Last night, the Angels encouraged their fans to do a #LightWave during the game.

What is that? Apparently it’s asking fans to use their lights on their phones to distract the opposing batter. It happened last night when Stephen Vogt was at the plate with the bases loaded. And fans followed through on that. It started last month and it’s just silly.

Here is what it looked like last night. It’s not a great video, but here is another one of what it does look like.

Shining lights during a game is no new occurence in baseball. You can find stories of it here, here and here. And of course the same thing happened to the Angels themselves a couple years back, but they won’t want you to remember it.

The A’s responded to it this morning on social media.

But what do we make of this? Fans distracting players during the game is normal. But where do you draw the line in what you can and can’t do? Especially for the #LightWave, it’s actually not safe.

Look at the previous incidents noted, those times the umpires and officials have told the individual to stop. But can you make thousands of people stop it from doing it all at once? The reason why it’s a safety issue is because not only is it a major distraction, but if a player is momentarily blinded, a ball could hit him. It’s dangerous. Try locating a white ball in a bed of bright white lights. A pitch high an inside could seriously hurt someone.

It’s also pretty pathetic that the Angels would encourage their fans to do this. Whatever happened to being loud? Well, then again, Angels fans are one of the quietest fan bases in baseball (from the games I have attended). They don’t know how to be loud. Resorting to things like this is really shameful.

Sadly tonight as the series will continue, the fans will once again resort to this. I have no issue with distracting the opposition. But when a team encourages fans to do something that could risk the safety of the players, then it’s a major problem.