Assault and Hey Batter Battery

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, assault and haybatter battery.

Naomi brings the case against her husband, Spencer.

She's embarrassed by his loud and incessant heckling at baseball games.

He thinks it's fun, and he says major league players are fair game.

Who's right, who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom.

Well, I know change is natural for any city, but must everything be torn down for change to occur?

Isn't there room for a place where people from all walks of life can sit down and have a good meal free of gimmicks and pretension, where the size of your party matters more than the size of your paycheck?

Where both the sober and the inebriated can find comfort in a slice of scrapple?

Isn't there, Jesse?

Swear them in while you think it over.

Please rise, raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God, or whatever?

I do.

I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that there are no, no longer operational hockey teams involved in this case?

Yes.

Yes.

Very well, Judge Hodgman.

Naomi and Spencer, you may be seated for an immediate summary judgment in one of yours' favor.

Can either of you name the piece of culture that I referenced as I entered the courtroom?

Spencer, you have been brought in against your will by Naomi.

So you have first guess if you wish to make a guess.

If you don't want to make a guess, you can make Naomi guess first.

And then

you might gain some information from her answer.

What do you say, Spencer?

You're going to guess or you're going to make her guess first?

I get part of the reference knowing the region that I'm not sure that she'll know, so I'm going to make her guess first.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe that'll pull it all together for you, huh?

Naomi,

you don't know what Scrapple is.

I like Scrapple.

Oh, you do?

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

So, given that I made a Scrapple reference, can you guess what I was quoting from?

I know what Scrapple is, but the reference is over my head.

And I was thinking it's going to be something to do with baseball, so

I don't know.

I don't know if I can even guess.

You do have to guess, though.

It can be a bogus guess.

It could be the American Scrapple Digest of 1916.

I'm going to say it's taken from

a local cookbook by some Amish people.

called Cooking with the Amish with Scrapple.

A local cookbook by some Amish people called Cooking with the Amish with Scrapple.

Yes.

All right, I like it.

That's a guess.

Goes it back over to you, Spencer.

What's your guess?

I'm just going to guess Philadelphia.

It's part of the movie.

I don't know.

I know that there's more Scrapple in Philadelphia than there is around here.

So I have not seen that movie in years.

But that's going to be my guess.

Where are you currently?

We are in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Right, okay.

So your guess is the movie Philadelphia or the whole city and concept of Philadelphia?

Just the movie.

All right.

Let me just check here.

Cross-reference this.

And that looks to me like all guesses are wrong.

I'm sorry, you both guessed wrong, though.

I have to say, Naomi, I really wanted your guess to be correct.

In the Alternate Universe podcast, that would be absolutely correct.

Cooking with the Amish.

Because

this case involves a professional baseball team called the Philadelphia Phillies.

Is that correct?

It is.

Yes.

I searched my mind for Philadelphia references before I searched them for baseball references because I know a lot more of the former than the latter.

And I remembered a cartoon that appeared in the Philadelphia City Paper last year

that was set

in the great

center city Philadelphia diner called Little Pete's

that has been slated for demolition for almost two years now and is still barely standing, though it may go at any second.

And a cartoonist for the city paper named Mike, I'm going to guess how you pronounce his name, Skyr, S-G-I-E-R.

did a cartoon about two men with mustaches lamenting how Little Pete's was about to close.

And those two men with mustaches were the great comedian Paul F.

Tompkins and me, John Hodgman.

I was quoting myself from a cartoon that someone put me in.

The greatest honor I've ever received, aside from the Person of the Year award at Max Fun Con number one.

Thank you very much, Jesse.

I appreciate that still.

You're welcome, John.

So, you guys got it wrong.

So, we got to go hear this case, Spencer.

You have been brought in here because you are a Philadelphia Phillies fan.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And you are married to Naomi, who is embarrassed by you.

Yeah, unfortunately.

Why are you embarrassed by your husband, Naomi?

I'm not a big sports fan.

He's trying really hard to get me into sports, but he's just not helping by screaming at everyone.

And

I'm just embarrassed by the kind of the side eyes we get from other people there.

And

I just never felt more British and reserved in all my life.

Oh, you're British?

Yes.

Oh, I thought that was a Philadelphia accent.

I'm sorry.

It can be.

Can you just say hoagie for me just to confirm?

Hoagie?

Yeah, she's British.

It's uncanny.

All right.

I can do water in a Philadelphia accent, though.

Yes, please.

Water.

Warder.

Water.

Water.

Wardroys.

Yeah,

that's all I can do.

You're just doing an impression of Philly Boy Roy.

I was just going to say, I can't do a Philadelphia accent, but I can do a few words from the Philly Boy Roy vocabulary.

Philly Boy Roy, of course, being one of the many alter egos of John Worcester on the great The Best Show with Tom Sharpling.

Naomi, I can understand how you would be uncomfortable in your Britishness when your husband is acting like a sports jerk, given the reputation for gentility among British sports fans.

You got me there.

I was actually in school with a boy who went to prison for throwing pennies at people at a football game and hurting people.

Redition reserved.

Throwing single pennies or rolls of pennies?

No, well, like pound coins and like the 50ps are really sharp.

And just all kinds of whatever was in his pocket, I guess.

