The Loud Monied Crowd

The Star.com - The Loud Monied Crowd

News from the tennis tournament:

"THE LOUD MONIED CROWD: The problem of executive-suite noise during games has become such an issue that umpires have had to verbally single out those attendees during matches.

In one Monday night Rogers Cup match, the umpire was heard saying: 'Quiet please, especially those in the private boxes,' which drew cheers from the crowd. And during Serena Williams' Tuesday night match, one official with the tournament noted incessant chatter about things totally unrelated to tennis, coming from two people in the adidas suite."

Apparently the loud noise is not coming from drunks in the nose bleed bleachers like at most professional sports events. Instead the noise is coming from the rich who insist on talking about anything but tennis that causes the umpires to stop the match.

Um...if that happenned at Yankee Stadium or SkyDome (I know it has been renamed the Rogers Centre, but come on!) the baseball games would never take place. This isn't golf where a shot is worth a million bucks. This is tennis where the players make loud grunting noises in order to smack a furry rubber tennis ball back and forth. If you are appearing before 15,000 fans and are expecting to make moucho dinarios then get used to some noise from the crowd. The crowd, after all, does pay the tickets which, in turn, pay for that large cheque the players receive at the end of the tournament. Besides, this is only the Rogers Cup, not hoady toady Wimbeldon!

Dave Winfield in the 1990s had it right...MAKE SOME NOISE!