A Threefold 'Thank You' to Los Angeles
Dear Los Angeles: I'm Thankful For...
-thumb-110x110-213475.jpg)
A Photo Gallery of the Things I am Grateful for This Year
I LOVE L.A.! My Thanksgiving Thanks
10 Random Albums To Be Thankful For
Is Dodger Stadium as dangerous as they say? LAist/Jimmy Bramlett
Notable Notes
With the death of a fan at Angel Stadium during their opening day and the stabbing of a fan at the Dodger's home opener, Steve Mason and John Ireland have been talking about the issue of safety on their radio show on ESPN Radio AM 710. They have bandied about solutions such as more security in the parking lot to prevent drinking in the parking lots, getting rid of alcohol sales in the stadiums and even raising ticket prices to price the jerks out.
As a mini plan holder for the last several years to the cheap top deck seats at Dodger Stadium, not once have I felt in danger. Annoyed, maybe, but never fearing getting into a fight or dying. I get annoyed with the beach balls and the wave. As big of a potty mouth as I am, I cringe when I hear people cuss in the stands knowing there are kids around. Yeah there is the occasional fight the break out, and I have been in the middle of flying food but that is rare.
In fact the most unpleasant time I've ever had at the Stadium was when I sat in the field box seats on the first baseline. I was sitting right under the ledge of the loge section when someone let their half-eaten ice cream fall and land on my head. Boy was I hot, but an usher was right there and straightened out the situation quickly.
But call after call to the Mason and Ireland Show said how unsafe and dangerous Dodger Stadium is, and how they wish for the days when a baseball game was a family activity. I'd really like to know when that happened. Tales are rife back in the 1940s and 1950s of booze-inspired fights at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Even then Dodger manager Leo Durocher went into the stands in 1941 and knocked a heckling fan out allegedly with brass knuckles (Durocher was later acquitted on criminal charges).
I'm not completely naive - there are some jerks who can't handle their liquor and make for an unpleasant time - but I think they are few and far between. For the most part I've enjoyed going to games (apart from that ice cream incident). Even when jawing back and forth with the opposing teams' fans we'd shake hands at the end of the game and go our separate ways.
So what do you think? Am I alone on in think there aside from maybe some added security that there is nothing wrong in going to a Dodger game?
Tonight's Action
Utah Jazz at LA Lakers. Game 2 of the first round. 7:30 pm FSWest, TNT, AM 570 KLAC.
LA Dodgers at Houston Astros. Clayton Kershaw vs. Russ Ortiz. 5:05 pm KCAL 9, AM 790 KABC.
Detroit Tigers at LA Angels. Armando Galarraga vs. Jered Weaver. 7:05 pm FS Prime Ticket, AM 830 KLAA/AM 980 KFWB
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I think the first sentence pretty much sums up the situation, "...Angels fan dead..." "...Dodger (or Giants fan stabbed". All of this violence before 20 games are played. So yeah, obviously the security in the stadiums can be lacking.
FWIW, I never had any issues at Arrowhead Stadium or Kaufmann Field in Kansas City...not even a sideways glance. It could help that the OVERWHELMING majority of fans at the games were rooting for the home team vice Dodgers - Giants or Angels - A's where you could easily get "away fans".
I think there is a quite a bit of hooliganism here at SoCal stadiums (and yeah, I am sure that Boston and NYC can be pretty rough as well).
You've never felt in danger because you're a fan of the home team. Try being a fan of the visiting team at Dodger Stadium and you get a different perspective. I don't like going to Dodger Stadium; I expect the worst when I go there when the team I root for comes to town.
This is due to a bad experience my first time at Dodger Stadium, when the so-called Dodger fans were allowed to do and say as they pleased, including purposely spilling drinks and food on the visiting team's fans. But who was escorted out of the park? Yep, the visiting team's fans and not those causing the problem.
When I go to Dodger Stadium I stay in my seat, keep my mouth shut, and politely applaud when my team does well. I do nothing to attract attention of the malcontents calling themselves Dodgers fans.
You see this kind of asinine behavior in baseball more than football and basketball. Not sure about Hockey, but what is it about baseball fans that makes them such assholes???
I think hockey fans are usually quite pleasant, despite the violence associated with actually PLAYING the game. :-)
raising ticket prices to price the jerks out
Because all jerks are poor? Hardly. Is the idea that people will want to get their money's worth and actually watch the game quietly? No. People have different reasons for going and you'll always have jerks who go to fraternize with other jerks, drink, and start fights.
Banning alcohol sales is a bad idea for the parks. Hmm, spend an hour trying to park, pay for a ticket WAY up in the stands, pay $7 for a hotdog and not get any alcohol vs. staying home, watching the game, and having access to my own 6 pack for that same $7? They're charging $10 a pop per beer now. Obviously people are paying it. That's an insane mark up. They would loose so much revenue.
I'd be fine with extra security. I'd also be in favor of WAY more transportation options to prevent parking lot fights/road rage. And maybe DUI check points near the stadium on game days.
i think that is a very good point; i am very careful when the brewers are in town to make sure i am safe. i cheer; but never try to start anything with anyone.
you just never know at those games. i see a fight almost every time i go there. the worst was seeing the aftermath of what appeared to be more of a beating than a fight:
after a playoff game against the phillies, i saw a guy in a phillies jersey on a stretcher with a very bloody face getting wheeled out to an ambulance. the dodger fans yelled at him all the way to the ambulance "the phillies f***ing suck!"
classy, right?
i'm not sure policing the tailgating is going to help anything. if someone wants to get wasted before and during the game, they will.
