TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Tempests in Teapots

Baseball's Misplaced Security Concerns

One of my favorite scenes in the movie "The Blues Brothers" is where the band, masquerading as The Good Old Boys, shows up at Bob's Country Bunker and finds that the stage is covered with chicken wire. Why? When they start to play a song the crowd hates, they find out: because the crowd throws bottles and garbage at them when they are displeased. Then they switch to a C&W set that the crowd really likes, and the crowd responds by throwing bottles and garbage.

We live in deeply paranoid times, in which the great mass of people are automatically suspected -- nay, assumed guilty -- of the worst motives. Texas reliever Frank Francisco couldn't put up with some heckling in Oakland and threw a chair into the stands (surrounded by his own team-mates) which broke a woman's nose. Let's just get this very clear: in response to mere words, a baseball player assaulted a fan. There have been other incidents with whacko fans, but just as many with whacko players. Considering the number of games a year, given that on-field incidents of fighting between players vastly outnumber incidents involving fans, it's a remarkably small number of incidents where fans initiate the violence. And virtually all of them are associated with alcohol consumption.

So let's look at all the violence that happens at ballparks that involves players, counting on-field brawls, the majority is inititated by players. Not fans.

So what's the reaction from the baseball community? Why -- you have to keep those pesky fans as far away from us millionaires as possible!

Here's what Jayson Stark says:

"There's no such thing as too much security."

Yes, Jayson, there is. It's called a police state.

"But we need to protect all these folks from themselves -- and from each other. There is no better way to do that than to assign real security, and lots of it, to any areas of the ballpark where fans are right on top of players. Bullpens. Dugouts. Whereever.

What passes for security in some parks is absurd. A middle-aged woman in a blue usher's suit is no deterrent. A tough-looking guy in a blue, policeman-like suit works a lot better. A dozen tough-looking guys is way, way, way better."

Who are "these folks"? It's the PLAYERS who started this brawl!

Why not just have background screening checks for everybody who can purchase a box seat? Fingerprinting?

To be fair, Stark makes some good suggestions, but at the heart of this is a mistrust of the fans.

Here's what Joe Morgan says:

"One of the problems with the older stadiums is that the bullpens are exposed. Most of the bullpens at newer stadiums are not as close to the fans, so confrontations between fans and visiting players are less likely. At Oakland's Network Coliseum, the stands are right on top of the bullpen.

"Monday night, the players and fans were far too close."

Buck Showalter, Francisco's manager, said that the heckling was "over the line" that night. I'm not sure what that means. he also said the fans were too close to the players.

I could go on citing examples.

I'm not going to defend yahoos of fans, nor anybody who disrupts things by throwing stuff on the field, whether it's paper cups or fisticuffs.

If MLB wanted to solve this "problem", just cut off alcohol sales altogether. They'd never do that, because they'd lose too much money. Of course, there wasn't a beer vendor in the Texas bullpen the other night.

What's going on here is that the extremely well-paid people in the sport are so divorced from their fans, and so whipped up by paranoia, that they have seized on an incident where the blame lay squarely with the player, and have used it as an excuse to further separate fans from the players and action. That kind of call for removing fans further away from the players, for having a screen of security -- whether in person or in the form of barbed wire -- is unwarranted either by this incident or the preponderance of evidence of good behavior by fans at the vast majority of ballparks and games.

That's the mentality of a police state. The first reaction to any incident is "more security, more distance". It's already a hassle to go to the ballgame these days, with security checks at the gate, the disingenuous no backpack policies at many ballparks, restricted movements during the games, and a wall of security people blocking the action down below while ushers fail to enforce simple rules of courtesy (like not getting up in a row in the middle of a play) that would make the game more enjoyable for everybody.

And again, baseball seems to have no perspective. In the NBA, fans are inches away from the players. They heckle them mercilessl -- just ask Spike Lee what he says. There are few to no violent incidents, perhaps because the players themselves rarely fight. We won't get into the strange dynamic of hockey, where fighting is a tolerated part of the game and fans are already walled off from the players, and where occasionally a player does go up into the stands after a fan (but not the other way around, to my recent recollection).

Baseball's worst problem with violence remains fighting on the field. Until they step up and put on a zero tolerance policy on fighting on the field, this call for "security" that plays to the paranoia of the elites on the field is pure hypocrisy.

posted by The Crank 10:16 AM