Rowdy Athletes

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I'm wondering what people's thoughts are on the assault of a fan by pitcher Frank Francisco.

For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, Frank Franciscso is a professional baseball player, specifically a relief pitcher. As relief pitchers typically do, they wait in an area called the bullpen - typically somewhere next to the outfield stands - during the game and come in to play when needed.

Evidently, Francisco was being heckled by a group of fans, and he got so irritated that he picked up a folding chair and threw it into the crowd. The chair hit two people, including a woman who received a cut on her face and a broken nose from the incident.

Now, I'm not condoning Francisco's actions - clearly thowing a folding chair into the stands is not acting in a professional manner that all professional athletes are supposed to act towards the fans.

However, what I don't understand is this - why are fans who heckle ballplayers not thrown out of a stadium? Why do people who pay for a ticket think they can act anyway they'd like in a ballpark? Some will argue that they can because "we pay for these players salaries". This is a ridiculous arguement. As a consumer, you're always paying someone's salary. Heck, a simply can of soda makes money for the soda company, but a percentage of that costs goes to help pay the people's salary who work for the soda company, to the truck driver who brought it to the store. Everything you buy is paying someone's salary. Plus, if I get opera tickets, I can't stand up in the middle performance and yell at the performer - making reference to the loose morals of the performer's mother.

Your thoughts?

EDIT: Francisco has been charged with assault. In addition to the criminal charges, it is expected that the victim will bring a civil suit against Francisco as well.

[ September 15, 2004, 15:05: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

 

My thought?

That's nothing. Last weekends soccer match between ADO-the hague and Ajax-Amsterdam was way worse. The ADO supporters were singing (imagine a whole stadium singing) Hamass Hamass gass all the jews. Now Ajax is somehow linked to the jews but there is absolutely no reason to sing that. That wasn't all though, one of the players of Ajax is marrying a smalltime TVstar here in Holland and to that they sung that she was a whore and her mother was a whore. And so on and on the entire match.

Officials are now discussing turning on loud music to drown out the 'cheers'.

In england when a supporter doesn't behave he won't get in the stadium for over a year or more. Now that works but it seems that they only do that in England.

 

This reminds me of an incident a couple of years ago where footballer Eric Cantona playing for Manchester United jumpkicked a supporter from an opposing team who probably said something which hit right on the mark.

On the topic I think it is the audiences prerogative to heckle and try to make opposing players lose moral or get them off balance. These are professionals with astronomical salaries and they should be able to take any amount of abuse for the paycheck they get.

Edit to respont to Apeman's post: There should of course be a limit to what kind of abuse can be tolerated, racism and similar things have no place anywhere. Going after a girlfriend who happens to be somewhat famous is a borderline case in my opinion. As she already is famous she has in a way accepted to be a public figure and the drawbacks it may bring.

 

They are still human though and the way supporters treat these players isn't humane. A certain phrase shouted here and there shouldn't hurt anyone but to be the center of 20000 thousend people screaming to kill you and your future wife (not even talking about all the jews) goes to far.

 

It was another incident last year in a NY-Boston game where a Yankee fan was "teasing" a pither in the bullpen, so this pitcher stand up and tried to climb the wall to reach the spectator, police came in, solve the situation by taking the fan out of the ballpark; days after the fan took legal actions against the pitcher for "intent of agression"...
Violent ways has no excuses, if I don't like someone/something I am watching I can express that but I think I must have some respect for the other people who are watching and maybe they have another way to see things. If I don't like the performer because he's doing a terrible job I don't have the right to break his performance because surely the other 50000 people maybe are enjoying the show, I think the right thing to do is just get out if I don't like it, not to throw a chair to the poor guy.
There are some sport fans who are not fan anymore but "hooligans", in the local soccer league we have thousands of them, they throw anything they have at hand to umpires and the other team players, everytime you see a guy about to make a corner kick you see soda cans, spitings, shoes, etc., land around him just because he is in the other team. Paying the ticket doens't give you the right to do that, there's something that we call respect, those guys seems to not know what that is.

 

My point really is that fans at sporting events are given a free pass to do as they please. Yes, they are professional athletes, but it is the only profession that you are allowed to insult people while doing their job.

For example: I can't sit out on my front porch and yell to the postman as he comes by: "What, you're only carrying ONE big bag of mail instead of two? The postman down the street takes two. You SUCK! I should be getting my mail in half the time, but because you're such a wimp, I don't get my mail until the afternoon! Wimpy postman! You SUCK!"

Now, if I did that once, probably nothing would happen. If I attempted to do it every day for a year, I'd probably get a harrassment charge brought against me, or maybe even be cited for distrubing the peace.

The point I'm making is that there is a level of civility that you expect from your fellow people in the world when dealing with others, and that "unwritten law" seems not to exist when it comes to sporting events.