Well, whatever money he hated in his pocket that day, he was throwing it.

Spencer, have you ever been to prison for anything that you've done while sitting in the stands of a baseball game?

I have not.

I have not been kicked out of a sporting event since high school.

And that was a high school sporting event.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Why were you kicked out then?

Heckling.

I was heckling very specific players.

Well,

I mean, look, it's obviously, it goes back to high school, water under the bridge.

But if there's not, if you still have a grudge to bear, you want to name these players now and say why you were heckling them?

Nah, it was just

kind of trying to get into their heads.

Same as I do today, but they were paid significantly less.

So you go to a Phillies game and you heckle, I presume, the opposing team.

Right, yeah.

Right.

And you try to get into their heads.

How do you go about it?

What's your technique?

It depends on whether or not it's a controversial player.

There have been players that have notoriously used steroids.

So I just remind them of that for most of the innings of the game.

Okay, say I'm a baseballer, and I'm a very controversial baseballer.

And I'm so well known for using steroids that I have hypodermic needles coming out of my thighs while I'm on the field.

What do you got for me?

Here I come up to bat.

All right, I know

The last game we went to, I made fun of the size of the player's feet, which I have no evidence on whether or not this player had small feet.

But that was about all my artillery for nine innings.

But you focused on that one thing?

Very yeah, yeah, that one very specific thing to kind of throw him off guard.

Naomi, Spencer seems unwilling to directly quote himself.

What was he saying to to johnny small feet uh in the in the baseball team what was the guy's name

the the roit or the one with small feet small feet that was uh joey vado joey's got little feet size six women

over and over again for the entire game

and and how how close to the player were you close yeah like making eye contact with us close we were about four rows from the front.

And Joey Vado is a player who is known for

responding to

heckling and antagonism from opposing teams fans.

And

in some cases, even sort of courting it

with the

occasional sort of flippant demonstration on the field.

Is that so?

Yeah, I may or may not have caused a little child to not get a foul foul ball thrown to him by Joey Vado.

How did it go down?

He caught a foul ball and went to kind of gesture that he was going to throw it to a small child, and then he didn't.

And the crowd went nuts, booed him.

And after the game, he said he wasn't trying to get back at the small child, but to a heckler that was heckling him for the whole game.

And you witnessed this happen?

Yeah, oh, yeah.

Yeah, this was the game that we were at.

And is there any doubt that you were the one?

You were the heckler?

I like to think there is, but

I'm really not positive.

There's no way to tell one way or the other.

Naomi, was he the heckler or not in this case?

Was he to blame?

I think so.

You think so, but were there other hecklers there?

Not as loud as him.

He was the only person, like during this game, this is the particular game that brought this case to court.

This is where it all got a little bit too much.

It was a very quiet game.

A lot of people left early.

The The Phillies weren't doing too good.

Spencer was literally the only person I could hear at this game.

And everyone else sitting around us was like quietly watching the game, eating peanuts and whatever.

And he was just screaming.

We were so close to the field.

I'm pretty sure it was him.

You were four rows away, Spencer?

Yes, we were four rows away right next to first base, which Joey Vado plays.

Yeah, and so Naomi submitted evidence, which is an article from Philly.com.

Quote, Vato said he was not faking out the kids that waited by the dugout, but instead an adult that was heckling him.

Vato held the ball in the air, faked the throw two times, and then walked down the dugout steps and laughed.

How could that not be you?

Why don't you take credit for this?

I like to, but.

And in my defense, this small child did get a Mike Schmidt autographed baseball who is a legend in Philadelphia.

He is legendary, among other things, for having been booed in his later seasons in Philadelphia.

Yeah, that's why I had to ask if he was actually heckling the other team or Philadelphia because Philadelphia fans can be a little rough.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I'm not

a Philadelphia fan all around with all the sports.

It's only the Phillies.

So I'm not quite as harsh against my own teams as a lot of fans of Philadelphia.

Have you ever heckled a Philly?

I have not.

I know you said that no hockey teams should be named or no current hockey teams, but I have heckled Philadelphia Flyers.

And that didn't go over very well.

What happened then?

Just a lot more negative and blatant anger from other fans.

I was outnumbered.

Yeah, that would seem to be a death wish.

As someone who has attended a hockey game, I wouldn't cross anyone in

the five-mile radius of a hockey.

What do you call it, Jesse?

Hockey slick?

Yeah, I believe it's called a hockey slick.

Right.

It's called a cold hockey slick, technically.

Called a cold hockey slick?

For winter hockey, you guys are talking about winter hockey, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

So then it's called a cold hockey slick, and then in the summer, they play on a hot slick.

Oh, yeah.

Hot slick hockey, I like.

That's the one I follow.

Yeah.

Because it's so hot.

It's, you know, ultimately to me, it's about like the spirit of team play.

And I just see that a lot more in hot hockey than cold hockey.

Like, I feel like they really like know the fundamentals, passing.

You know, it's not just a, it's not just a bunch of, you know, runs, runs on the goal, you know?

Yeah, and also what makes it so much fun is you're not on skates, but you're just in bare feet wading through half an inch of boiling water.

Yeah, it's toasting.

Yeah, and there's a lot of hot spray as you hit the puck with your with your hockey stick.

