Softbulls Focus on Sheriff NOT Cougars

[The_Reaper]

Watson has the curse..."Rabbitt ears!" C,mon Watson, get in the game and close the mechanism!

[imjewish]

I was at the game and the Sheriff was a little overboard. I have been to most of the softball games this year and I have never seen the Sheriff at any games until yesterday. I thought that he was a big fan? I don't know, I'm kind of torn here. I don't agree with what the team did, but I also think that the Sheriff went way too far.

[The Sheriff]

It's difficult to make the games when you live an hour away. I spend two nights a week in Tampa after working all day Wednesday and all day Thursday (11 AM to 11 PM), then I take two classes Friday morning and afternoon (9:30 AM - 3:30 PM), then back to work Friday night (5:30 PM - 11:30 PM). The whole point is, spending a third night away is a little too much for anyone (My mail is delivered to Treasure Island and I miss my room that is a mecca to South Florida). Try eating out each of those days (gets expensive if you don't hit McD's each time after work when most everything else is closed), then crashing on someone's couch each night. I stay at a house where the computer has a virus and gets a million pop ups with every click of the mouse. That's frustrating when you spend as much time on this board as I do. I do have to drive back to Tampa to work Saturday night at 5:30 PM, but I need some time to relax and unwind without being on the road all the time.

I have made three games this season (two for baseball, and one for softball) and wish I would've made more.

The problem is the golf gallery at games that we call fans are so quiet, anything out of the norm is looked down upon. I kept it clean Saturday, but was persistent. And that persistence led to one girl getting benched (after her second error at 2nd base, the Cougs 2nd baseman knew I was going to eat her alive!) Even the Coogs pitcher gave me a smile at one point for some of the comments, it was our own Ms. Watson who wasn't focused. What she fails to forget is that I didn't swing the bat for her that game.

If my comments were really out of line, I sat right behind the home plate umpire... how hard would it have been for him to give me the ole' heave ho? And yes, he called a horrible game and I gave him hell also for his tight strike zone.

I think it's a shame that a fan can't get fired up for a game where the regualr season title hinges on us winning out. While everyone else was quiet out there with us trailing 6-0, I still had hopes we could rally and save the day.

I was hoping Leigh Ann Ellis would've have pitched game two... I had been hoping all season to see her dominate after reading so much about her on here. I have a bad taste in my mouth for taking the time to catch a game. A friend of mine from Oklahoma State flew in to Orlando and drove to Tampa to hang out for the afternoon Saturday and I told him about Leigh Ann and how she would be pitching game 2.

I could've stayed on the beach that afternoon showing him what he was missing by living in Stillwater, but I figured why not show him our campus and catch a ball game. He's in his 60's, a season ticket holder to Kentucky for hoops and football, as well as a season ticket holder to OSU football and hoops... he said he had never seen anything like what Sarah Watson has said. Even funnier, when we were at Beef's before the game, I had taken him to the Cal game during the GreenbergOpolis days, and he said we had the mildest student section he had seen and that I needed to attend an OSU hoops game or a Duke game to really see what an insane atmosphere was like. The irony of his statement before the softball game makes me grimmace. He follows USF sports now as his number three school (not bad for someone who has absolutlely no ties to the Bulls and lives in the middle of the country!) It was the whole point how he said our fans our mild, and then, it gets reinterated when a player and coach freak when someone shows some fun CLEAN spirit.

That is my 2 AM rant for the night!

[Jewbull]

Watson could lose her job as the everyday catcher, then nobody has to worry about getting heckled.

USF Signs JUCO Standout-

TAMPA, Fla. (April 15, 2004)-The University of South Florida softball team is pleased to announce the signing of Kim Riker to a National Letter of Intent. Riker has been a two-year starting catcher for Manatee Community College under head coach Jeff Roberts.

The Palmetto High graduate is currently batting .326 with six doubles and 20 RBI. She has been a part of back-to-back Suncoast Conference championships in her career. Riker was named Second-Team All-Conference as a freshman.

“We are very excited to have her as a part of our softball family,†commented USF Associate head coach Stacey Heintz. “She will add in all aspects of our program.â€Â

In her senior year at Palmetto, Riker hit .430 with 36 RBI. She is the younger sister of USF all-time steal leader Shelly Riker.

Riker joins a recruiting class that features Carly Griffin, a senior at Chamberlain and Bree Sprence from Countryside. All three will join the team in the fall of 2004.

I heard this girl is a stud and could take over the everyday catching duties. If this is so Sheriff or anyone else who likes to heckle does not have to worry about a catcher turning around in the middle of the game and telling them to shut up

[The Sheriff]

I have a new hero to pull for on the softball field next season. Let's go Kim Riker!! I know you can come through for us! Let USF fans enjoy their heckling... beat out Sarah Watson!

[PhantomI]

I was at the softball game that Sherrif came to. I have not problem with heckling other teams and making them frop balls, like the 2nd baseman did in the Houston game. But we've got to draw the line somewhere here Sherrif, I mean come one, down 6-0 in the 6th inning, did you really think we were gonna pull that off with the troubles we were having with our pitching and the ump's strike zone that he was calling. I also think you need to layoff Watson, she only said what the whole team was feeling, and I'm not talking about Houston. I happen to be friends with the majority of the softball team and not many of them wanted to hear you rant and rave while they were abuot to be ousted by the 8 run rule. Did you never stop and think about any of this.

    I'm not trying to knock your heckling, cause I enjoy it as well, in fact i leaned over to one of my friends and told him what your next sentence would be after the pitcher, I think her name was Crystal, through a strike. I told him you'd say "even a blind squirrel finds a nut eventually."...So you can't really argue that I'm not backing you, but I know when to keep my mouth shut....I mean, come on now, the only people laughing at you or supporting you were the 3 or 4 guys around you.....But hey, way to show some class.....I doubt if you don't show up to any more games that you'll be missed at all.

[Markeymark]

I heard this girl is a stud and could take over the everyday catching duties.

Stud:

• A male animal, such as a stallion, that is kept for breeding.
  
• A stable or farm where these animals are kept.
  
• A man regarded as virile and sexually active.
  
• A man regarded as attractive.
  

I was just wondering which of these definitions for "stud" were you using to describe the JUCO transfer?   :o

[dabull80]

If you think the Sheriff was a little overboard at the softball game you should have been in Cincinati for the Basketball tournament.  He and the possee where running wild and it was great.  Trust me it was a classic.

[Guest BasketBull.]

When a fan supports his team, his team should shut their pie hole and like it.

With the exception of golf, and maybe tennis during serves and points, no athlete has the right to say anything to the fans.

Way to go softball... Shut the Sheriff up, that'll increase your attendance.

[The Sheriff]

At that point in the 6th, we were down 6-1... and I had toned down a ton from when I got there in the 3rd and was letting the Coogs have it. We don't average seven runs a game for nothing... that game was do able until we got screwed on the force out at first were the girl dropped the ball yet the umps stuck it to us. Instead of bases loaded, we have one out and runners at 2nd and 3rd. It's hard to imagine our girls being out of a game, down by five with two innings to play with the bats we have. If the team really felt like that, it will not bother my conscious to miss games then when I can make it to Tampa. I don't cheer for quitters, and if a majority felt they were out of the game, tell me the minority so I can focus my attention on them as they represent what a full game is about! What people fail to forget is this is a Division IA sport... one notch below the best of the best level in every sport (Olympic softball being the best). If heckling is a problem for these girls, maybe they should resign to the library where they can have a little more quiet time.

My apologies to missing LeAnne's game on Sunday. I would have loved to go crazy for her.