A crisp mid-winter breeze rustled through the clipped green grass of the outfield. The sun peeked through the clouds and reflected off the waggling aluminum bat as the pitcher curled into his stretch.-

And then incivility punctured the serenity at Hornet Field.-

“His stomach’s crowding the plate!” yelled one fan from behind the backstop.-

“God forbid he hits a home run, he’ll never make it around the bases!” shouted another farther down the third base line.–

The comments were being directed at Michael “Tucker” Vasquez, the rotund designated hitter for California State University, Stanislaus, Sac State’s opponent this February afternoon.-

Vasquez is 5-foot-8 and quite generously listed at 235 pounds.-After Vasquez failed to leg out a grounder, another fan added, “Next time, just roll him down to first!” The verbal abuse resumed every time Vasquez stepped out of the dugout.–

Granted, the most extreme vulgarity on display at Hornet Field emanated from its usual spot atop the parking garage overlooking the outfield, where off-season football players and other assorted meatheads park their SUVs and scream obscenities at anyone who isn’t shirtless and wearing their baseball cap backwards.–

However, some of the most malicious comments came from a small crowd gathered on the aluminum bleachers. It came from students, parents and boosters, who should know better.–

Civility and obscenity have always meshed uneasily in the world of baseball — it’s a leisurely lawn- game played with the spikes up — but something seemed particularly harsh and unnecessary about the verbal beating Vasquez took.–

Vasquez isn’t a professional baseball player sleepwalking his way through a long-term contract. Nor is he an egomaniacal pro basketball player eating himself out of the league while cashing a huge paycheck, a la Shawn Kemp or Oliver Miller.-

-He doesn’t play for a rival school like Davis, or a snooty opponent such as Berkeley. He doesn’t even play for a divisional rival, because Sac State baseball went independent this season.-

-Tucker Vasquez is simply an overweight 24-year-old amateur from Gilroy, Calif. who wants to play baseball.–

And by all accounts, Vasquez is a pretty good baseball player. He went 3-for-8 with one RBI in the series against the Hornets, and leads his team in home runs despite a recent slump.–

The scene at Hornet Field hardly qualifies as the ugliest fan behavior I’ve ever witnessed firsthand. I’ve seen an entire stadium of Oakland A’s fans scream bloody murder at the sight of Jason Giambi in pinstripes. I’ve seen bottles hurled onto the playing floor at Kings games. I’ve seen Raiders fans vandalize and urinate on a Jeep with a Broncos decal on it.–

A few fat jokes seem almost warm and cozy by comparison. Unlike the Sac State-Stanislaus game, though, those incidents occurred at pro sporting events involving passionate rivalries that were attended by tens of thousands of juiced-up fans.–

The verbal abuse that Tucker Vasquez endured from the sparse crowd at Hornet Field, however, was crudeness for the sake of crudeness, and wholly unnecessary.

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