You get a lot of, it's kind of a hot splash fight.

Yeah,

they're very gutsy players.

That's right.

So, what happened when you heckled the hockey team?

Nothing actually came of that, just a lot of angry fans until we left.

And then the team I was rooting for ended up losing.

So I just kind of covered myself up and walked out as quick as I could.

Naomi, it sounds to me like Spencer is yelling at people all the time.

Is this true?

No, he's a very sweet, lovable guy.

And then we go to a game and he just turns into an animal.

I don't know what happens to him.

How long have you guys been married?

We've been married two years.

And how did you meet?

We were like just friends online for a little bit, just talking for a few weeks.

And then I actually won a trip to New York with the old company I work for.

So I just said to Spencer, hey, I'm going to be be like a couple of hours away from you.

Do you want to hang out?

And then the rest is history.

Wow.

And

what was your job

in England?

Did you live in England?

In Wales.

In Wales?

I lived.

Yeah.

I worked in a call centre selling credit reports and I sold a lot of them and got myself a trip.

Well, well done.

And

what do you do now?

Now I'm a fibre artist.

I make

slippers and decor and all kinds of baby things from alpaca fiber, and I sell them here in Lancaster.

Do you have your own alpaca?

They're not my alpaca.

When I moved here, there's an alpaca farm down the road from us.

I asked her if I could help out just to keep me occupied while I found a job, and I just never left.

This sounds like a tremendous life change that you went through.

It was pretty drastic.

How do you like it?

I love her.

It's like the old expression: once you go alpaca, you never go alpaca.

I'm sorry.

I'm fired.

I'm firing myself.

I'm fired.

I'd like kung pao chicken, please.

Once you go alpaca, you never go alpaca.

That's enough.

That's a pretty good joke, though.

I liked it.

Well, it's better than vicunas, that's for sure.

But you went from selling credit reports in Wales to making fiber art from someone else's alpacas in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

That is the British dream, is it not?

Yeah, that's where everyone wants to do.

We're actually on Friday having an alpaca wedding.

Oh, you're marrying two alpacas?

I didn't know they were monogamous.

Yeah, they are now.

Well, what is an alpaca wedding?

Well, it's part of a summer camp.

Every summer, and they do an alpaca camp for the kids, so they come and train the the animals to do like obstacle courses and things like that.

Like a regular wedding, yeah.

Who gets married in the wedding after the various obstacle courses?

So, it's gonna be little baby Tessa, who's coming up to a year old, and Tucker, who is just over one-year-old boy.

So, the baby's going married.

It's an arranged child alpaca wedding, yes,

monstrous, savage, Savage, I dare say.

Take pictures and send them in.

We'll put them on the website if you don't mind.

Absolutely.

And Spencer, are you from the region?

Originally, I am from Louisville, Kentucky, but I moved up here about 12, 13 years ago.

And what did you move for, or what are you doing now?

Then my dad had gotten transferred with his job up to Harrisburg, and we moved in this area.

Now I am a bartender in Lancaster.

Fantastic.

And did you ever imagine you would have a foreign bride with fiber-making skills?

I didn't, but it's free slippers for life.

That's what marriage is all about, certainly any alpaca marriage.

Well, congratulations on you guys finding each other, but I think I want to ask Naomi, having moved across the Atlantic Ocean to join a stranger in a strange land, and having fallen in love and then gotten married, how did you feel when your husband revealed this?

Uh,

I want to say this mystery hide side of himself, but it's really more of a Dr.

Heckle.

You're fired too, Judge Hodfran.

Yes, please.

Um, well, the first time it happened, um,

it was the steroids guy.

It was the first one, so baseball had been on TV before we went.

I have no clue what's going on.

Like, Spence just tried to explain the rules.

No idea, but I like the food.

Sure.

Why aren't they wearing sweaters and why doesn't it take five days to play it?

Yeah.

But

I like the food.

I love the Phillies Fanatic.

He makes me laugh so much.

So I go to these games with him for that.

And

the first time he hackled, I just...

I don't even know what to think.

Like, he was just a totally different person.

He's so, like, sweet and laid back usually.

I mean, he had no voice by the end of the game.

He was screaming so much.

And so, ever since then, he promises me every game that he's not going to heckle.

And it just always ends up me going back to the car grumpy because he's heckled every time.

Spencer, what did you yell at the person who was using steroids?

I just let him know that he shouldn't be allowed in the league and how awful he is.

And

he's a pretty high-profile player with quite a bit of controversy around him.

Who is it?

It doesn't matter to me.

His name is Ryan Braun.

And what do you yell at Ryan Braun?

And I don't want you to paraphrase what you yell at him.

I want you to do it.

Oh, you want me to yell?

Yeah, I want you to yell.

Just maybe back up a little bit from the microphone.

And I want to hear what it sounds like to be your mail-order bride with no idea of who she's married and learning all of a sudden through your loud voice.

Ryan Braun, you suck!

You shouldn't be allowed in the league!

Things like that.

Well, you know what?

To your credit, you had quoted yourself pretty accurately.

I didn't mean to refer to you as a male-order bride, Naomi.

Well, I didn't mean to.

That was the joke I was making, but I didn't mean it, obviously.

So, how do you feel when your beloved reveals this side to himself?

