Red Sox Nation had another shining moment last night at Fenway. Gary Sheffield went for a ball in the right field corner and a front row drunken idiot took a swipe at Sheffield’s face. Sheffield gave the guy a quick push and threw the ball back and immediately went at the guy but didn’t throw another punch. A park security guard jumped in between them and it was diffused.
First, let’s take a step back when two Red Sox managers got thrown out of the game. First it was one of Terry’s coaches, Ron Jackson, and then Terry himself. Getting throw out is fine, and arguing with the umpire is fine, but that nonsense from Jackson, with physically being restrained and carrying on like a steroid induced rage, is uncalled for. I like a good fight as much as the next guy, but only when I am expecting it. When I watch a baseball game or go to a game, I don’t want to see that crap. One day soon I am going to start taking my kids to games and the last thing I want them to watch is highly skilled and highly paid adults acting like 3 year olds. I don’t want my kids to see someone doing crack or selling drugs. I know they will understand those things one day, but as little kids there are some things that they don’t need to know about. And when I take them to watch the excitement of a major league baseball game, I don’t want them to see people who are viewed as authority figures having to be restrained and yelling EFF THIS and EFF THAT. I want them to see great baseball.
And then we had Chris House, a fan from Boston, take a swipe at Gary Sheffield. Once again the fans at Fenway, and its not all fans, sometimes it’s actual employees, cross the line and physically attack a Yankee player. I saw the incident live last night and about 30 times this morning on every single channel. While it wasn’t an Ultimate Fighting Challenge tryout, it was clearly a shot at the player. The guy was drunk (of course), stupid (he is a Red Sox fan) and tried to get a cheap shot in (again, a Red Sox fan). He didn’t try to knock out Sheffield but what he did was wrong. Gary, in turn, shouldn’t have went at the guy right away either. It was not as the CNN idiot-anchor said a “round house punch”, but it was uncalled for too. But it was a knee-jerk reaction and I probably would have done the same. This morning I saw CNN, Headline News, Fox News, NESN and the Today Show, as well as every local TV news program, describe the incident. As you can image it went from the guy did nothing wrong and Sheffield should be arrested (local programming) to Sheffield should be commended for showing restraint, which is crazy because taking a shot at the guy is not my definition of restraint.
This was an ugly incident but two things contributed. The first is the layout of Fenway. The fans are on top of the players and that is part of the charm. I love going to Fenway because, even with the terrible and uncomfortable seats, it’s a great place to see a game. The other thing is that typical Red Sox fans have no idea how to act when they are outside the confines of the group home most of them live in. When you take a third grade education level, throw in a typical day of drinking beer for breakfast, add the mob mentality of getting of the green line and walking toward Fenway, and combine that with the classless way of handling success, and lets be honest, Red Sox fans are not used to being considered winners, throw all these things together and you’ll get what happened last night. Thanks God it didn’t turn into a Ron Artist (another SJU guy, thank you) thing or what happened last year with the MLB player tossing a chair into the stands, but it was still embarrassing.
Doug Flutie. That's another thing. I like Doug Flutie as much as the next guy, but the guy is a stud around Boston, has a ton of money, is good looking, is a great athlete, and I have to watch him with his unbelievable seats catch fly ball after fly ball. Ugh. I think they should take every foul ball that get hit and instead of handing them to those rich kids who get to sit in the 250 dollar seats, have someone walk up to the cheap seats (ha, cheap, at fenway, I meant to say the less-ridiculously priced seats) and give them to the kids whose parents are Herald delivery people or Post Office employees or HVAC union members. Kids whose parents take them to one or two games a year because it’s a huge amount of money and they can barely afford the 25 dollar obstructed view seats. Give those kids the foull balls instead of the little spoiled brat of a Fleet executive who has a better seat than I’ll ever see.
Thank you, rant over.