Baseballhead:
Media vs. Fans

Michael Cox

Welcome to freshness-dated version of Baseballhead, the column that worries about whether buying an SUV turns you into an Ugly American who interrupts other nations' customs like the guy on the Honda Passport commercials.

Before we get to the meat of the column, I've noticed that folks are still talking about Ivan Rodriguez' amazing AL MVP victory. Since this column deferred the post-award analysis to our other Strikethree.com scribes, it hasn't yet been mentioned here, and I thought I could get away with letting others speak for me.

However, there's one glaring omission from all the arguments I've seen. Sure, I could easily accept the theory that "Pudge II" somehow "slipped through the cracks" after the more idiotic sportswriters felt they had a sacred duty to keep a pitcher out of the MVP. However, one thing is utterly, totally wrong: Seven guys gave Rodriguez first-place votes, or more than any other player except Pedro Martinez.

Seven guys thought Rodriguez was individually, specifically better than Manny Ramirez, Roberto Alomar, Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra, even though the guys who cover the Rangers agreed that teammate Rafael Palmeiro had a better season than Rodriguez.

And as for the theory that pitchers don't deserve the MVP because they only pitch in 20% of their team's games, Dave Paisley used actual facts to disprove that fallacy a year and a half ago (so long ago, in fact, that the page is colored with our original "eyestrain blue"). Maybe baseball writers should get out more.

Now we move on to the second part of our 1999 recap, in which I carefully select random things that stood out in the past season. This time I ask you to recall Game Four of the AL Championship Series, pitting the Red Sox against their mortal enemies from the Bronx within the not-so-friendly confines of Fenway Park. Long story short, a perceived slight on the part of the game's umpires resulted in beer cups and paper cascading from the stands.

The game was stopped, and players feared for their lives. The funny thing was, according to the grounds crew, nothing was tossed that could have conceivably injured anyone, barring congenital susceptibility to paper cuts.

Let's go back even further, to the fan in Milwaukee who ran on the field and briefly rode the Astros' Bill Spiers like a horsey, before he was pummeled senseless by Spiers' teammates and arrested. The little-known fact was that the fan was just trying to be clever, and through his beer goggles thought Spiers was a member of the home team -- he was just hoping to put a playful headlock on the guy.

Of course, players and media everywhere were stunned as if it was the Monica Seles stabbing all over again.

A long series of columns on how this country is going to hell in a handbasket followed, with Fox's Chris Myers using his "Goin' Deep" program to press that point. Probably the capper for me was an Adrian Wojnarowski column in ESPN.com -- a "thinkpiece" that concluded as follows:

...With bellies of beer and fits of frustration taking over, it's hard to see our pastime as a pleasant escape anymore. These days, it's center stage for our fury, and most frightening of all this October is that, perhaps, we haven't seen anything yet.

What a godawful crock.

He then went on to pass judgment on the fans who cheered in Philly when Michael Irvin was flattened, forgetting four things:

1. The fans didn't know Irvin was paralyzed, or could be, or that he was anything but just down, and remember that football's attraction to fans has always been based on violent flattening of opponents.

2. This is Philadelphia we're talking about. There's a long tradition that makes that last sentence humorous.

3. Michael Irvin is a member of the Dallas Cowboys, possibly the most reviled team in pro sports.

4. Irvin is a convicted felon. Of course, you would never know that from reading ESPN.com, where his bio includes the fun fact "Appears in 'Stay In School,'" but nowhere mentions that he was convicted in a court of law after being caught red-handed with what police said were "plates full of drugs," or that appearing in "Stay in School" was part of his court-mandated community service.

But I digress.

You can find file footage from almost any decade you choose that features crowds reenacting Civil War battles on the field, or showering it with debris. Players and umpires have been attacked, and hecklers have yelled things at players that construction crews ought not to hear, much less the kids in attendance. The legendary attack on a fan by Hall of Famer Ty Cobb was instigated by the fan, who mercilessly heckled Cobb until the great hitter could take no more.

Fans at Yankee Stadium and Shea have long been known for tossing both obscenities and AA batteries. Streakers were common at games in the '70s. The Yankees' own fans mobbed Chris Chambliss, preventing him from scoring on his series-winning homer in the 1976 ALCS (fortunately, the run still counted due to the fan interference rule). Wally Joyner was hit (but fortunately not stuck) by a pocket knife thrown from the upper deck in 1986.

Does the historical existence of the same behavior excuse it now? Absolutely not. Fans who throw stuff that could injure someone are idiots. However, sportswriters who think this is somehow due to the resurgence of pro wrestling or Rage Against the Machine videos are just as clueless.

Therefore, I propose locking the moron writers in a steel cage with the idiot battery-tossing fans. Maybe they'll talk it out. Maybe they won't. Look for it on pay-per-view.

about the author

Michael Cox can see it now: the guy who tackled Spiers versus the writers who voted for Pudge Rodriguez in a no-holds-barred slugfest. Offer to tell the skeptics it would be great " 'cause Stone Cold said so," when you write him at mc@strikethree.com.