Did you have a moment of going like, oh my God, I made a horrible mistake?

In coming to the game, yes.

But just

embarrassed, frightened sometimes.

Like when we were at that Flyers game, I honestly thought that was the end for me.

I thought everyone was going to murder us.

What was the reaction of the people around you?

Did they say things?

Did they threaten?

Yeah, well, not threaten, but Spencer was called out because, and he's probably going to argue me on this, but we were there with a couple of friends, and Spencer was so caught up in his haircling, he's just screaming all kinds of stuff and booing.

Well, it was during like a little interval or wherever, and some kids came onto the ice and they started skating round, and Spencer was still booing.

Kids, like children, yeah, like six years old.

Is this a new kind of hockey that I haven't heard about where the where the hockey players shoot children instead of pucks into the goal.

Yeah.

I wish.

You wish.

Yeah.

He was still booing and so according to everyone around us.

No wait, what was happening?

It was some kind of, some kind of

it was between periods and some charity thing was happening.

It was like an alpaca wedding down there on the ice.

Yeah, something like that.

It was in between plays and I think they just let the kids come out and skate around.

So after he booed these children, somebody...

Right, well, why wouldn't you?

Boo.

You're not as good at hockey as the other guys.

You don't seem professional.

Boo.

You're too small.

Boo, let's see some fights.

Boo.

I throw batteries at you, children.

Boo.

Why were you booing the children, Spencer?

Well, I wasn't booing the children.

There was a video clip playing up on the big screen at the time with an interview of one of their players, and I was booing that, not realizing that these children were skating onto the ice.

You were booing a video clip.

Yeah, you know that guy who's being videoed can't hear you.

That happened before.

You can't boo back in time to reach that guy's ears through the TV screen.

It's not a David Cronenberg movie.

What happened?

So you booed the TV screen while children are on the ice, and finally someone said to you,

hey, stop being a monster or what?

What happened?

In less nice terms, that pretty much sums up that night.

There was also a lot of alcohol consumed that night.

Sure.

Well, I understand.

Yeah, that one I can honestly say I'm a little bit ashamed of.

That's one where you went too far.

It is.

Naomi, when you go to a ball game or a sporting event with Spencer,

what percentage of the time would you say is he actively engaged in heckling?

It starts off slow.

It creeps up.

Maybe by the fourth or fifth inning, it starts to get constant.

I mean, not taking a breath in between screaming things at people.

And the last inning is usually when I just have to go and hide somewhere.

Do you literally get up and hide?

Else you get out of your seat?

I have pretended to need to go to the bathroom when I haven't actually needed to go.

Well, look, we're all guilty of that.

There was one Shakespeare seminar I took with Harold Bloom where I did that every day.

Yeah, I mean, an alternate definition of that is parenthood.

And do you think,

and let's be candid here, we're all adults here.

You say by the fourth or fifth inning, things pick up a little bit.

Does that track with, say,

beer consumption?

Is there a certain lowering of inhibitions that happens as the game goes on?

There's a definite correlation.

Right.

Now, we all know that correlation does not necessarily mean causation.

We've all, we've, we are, we are all skeptics in this world, but I get the picture, if you know what I mean.

And Naomi, do you get the sense that his behavior, and I've not seen a live Phillies baseball game in person, do you get the sense that his behavior is

unusual

among the fans there in the ball game, in the ballpark with you?

I mean, every game I've gone to, the Phillies have lost.

So the fans have always been very...

Oh, you're the curse.

I am the curse.

Founder, finally.

Boo!

Boo the curse!

Drown the witch!

Sorry, I'm just trying to get into a sports mentality, which is pure magical thinking.

I'm not asking whether his heckling helps the Phillies win or lose.

I'm asking whether the people around him react as poorly to his heckling as you do.

Oh, at the last game they did.

Go on.

There was a family directly in front of us.

And the girl who was sat right in front of Spencer would just, every time he screamed, just kind of close her eyes and like scrunch her shoulders up, like, please stop.

And how old was she, would you guess?

Ballpark it for me.

She was like, she was a teenager.

She was a teenager, maybe like 16 or something.

And then there was a family right in the front row, and Spencer doesn't believe me, but she actually went to the umpire.

I couldn't hear what she was saying, but she was pointing at Spencer, looking angry.

Wait, she went onto the field that got the umpire's attention.

The usher.

The usher, sorry.

See, this is how little I know about baseball.

So the usher, who was standing at the front, she went and grabbed Spencer up.

Oh.

And what came of that?

I just saw the guy shake his head and say, sorry, he's not doing anything wrong.

Spencer, you were backed up by the usher/slash umpire.

Fair ball, as far as that guy was concerned.

Spencer, did you originally come to Philadelphia because your father got a job there, or

because it was the only place where your monstrous behavior was seen as almost normal?

Well,

a bit of both?

That could be why I'd never feel so guilty unless I am booing children.

Because,

yeah, I've seen Philadelphia fans do some awful things, and

I have never been a part of those kind of things.

I've never thrown a battery.

Yeah, put it into context for us, some of the awful things you've seen by which you would be judged

completely benign.

Like, for example, it is a tradition, so I have heard, to throw batteries at concerts and sporting events in Philadelphia.

