[greymule]

Until sometime in the 1950s, even the MLB players got on opposing players a lot, though it was a little more sophisticated than "hey, batter, batter." Richie Ashburn said the insults were constant: the other team was the enemy. So the banter was still going strong when I played in the 1960s. As I remember, most games were a torrent of abuse from both sides; Legion had the most, college the least, but still plenty. Clever, humorous remarks were the most prized. Of course, any opposing player worth his salt wasn't supposed to notice.

But there were bounds: no names, nothing really personal, mostly stuff like, "Are you swingin' it, or is it swingin' you?" "You're bringin' in a reliever? You mean you've actually got somebody worse?" and other such clever digs. You could call the opposing pitcher a short-order cook (one of our guys called every opposing pitcher that), but not the names you hear on prime-time network comedies today.

But that's all gone now. It's discouraged to the point of prohibition in school ball, and I have noticed very little in the college games I've seen. The only exception might be girls' fast-pitch, where they make up cheers that include chants like, "Three and two, pitch, what'cha gonna do pitch? Walk, walk, walk!" But somehow those cheers don't come across as hostile.

One footnote: We have a local slow pitch league virtually all of whose players are from the same ethnic background and culture. The players toss insults at each other the entire game and constantly try to outdo the last guy. From what I understand, this has been going on for generations. It's not trash talk, just silly stuff like picking on the color of some guy's shoes. I admit they are pretty funny sometimes. But that's what everybody expects, and nobody ever seems to mind.