Safety at the ballpark

The San Francisco Giants fan that was brutally beaten in LA by Dodger's "fans" has struck a deep chord with me.  I posted this story on Facebook last year, but I thought I would talk about it again here.  Jana, Clara, and I went to New York City last summer and I planned the trip to coincide with a Mariners game that was to be played at Yankee Stadium.  The trip got off to a bad start as we witnessed two men fighting on the subway right when we initially arrived.  On the third day of our trip, in a crowded subway, a young boy (12 to 14) bumped into a larger older man.  The man turned around and went after the young boy and verbally attacked him for bumping into him.  We did meet some nice people in Central Park and at dinner at Mickey Mantle Restaurant. 

We went to Yankee Stadium on the second day that we were there and as soon as we arrived people were verbally attacking me for wearing an Ichiro! tshirt.  As we went to our seat people booed and yelled profanity at me.  I kept my head down and tried my best to ignore the angry words.  Jana, Clara, and I sat down in our $40 a piece seats in right field just before the game was to begin.  It was cool during the first inning the fans around us chanted each players name until they acknowledged them.  I could tell that these were good fans that knew and cared about baseball.



Our view from our right field seats.  Ichiro! is about to leadoff with a Homerun

 Then Ichiro! led off with a home run off of Javier Vasquez.  (Here's the box score) I was so excited that I stood up and clapped for Ichiro! as he hit the home run very close to where we were sitting.  Fans started yelling terrible things at me and told me to sit down.  I did as I was with my family and did not want to put them in danger.  Then two batters later Russel "the muscle" Branyan hit a solo homer over our heads into the upper deck in right field.  I again stood and clapped.  The fans around me said more terrible things and told me to sit down.  A fan sitting behind Jana said that they were going to beat up my family after the game.  I said that we are not going to be intimidated and that we were going to stay at the game.  I decided I wouldn't stand up again or clap if the Mariners do anything good again.  The Yankees scored 4 runs in the bottom of the first to go up by 2 which actually kind of relieved me as I thought this might calm them down.  The next inning was pretty uneventful as neither team scored.  Jana said the guy kept talking to his buddy about how he was going to kick my a-- after the game though.  In the third inning, Ichiro! again homered to right field and I, while sitting, again took a bunch of abuse.  The Mariners then got some runners on base and scored another run to tie the game up.  This led to the fans in the whole stadium to start chanting a--hole to Vazquez.  Clara (2 at the time) decided to join in.  Jana said that the fans were very loudly talking about what they were going to do to us so I decided we had had enough.  We left the game through 2 and a half innings, $120 down the drain. 

I don't think that those guys would have beaten us up after the game, but it definitely wasn't a good environment to have my family at.  I worry about taking my family to sporting events and it makes me sad.  I wonder how sports are going to continue to grow if other families have come to worry about the safety of their family and the environment they are exposing the youngest members too.  Even if we were not wearing opposing team's gear at the game it still was not an appropriate place to have a child.  I don't want Clara to come home saying some of the words that were coming out of these people's mouths or to learn the total lack of sportsmanship that some of these fans exhibited.  I'm going to take Clara to a Nats game this year because luckily a lot of the loudmouths are fairweather fans and probably won't show up to watch a bad baseball team.  I just hope we don't have to leave another sporting event early again.