Yes or no?

True.

What else happens there?

What else have you seen?

I know, I think it's their football stadium that has a, or their old one had a prison underneath because of all the arrests that they have.

I heard that recently Phillies fans have been booing Ryan Howard, the greatest player of the last 25 years or so in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia.

Yes, he had a beer thrown at him a couple weeks ago.

And he plays for the Phillies, Jesse?

Yes, he does.

He's a Philadelphia Phillies legend who has committed the sin of now being older and less good.

Okay.

I think I can get behind this kind of spite.

I am from New England.

I'm going to ask you a question, Spencer.

And

I don't know you well enough to know how much self-reflection you practice, but I have an impression.

So I'm going to ask this and give you a chance to think about it for a sec.

And while you're thinking about it, I'm going to ask Naomi a couple questions.

All right.

All right.

Because

at stake here is that I may order you to stop doing this if things don't go your way in this court case.

So what I would ask is

what this means to you

and why it is meaningful to you and what you get out of it,

such that I should allow it to continue.

I'm not, this sounds very prejudiced.

I'm not saying I'm going to disallow it, but I want you to answer that question for me.

Give it some thought, prepare your answer.

Naomi, how often do you guys go to the baseball game?

Um, about three or four times a season.

And

have you just considered not going and just

chilling with the alpacas?

Well, he always seems to really want me to go.

Like, he asks me all the time, and I do like the food, and I like the Philly's fanatic, but

I do say I'll come with you if you don't hackle, and then he hackles.

So

at this point, I'm worried that you're only staying with him for his proximity to that alpaca farm.

I'll go live in the barn if I have to.

In the rest of your relationship, though, all's well?

All good.

Everything.

And you say he's very laid-back and sweet, otherwise.

Yeah.

You guys live in a freestanding home someplace?

Or

I don't.

What's happening?

What's the rest of your life like?

Well, yeah,

we live together.

We have lots of pets at home as well.

What are we talking about?

We have a rooster and two dogs, two cats, lots of of fish.

Does he ever heckle the animals?

Boo!

Too furry!

Bad crowing!

You don't deserve to eat kibble in this league.

Can't lay eggs.

Can't lay eggs.

Any hobbies he has that

are complementary to your alpaca hair knitting?

Well, when he comes to the farm, he actually likes the goats more than the alpaca.

But we go to a lot of shows together.

Funnily enough, this is something I was going to mention.

When we go to shows and people talk loudly, he tells them to be quiet.

Hypocrisy watch.

Like what kind of shows?

Music shows?

You guys go see bands?

Yeah.

What bands do you see?

Most recently, we saw Charles Bradley.

I guess that's a band.

I don't know things about things.

That's a a guy.

That's a Dap Tone Soul Singer.

Oh, cool.

Yeah.

Jesse, by the way,

this is the first annual Bailiff Awards, and it's been in contention for a while, but I'm just going to open the envelope now and say the award goes to Bailiff Jesse Thorne for helping me out today.

Oh, thank you.

With all of the baseball and Dap Tones references that I do not catch.

I give you an award for being a loyal and beloved friend.

Thank you very much i appreciate that but jesse

uh-oh yeah

i can't think of a way to heckle you i was trying but i couldn't

twee hipster twee hipster

talks too smug talks too smug

i cannot allow you to heckle yourself jesse thorne

although

bad alpaca joke bad alpaca joke

uh

so now I will come back to Spencer.

Spencer, you know the question that I asked, but

I've been talking to Naomi, you may have heard.

And I have two extra questions for you.

One,

do you really shush other people and get upset for them at talking during concerts?

I do, but I think that's a completely different thing because

at sporting events, there's literally a big sign that'll just say make noise every few minutes.

I know.

Isn't that so much fun when the sign tells you what to do?

But,

you know, at concerts and stuff like that, people are paying specifically to listen and watch those artists.

Do you ever go to comedy shows?

We...

I haven't think ever.

So you don't have any experience with heckling and comedy shows?

No, I couldn't do that either.

That's another thing.

So you weren't part of the crowd that legendarily heckled Bill Burr in Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium and led him to abandon his planned 20-minute comedy set and just yell angry profanities at the crowd, coherent ones, for a full 15 or 20 minutes?

No, I did see that, though.

And like I said, I'm not all around a Philadelphia fan.

So that

really, I really, really enjoyed that because he kind of.

Because you felt like you were on his team in that because you don't root for all the Philadelphia teams.

Yeah.

Yeah, but my impression from that was that the Philadelphians in the crowd also loved it because they love being told that Philadelphia bites it.

Yeah, they like to have things to get angry about.

Yeah, it's a town that likes to get angry.

It is.

I think 2008 when the Phillies were on the World Series, there was...

an insane amount of damage done in that city.

They were so mad.

They were so mad at winning.

They were.

They were mad enough to burn cars.

Next follow-up question: Why like goats so much?

They like me a lot more than the alpacas like me.

They'll kind of come up to me, sniff me, let me pet them.

The alpacas aren't my friends.

The alpacas are like, well, that guy seems like a thug to me.

Let him, he should go hang out with the goats.

And the goats say, hey, is that a tin can?

Hey, maybe that guy will throw a battery at me.

Let's hope.

