Fansmanship gone all wrong

In 2003, I was a senior in college. I assumed the story my Giant-fan friend told me was just a wives tale.

“I’m never going to Dodger Stadium. A Giants fan got shot in the parking lot there,” he said. I scoffed at the assertion. I call Dodger Stadium the happiest place on Earth. It turns out that, for me at least, Disneyland is third behind Chavez Ravine and probably the Staples Center. But I digress.

AT&T Park is known for being a beautiful stadium, close to the ocean. On Wednesday night, there was tragedy only a few blocks away. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

When I found out that the shooting story at the Dodger Stadium parking lot was true, I tried to rationalize it. Any big city has thugs and when you are consistently atop the league in attendance, one out of three million people who walk through the turnstiles probably won’t be the best guy in the world, no matter the fan base.

Over the past few years, Brian Stowe was beaten within an inch of his life in the Dodger Stadium parking lot and this week a guy with a group of Dodger fans was stabbed to death outside AT&T Park in San Francisco, presumably after a fan-based altercation.

I want to say so, so much about this. I want to slap any Dodger fan who wants to get in an actual fight. I want to say sorry for the times I laughed in the late 90’s at Dodger Stadium when I saw unsuspecting Giants fans get pelted with peanuts and not-so-empty cups of beer and soda. I am at a loss for what kind of fan behavior is acceptable and where the line actually is. It certainly has to be drawn well before stabbings and beatings are on the acceptable side.

Wherever the invisible line is, it has to allow for fans to do things like vehemently boo their hated rivals — there was nothing more fun than sitting down the left field line in a game where the Dodgers were playing Barry Bonds and the Giants.

I don’t want to be singing Kumbaya and holding hands at a game with someone in orange and black, either. I love to try to get under the skin of fans of other teams, especially when those teams come from northern California. A little good-natured trash talk can be fun. But this is insane.

In a game where “unwritten rules” have received so much attention this season, especially in Los Angeles, we are continuing to learn something about the unwritten rules of fansmanship.

With social media, there probably isn’t anything I can say that hasn’t already been said, as Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts put it so nicely:

I can’t imagine there’s any perspective to offer about the San Francisco stabbing incident that 99 percent of you don’t already know.

— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) September 26, 2013

Weisman is right. We all know better. And it makes me crazy.