I said, ‘Come on, there’s kids here . . . would you do that in front of your own kids?’ ” said Childs, who gets to about a half-dozen Jays games a year.

Mario Coutinho, the Blue Jays’ vice-president of stadium operations and security, said there is a point where heckling can cross the line, and security is called in to eject the offender.

“From our perspective, heckling and a heckling fan are OK . . . but when there’s profanity involved, and we’re called, we give them a warning,” Coutinho said.

“If the behaviour continues, then we (eject the heckler). But it doesn’t happen a lot.”