And now, finally,

why should I rule in your favor and not Naomi's?

What does heckling at sports events mean to you such that I should uphold your right to do it?

So

I think that heckling in sports has always been a part of baseball.

I think, you know, back in the day,

you heard the swing, batter, batter, swing, and that was kind of an old-fashioned version of what I'm doing.

I just think it's always been part of the game.

But swing, batter, batter is, is

that's, is that, is that heckling, Jesse?

It's not abusive.

It's not like you're out there yelling, we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher.

It's a little different than throwing a can of beer at someone or a goat.

But being vocally engaged has always been part of the sport.

Is that what you're saying?

Right, yes.

And do you think you could enjoy baseball in the same way if I were to put a gag order on you or literally force you to wear a gag in the future next time you go?

No, I think

I would probably enjoy the game just as much, but it wouldn't be as much fun or as

I wouldn't feel as part of that particular game if I'm getting reactions out of the players when I wouldn't be heckling them.

Do you notice that you're getting a reaction out of your wife that she is uncomfortable and shy about your heckling?

Yeah, I do notice it.

It's just the kind of thing where

once I start at a game, I can't just stop.

I don't know.

I guess it's some kind of weird personal rule.

Wait, this is a matter of principle?

You don't want to take it on yourself?

I thought you were going to say compulsion disorder.

You're the rootie of heckling.

I refuse to quit.

Why is your desire to heckle more important than your wife's feelings about your heckling?

Oof.

They're not.

See, I just always think it's something where

that I think it's much funnier than she does because a lot of these players she's not very familiar with and the kind of reaction that I'm trying to get.

You're suggesting that if she followed baseball more closely, you yelling and making 15-year-old girls around you nervous and upset would be a lot funnier.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In context, this guy's a Reuter.

Therefore.

I should scream at everyone around me.

Well, I mean,

the Reuting thing went over a lot better in the stadium than the small feet thing.

It was the small feet thing where people were really getting upset.

The Reiting thing, everyone was kind of on my side.

Also, why the small feet?

Does that guy have small feet?

I don't know.

It's just something that they won't hear, and that'll get a bigger reaction than any kind of personal actual insult.

Why small feet and not small hands?

Are small hands just for politics?

Small feet for sports?

It's the first thing I thought of.

Thank you.

Naomi,

how much of this do you think is

anxiety over your husband's behavior versus simply

your anxiety about being in a culture that is relatively new to you that you don't understand?

I mean, I could deal with the being in a culture that I don't understand if my husband wasn't screaming next to me.

It makes it a lot harder to enjoy and get used to.

So I think it's mostly the hackland because I do have a good time at the games other than the hackland.

And finally,

you guys are getting some pretty good seats at this baseball game.

Like

four rows away from first base?

That's pretty good, right, Jesse?

Is that pretty good?

I've been a baseball fan my entire life, like a huge baseball fan.

I've had seats that good once.

It was because my friend Dimitri worked for a law firm that represented the Dodgers, and it was literally a distance where people were just having conversations with San Francisco Giants coach Hensley Muellens, just like chatting, like fans were having conversations with the coach on the field during the game.

Is there a difference in heckling culture sort of in the bleachers versus close to the game?

I never thought of that, but there could be because it really didn't seem like there were many people yelling when we were up close.

But the last time

we were quite a bit further back, and there were more people around us yelling.

Okay.

I think I've heard everything that I need to hear.

I'm going to go in to consult with the five alpacas I have in my chambers.

And just for fairness of representation, I also have a goat in there.

And we'll talk it over, and I'll be back in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Naomi, how are you feeling about your chances?

I think that went pretty well.

Are you concerned that Spencer at some point might do something that lands him in the jail underneath

Veterans Stadium?

It seems to be going that way.

That's why we need to nip it in the bud.

Spencer, are you worried?

I'm a little bit worried.

Yeah, I don't think that went over well, as well as I would have liked with me.

Well, we'll see what Judge John Hodgman has to say about this when we come back in just a second.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made In.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom.

So, to a certain degree here, we have a cultural

gap because, even though, as Jesse Thorne established, there is a long legacy of people yelling and throwing things at sporting events in the UK.

It does not seem to have been a legacy that

Naomi participated in when she lived there.

And now she is in the midst of a new culture, a culture of baseball, which

some people, including me, associate with literally a day in the park, a lovely open-air afternoon watching an exposition of some men standing and then after a while not standing so slowly.

And they occasionally run.

I always find baseball to be extremely leisurely,

not as hectic as some other sports.

And more,

this is truly, you know,

a story of two lovers who had never met except for online and then got together and now have been married for two years.

And a woman from across the seas is an entirely different culture.

And not just the United Statesian culture, but the Pennsylvanian culture.

And then as well, from time to time, the Philadelphian culture, which is a very specific kind of culture.

I don't think that anyone would have predicted that in the city of brotherly love, their nickname is highly ironic.

And it is, in fact, the city of brotherly yelling at each other from time to time and battery throwing and anger.

And I say that as a very, very fond

stepson of Philadelphia, not stepson, but my mother was from Philadelphia, so half Philadelphian in a way myself.

I feel a kinship with Philadelphia, as as I mentioned, because I come from New England, where getting angry at someone is often the highest form of affection for another person.