Being a Dodgers fan in LA and an A's fan in LA of Anaheim, I've witnessed some poor sportsmanship in both stadiums. I'm not fortunate to have attended games in other places, and I would say that a lot of what I've witnessed hasn't been out of hand, and I've never felt unsafe in either place.
I think maybe some upped security may help, but raising ticket prices won't stop jerks from attending, not selling alcohol won't stop people from drinking.
Kind of incredible of the show's implication that people jerks are people with less money. While there probably is no significant correlation between politeness and money, in my experience the wealthy are the biggest d-bags.
But yea, I do not think it is the stadiums as much the society and the individuals acting within it that define how safe or not the sport is. And back in the day things were definitely rougher.
Thank y'all for your input especially the fans of opposing teams. The only time I've ever been to a game when I'm not a fan of the home team was when I went to a White Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium last year. I'm not particularly a fan of either team and didn't wear any Dodger paraphernalia. Although after talking with the folks around me, I told them I'm a Dodgers fan and we started talking baseball and Joe Torre.
But that's neither here nor there.
One of my friends went to a Mets/Dodgers playoffs game and said they were just throwing out Mets fans like it was for they're own safety.
Had other friends go there for Mets/Dodgers regular reason and they were getting screamed at in the outfield the entire game.
I've never had that experience. A little heckling if I'm rooting for an opposing team, but if you don't do anything to attract attention to yourself, there's usually no problems.
It really comes down to personal responsibility. If you're going to drink, don't act like an idiot, don't start yelling at people, and you won't get into fights, EVEN if other people are starting it first.
Of course, asking people to be responsible for themselves is an awfully tall order, unfortunately.
Bring back $2 Tuesdays :)
This type of behavior is to be expected at any sporting event where fans of both teams are not segregated. College football is the only sport where fans of the visiting team are assigned seats in a separate section.
I am a lifelong Dodgers fan, and I have not attempted to follow my team to a visiting stadium specifically because I do not want to be treated like visiting fans at Dodger Stadium. I don't condone the incorrigible behavior but to expect otherwise is just plain naive.
I'm surprised that Mason & Ireland would suggest raising ticket prices to price out the riffraff becayse the exponential surge of ticket prices has led to the kind of behavior they now bemoan. Fans, who pay these exorbitant prices to be a spectator, feel compelled to get their money's worth, which typically means being obnoxious and abrasive to their surrounding spectators.
Let's face it. The ballpark is merely a microcosm of society, and that's the depressing part. Sure, I would love to go to Dodger Stadium and feel all the nostalgia of my childhood, but like the stadium, the world isn't what it was like when I was young.
When I lived in Oakland, I used to attend a lot of A's games wherein the coliseum had a very strict zero-tolerance policy.
At the first sign of trouble a line of security guards would descend on the troublemakers and summarily escort them out of the park.
No questions asked just out stadium, into their cars and escorted off the coliseum property.
As fans, we loved it because we always felt assured that we could bring our friends and families out for a wonderful day of baseball without any petty annoyances.
If you think that Dodgers Stadium is the only place that fans of the opposing team get heckled you're crazy. Also I've seen lots of of "hecklees" eat it up and ask for more.
It can get it out of hand no doubt. When I've seen it get out that way it doesn't seem that hard to get it taken care of. On two different occasions that I've seen involving some jerk splashing or throwing a drink, the jerk got removed by nothing more than the word of the opposing team fan. (And by the way, one occasion was in the cheap seats and the other was in the $60-$70 section.)
It is a drag that things ever even get THAT obnoxious, but I really don't associate it only with LA.
If you think that Dodgers Stadium is the only place that fans of the opposing team get heckled you're crazy. Also I've seen lots of of "hecklees" eat it up and ask for more.
It can get it out of hand no doubt. When I've seen it get out that way it doesn't seem that hard to get it taken care of. On two different occasions that I've seen involving some jerk splashing or throwing a drink, the jerk got removed by nothing more than the word of the opposing team fan. (And by the way, one occasion was in the cheap seats and the other was in the $60-$70 section.)
It is a drag that things ever even get THAT obnoxious, but I really don't associate it only with LA.
I'm a top-deck fan--it's like the a-holes are turned off by the stairs. Every time I've had a less than pleasant experience at the stadium, it was when I was in more expensive seats. Thrown food in the loge, fights in the reserve, insults thrown around at the field level. It's like they feel more entitled to be asses the more they pay, or less they have to go from their car to their seat.
The stadium needs to do something about the amount of pre-game drinking that goes on outside the stadium, because simply banning alcohol sales won't do. Think about the pavilions. They also have to have a better screening when you walk into the stadium, and beef up their presence in the stadium. You can now text-tattle, but they should be aware of things before there's a complaint.
With all that said, the top deck sucks, and you never want to sit there. View's awful, stairs will give you a coronary, and the food isn't good.
They need more security and they need to get on people as soon as they start causing problems.
Also, I'd like to know why there are Angelenos who don't cheer for one of the home teams. Why is that?