Vuvuzela craze spreads to American baseball

Get your ear plugs ready, the Vuvuzela is going global. 

The Florida Marlins baseball team handed out free horns to the first 15,000 fans through the gate for their game with the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday.                                           

Not surprisingly, as anyone who has watched a World Cup match would know, the result was a night of constant, vibrating noise.

While the young fans brandishing the mini-version of the South African plastic horn enjoyed the fun, the players were not amused.

"This isn't soccer," Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla, who wore earplugs, told MLB.com.                                           

"I know the World Cup is going on, but this is baseball. We don't want to hear horns or anything like that. We want to hear the crowd cheering. We want to hear the crowd getting behind us, not horns," he said.  

The Marlins, who often struggle to draw good crowds, frequently put on bands and other attractions on Saturdays.                                           

"We try to create either a sound or visual giveaway," said Marlins' vice president of marketing Sean Flynn. "This is probably the loudest item we've had."