And cursing at them

is a little bit of a love letter

from time to time.

And Philadelphia's sports culture, as little as I understand of it, largely through what Jesse has explained for me today and what I've understood through the Philly Boy Roy bits on the best show with Tom Sharpling, is a particularly contentious sports culture in which one takes real pleasure in hating the thing they're supposed to like, which was borne out by the fact that beers are being thrown at very fine players and

everyone gets mad when they win.

So it's really,

I think, more than what Naomi was counting on when she went to her first American baseball game.

And I am not surprised that she feels overwhelmed

and a little embarrassed

and a little uncomfortable, especially since

the man that she moved across the ocean for, who is

by all accounts a lovely dude who shushes people at the concert hall, turns into this braying monster in the baseball park.

And you could sense, Spencer, that I was pushing you pretty hard on trying to understand and get some sort of, I guess, poetic response as to what heckling means to you as a participant, as a lover of sports, how it's part of the history and the legacy of sports.

And I guess maybe that was prejudiced of me because I'm not sure that there's any poetry to this.

I think that it is just

a kind of

hyper-masculine,

maybe there are no words, maybe I just need to grunt this one.

Hyper-masculine do-thing

that gives pleasure at sports.

And I was actually came around to some degree to your point of view, Spencer, when you explained that

this player that you were heckling, Vato, doesn't necessarily have small feet.

That was just a thing

that you thought to say to him that got the reaction that you wanted.

And so you pressed on and you pressed on until finally he got so mad, he denied a child pleasure.

And in a weird kind of way, that was its own poetry.

I mean, I feel bad for that little kid, but you found a way through an almost nonsensical

physical non-attribute to really get at a guy.

So at least by your own terms, congratulations there.

I don't doubt that this is part of the culture.

And I asked you, you,

though, if you had ever been to a comedy show where there is heckling, because

that is a place,

that is a place where there is.

There are people who will say that heckling is an important part of the comedy culture.

And I don't know what you feel about that, Jesse,

but I have a strong feeling about it.

There was definitely a time.

when comedy occurred and was just sort of seen as a goofy clown act between the real acts, which were the bands or the singers,

where, and there was alcohol usually being served, and where there was a ribbled give and take

between audience member and comedian, and comedians needed to be loaded for bear in case the audience members came at them.

And I will say that the only time that I have ever been heckled at all in my life,

and you know, look at me, I'm not a club comic,

I'm the alpaca of comedians, a big snob who hates the goats, right?

The only time I've ever been heckled has been when I performed in Philadelphia.

And when I performed in Philadelphia, every time I have been heckled, it has always been the case that there has been some disruption, someone deciding to be part of the show.

Someone usually being inebriated beyond their capacity, who had to say things.

And it was profoundly unsettling to me.

And yet it really tested me as a performer.

And in all of the cases, I've eventually had to

bring them on stage

and

then really test their wits.

And usually their wits failed and I established dominance.

And it was this incredibly deep, grunting, masculine do thing that happened

that I almost would feel sad if it had never happened in my life, despite how dangerous and disruptive it felt at the time.

I guess part of what I'm saying here, Naomi, is

this is part of Philadelphia fan culture,

and like it or not, it exists, and your husband is pretty good at it.

Philadelphia has a weird energy to it.

And I will say, Spencer, you are tapped into that energy deeply.

Are you not, sir?

I would say somewhat.

There is no explanation for what you do.

You become possessed of that Philadelphia spite energy and you do it.

And it does not matter if it hurts your wife.

It does not matter if it hurts a 15-year-old child sitting in front of you.

It's got to happen.

And I don't know how to deny a man his right

to make other people uncomfortable around him at sports.

Every time I've been to a sports game, that seems to be what happens to me.

Seems to me that's part of the culture.

Who am I to try to change it?

But I will say this:

you've heard from your wife, and you know how she feels.

You've made promises

to take her feelings into account that you have failed to keep.

And that

cannot stand.

Do not promise not to heckle and then heckle, no matter what personal rule you have to break your promises and go too far in your life, even if that is your code.

Because that

is something that will carry over in time.

in your relationship beyond the moment of your wife cringing during the sports game.

And I would encourage you as well to consider context for heckling beyond what is happening just around the one-inch perimeter around your body.

So, for example,

I am not surprised to learn that even in an off-year where Philly's tickets are available on the cheap,

that there is still, as in most places outside of Philadelphia, a different standard of behavior as you get closer to the field.

Closer to the field,

that's sort of the snobby alpaca end of the sports watching

with lots of fancy folks and their well-heeled kids.

And the further away from the field and other sort of less desirable places and maybe standing room-only places, that's where the bad kids hang out and they yell about small feet all the time.

And so

I will order this.

You

cannot heckle at a Philadelphia Phillies game unless you are in

a clear

affirmative consent heckling zone.

So if you buy your tickets close to the field, look around you.

Take a moment to soak it in who these people are around you and whether they're going to want to hear you psychologically torment a player

and make them wonder whether or not you're going to throw a beer or jump onto the field.

If that's what you want to do, get back, get back to the yelling people.

You're down close to the field.

Look around you

and look at your wife sitting next to you and think about:

do I want her to keep coming to these games?

