Outrageous conduct by players and fans mars sports

The year 2004 will go down as one in which new levels of incivility were reached in American spectator sports on at least three fronts.
Sept. 13, Texas Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco hurled a plastic chair into the right field seats after fans near the Rangers bullpen began heckling the team during Texas' loss to the Oakland A's. The chair struck a woman and broke her nose. Her husband had been heckling; she had not. Francisco got a 15-game suspension.
Last week there were two ugly incidents. The brawl last Saturday on a college football field would have been bigger news if it hadn't been overshadowed by the near-riot at Detroit Pistons-Indianapolis Pacers basketball game the night before.
The fight broke out in the fourth quarter of Clemson's 29-7 victory over South Carolina and marred the retirement of one of the sport's most respected coaches, Lou Holtz. The 67-year-old coach was in the middle of the melee, trying to get his team under control after dozens of players left their benches to join in the fight. One player was seen pushing a state policeman out of the way to go after an opponent.
Overshadowed by events
It was an ugly scene to be sure, but not nearly as ugly as that of just 24 hours earlier in the Pistons arena. It began with Ron Artest, a Pacers player who was suspended six times last season, an apparent testament to the failure of anger-management counseling he was required to undergo.
Artest fouled Ben Wallace of the Pistons, who responded with a shove. As tempers flared, a fan threw a cup of beer at Artest, and he went into the stands swinging. Two other players joined him. And just as the chair Francisco threw into the stands in Oakland didn't hit a heckling fan, Artest punched a guy who didn't throw the beer.
The response to these outrages has varied. Francisco got a relative slap on the wrist, a 15-game suspension.
Andrew Sorensen and James Barker, the presidents of South Carolina and Clemson, respectively, reacted swiftly and harshly, announcing that neither team would be permitted to accept a bowl bid this year. That sends a strong message to every college player in the nation.
And NBA Commissioner David Stern reacted by suspending Artest for the rest of the season a 72-game suspension that will cost him almost $5 million. Stern also suspended the Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal for 25 games and Stephen Jackson for 30 games.
The reaction within the NBA and from some commentators has been skewed toward the players, making them out to be the victims.
But while the behavior of the fans was boorish and perhaps even reckless, players going into the stands simply cannot be tolerated. These suspensions are severe enough to send that message and should stand.
Crackdown on fans
At the same time, assaults by fans on players obviously cannot be tolerated. But that's what the criminal courts are for. There is no reason why a fan who throws something at a player should not be charged with criminal assault.
And just as players going into the stands cannot be tolerated, fans going onto the field of play should be forbidden. A fan should not only be ejected from the game, but should face forfeiture of season tickets and be barred from the arena or stadium -- for a season if appropriate, for life, if warranted.
But those are just stopgap measures. What is needed is something that no commissioner, judge or team owner can enforce. It is a change in attitude.
Players have to stop believing that they are entitled to behave any way they want simply because they are overpaid men playing boys' games. And fans have to realize that having the price of a ticket entitles them to enjoy watching a game -- little more. There has always been something unseemly about an overweight fan who couldn't bend over to pick up a ball without bending at the knees calling an outfielder who lost a ball in the sun a bum. Or a fan wearing glasses the thickness of bottle bottoms questioning the eyesight of a referee who can read the eighth line of an eye chart at 50 paces.
And finally, all sports franchises are going to have to look at their policies regarding beer sales. If a flight attendant or a bartender knows when to tell a patron that enough is enough, so must ballpark beer vendors. It is to no one's advantage to have drunks in the stands. They are loud, they are obnoxious, they're an annoyance and a distraction.
The thousands who pay to watch a game would be happy to see the minority who come to stadium or arena to get drunk being escorted out.