Do I want her to feel comfortable too?

Do I want to have this relationship?

Do I want to be known as someone who keeps my promises?

And then you say to her, either,

I promise not to heckle,

or,

sorry, honey, I'm going to do it.

But either way, be honest so that she can make...

a fair decision to get out of there and pretend to use the bathroom for two hours.

This is the sound of a gavel.

Judge John Hodgman rules that is all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Naomi, how are you feeling about this case?

Do you feel like in giving your husband the right to heckle, the judge has gone too far?

No, he still has the right to heckle, but I do like how he's put him in the appropriate place to do it rather than right up front.

Spencer, when Mike Schmidt autographed a ball for the little boy that Joey Vado didn't throw a ball to,

did you boo him?

I did not see him autograph the ball, but I would not have.

Well, I wish you the best of luck expressing your essential Philadelphiness.

I am expressing my essential San Franciscan-ness in judging you for it.

Naomi Spencer, thank you so much for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Judge Hodgman.

Bad chambers!

Bad chambers!

Judge Hodgman, are you heckling your chambers again?

Yeah, is that?

I don't know how this works.

I don't know sports.

Is it wrong to heckle a physical structure?

I mean, it's ineffective.

At the very least, you should at least, bare minimum, you should be heckling a video recording.

Poor sight lines.

No open kitchen.

Have you ever heckled at a sporting event, Judge Hodgman?

No, I've only ever cheered fantastic accomplishment.

Yeah, like the majesty of sport and everything.

Yeah, well, overall, and then what if one individual sportser does a good thing?

I'm like, whoa.

Get a load of that.

I haven't done much cheering or booing recently because I'm a Giants fan.

And when I'm at Dodger Stadium here in Los Angeles, I just

fear that if I make myself too conspicuous, I'll be murdered.

I forgot to explain that the last time I was heckled in Philadelphia, a guy was very inebriated.

And again, I had to wonder, what are you doing here?

Like, you know what I do.

I'm making jokes about Ayn Rand.

This isn't the Opie and Anthony tour.

I brought him on stage and

I said,

I want to give you this.

And I saw someone in the front row was knitting a super long Doctor Who scarf from the fourth Doctor era.

You don't even need to see that.

You can just assume that's going on at a John Hodgman show.

I know, right?

It's like, man, may I borrow that scarf for a moment?

I said, put this on.

What doctor is this from?

And he said, oh, I don't know.

And then he said, can I wear it?

And I'm like, you can wear it if you're quiet.

And he said, okay.

It's probably the most masculine I've ever been.

And it involved a Tom Baker scarf, so I feel good about it.

You've never felt more virile than when you nerd shamed that drunk man.

I know.

And he didn't know what was going on.

Poor guy.

What was it?

Even if he saw me on the daily show, what was he expecting me to do?

Like, what kind of show did he think it was going to be?

I think he probably just bought tickets to comedy show.

There's just a deep, dark energy to Philadelphia that I truly love.

Philadelphia's an awesome place.

Yeah, I love Philadelphia, too.

This week's show engineered by Justin at Frederick Lee and Lloyd Studio.

So thanks to him, our producer, Jennifer Marmer.

This week's show named by James Callan.

If you want to name a future episode of the program, my recommendation to you?

Well, it's simple.

Follow us on Twitter at Hodgman and at Jesse Thorne.

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If you have a case for Judge John Hodgman, go to maximumfund.org slash jjho, maximumfund.org slash jjho.

And we're headed to the Northeast, including Philadelphia, on our Judge John Hodgman tour in September.

That's right.

We're going to Portland, Turner's Falls, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, New York, and then guess where, right after that,

Philadelphia.

What's going to happen at that show?

Now I'm really worried.

And then we go on to DC and then to London.

And if you have a dispute in any of these towns or major cities, major global cities that you would like to have heard on stage, go to that maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho.

The submission form there, just like you're going to submit a regular case, just mention you'd like to hear it heard live on stage in the city in which you live.

I also want to mention that when we're in London, if you're a listener in London or you've got people in the UK, not only is there going to be Judge John Hodgman, we're also going to be doing a live International Waters, which is our comedy quiz show.

and that is hilarious, hosted by Dave Holmes.

And we will have famous comedians on the panel of that show, I promise you.

And I'm going to be hosting

a live edition of my show, Bullseye, which is an NPR public radio program.

It will have two big-name interviews, most likely a band, a music act, and a great stand-up comic.

It's going to be a heck of a show.

We haven't booked all of those names yet, but I assure you, we just put together our list of prospective guests, and it was a real strong one, and I feel like we're going to have a pretty amazing lineup.

So you're going to want to buy your tickets for that before we announce that, let's say, a member of the gorillas who's friends with our producer, Dan,

is on the show or something similar.

Again, I can't make, maybe he's got a gig somewhere, but you know.

Well,

looks like I have to go back to the encyclopedia to solve this one.

So

there are going to be amazing guests on both of those shows.

So, if you're in London, bear in mind, no one knows who we are.

So, two things: one, get your tickets now before we announce our famous guests,

and two, tell your friends that we're going to be there because this is a big trip for us.

We're really excited about it, and we want to have lots of folks there to enjoy it.

Absolutely.

All that having been said, we'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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