HaHaHa! That Guy From The Basketball Brawl Was Awesome On The Today Show. He Kept Holding Up His New CD!!

I just read this aloud to the office. It's funny cuz it's true.

All this is above and beyond, of course, the normal caveat that no, nobody should hit anybody, blah blah blah, players get paid to work under pressure and should control themselves, blah blah blah, but still. More moral outrage is being directed toward players (who basically gave certain fans what they were looking for) than toward a big brewing bag-of-dicks of fans and people who are meant to be controlling them.

Hopefully, the NBA's investigation will involve the filing of criminal charges against the dick-baggers over the next week, and perhaps some regulation re: the sales of alcohol at public events. And then I would like to see world peace, cold fusion, non-condescending red/blue gap-bridging from the Bush administration, and a smokeless ashtray that actually works.

The point is, lots of athletes in lots of sports have had lots of things thrown at them, most of them far more potentially harmful than beer and plastic cups. And yet, you don't see players going into the stands all the time. I also don't understand why the players were even on the court. In baseball, they would have been sent off the field and refused to play until security settled things down. That's exactly what happened in Game 6 of the ALCS this year -- golf balls were being thrown, the players were sent off, the crowd was warned, and extra security was put on the field. Simple. But last Friday, you had chaos reigning on the court, Jackson threatening to take on the entire Pistons bench, and Artest lounging on the scorers table (a clear taunt against the opposing players and the fans nearby). The damage done to the NBA's rep may be incalculable.

Just wait until the lockout next year.

The few times there's been negative player/fan interaction in pro sports (in North America), it's been because the fans egged the players on in a locale where the players could GET to the fans before security got involved (cf. that Dodgers cap incident a few years ago, Tie Domi dragging a jackass fan into the penalty box).

As for the NBA's rep, David Stern got a lot (all?) of the credit for cleaning up the league's drug hoodlum image 20+ years ago, but now it seems that the league is back in the same dire straits, due in no small part to the invasive nature of the 24/7 sports media - he should be in line for the blame as well. So now there's drug abuse, spousal abuse, infidelity, rape accusations, and anger management issues running and dunking (& bricking) all over the place, but with a sanctioned shade of pig lipstick liberally applied to hide any "serious" blemishes and keep the fannies from feeling guilty for tuning in. It's fantastic!

We can only hope.

To a degree, you're quite right, Nabisco. Fans are complicit in the degregation and exploitation of players, but while flamboyance is compelling it's not nearly as essential as greatness. There are just way too many examples of players who bring great game without the punk attitude. And as for inspiring boorish behavior by fans, well, I'm not sure which is the fire and which is the gas. And as to the racial component, it's seems pretty complicated given the incidiery nature of even bringing it up.

FWIW, baseball fans have gone on the field multiple times, including a couple of years ago when the father-son team beat the piss out of an ump in Chicago.

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how's about a mere 9 weeks ago Frank Francisco smashed a chair onto the head of two Oakland As scumbag fans who got tickets adjacent to the bullpen primarily to egg on the visiting team's relief pitchers?

I totally just died laughing in public

Most are worked up about it but too afraid to say anything. Just like most NCAA fans "care" about the corruption but keep supporting it either directly or otherwise. Just like most players know they should be paid or somehow compensated but participate anyway.

My uncle resigned as athletic director a few years ago from a BCS-playing university, and continues to be heavily involved in the NCAA. We got into several huge fights about this issue of college athletics. He's a very smart person, but basically unwilling to concede that there's any exploitation going on. At all.

Also, yes: it's my experience that most people in the humanities love to complain about the investment and attention put into college athletics. (I suspect they complain less in technical fields because the return on that investment often pays for fancy new centers full of fancy high-tech machines.)

Um, yeah. And lots of endowments. And research grants. Etc.

The reason I bring up the NCAA is because they, much more than professional institutions, are (for the most part) public institutions and inextricably connected to our tax dollars. Yes, the pro sports get some tax bennies from bond issues, but the institutions themselves are not nearly as insulated by the government as the NCAA.

These arguments are very frustrating. You have my sympathy.

http://thesmokinggun.com/archive/1123041green1.html

The Chicago baseball incident mentioned earlier was the first-base coach, not an umpire. The players got in some good shots on those two knuckleheads (not as many as I expected/would have liked, though).

Black players in particular should heed Stern warning

JASON WHITLOCK

NBA commissioner David Stern sent a message to his players Sunday.

By issuing three of the harshest penalties in league history — a 73-game suspension of Ron Artest, 30 games for Stephen Jackson and 25 games for Jermaine O'Neal — Stern let his players know that the league will aggressively try to clean up its image problem.

For their role in Friday's ugly brawl at Detroit, the Pacers, favorites to represent the East in the NBA finals, received the death penalty. Indiana's season is over. O'Neal, Artest, both All-Stars, and Jackson are Indiana's three best players.

Stern had no choice. TV ratings for the league have been steadily falling since Michael Jordan's heyday. The league's image has been in decline since Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Jordan ruled.

Allen Iverson, Latrell Sprewell, Kobe Bryant, Dream Team failures, an embrace of all the negative aspects of the hip-hop culture and a horrid style of play have conspired to make the NBA easy to ignore. By decimating the Pacers and publicly acknowledging that there has been a lowering of expectations in terms of player (and fan) behavior, Stern made it clear he's not in denial about the NBA's troubles.

I am, however, concerned that the league's players will remain in denial. Surrounded by groupies and yes-men, fortified by multimillion-dollar contracts and endorsement deals, it will be easy for NBA players to misinterpret Stern's warning.

In this column, I am calling on my peers in the media to level with NBA players (and all professional athletes) and tell them what's really going on.

American sports fans, particularly those who consistently shell out the hundreds of dollars it takes to attend a professional game, are fed up with black professional basketball players in particular and black professional athletes to a lesser degree.

Yeah, let's cut through all the garbage and get to the real issue. The people paying the bills don't like the product, don't like the attitude, don't like the showboating and don't like the flamboyance. The NBA, which relies heavily on African-American players, is at the forefront of fan backlash. Stern realizes this, and that's why, spurred on by the Detroit brawl, he is reacting decisively.

What the players must come to grips with is that just because race is an element in the backlash, that doesn't mean the backlash is fueled by racism.

We're witnessing a clash of cultures. A predominately white fan base is rejecting a predominately black style of play and sportsmanship.

Who is on the right side of this argument? The group that is always right in a capitalistic society. The customer. That's why Stern, endorsed by his owners, came down hard on the players. He stated that the NBA would take steps to ensure that its fans improved their behavior. But Stern knows the real solutions are in the hands of his players. A good businessman caters to his audience. They don't play country music at my dad's inner-city bar for a reason.

Stern's players must bow to the desires of their fan base.

In general, African-American athletes have always been — for lack of a better description — more expressive and flamboyant on the field of play. Go back to the Negro Leagues — showboating was part of the entertainment package. The Negro Leagues catered to a predominately black fan base.

We, black people, begged for integration. We demanded the right to play in the major leagues, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL. These leagues accommodate a white audience. As long as the customer base is white, the standard for appropriate sportsmanship, style of play and appearance should be set by white people.

This is fair, particularly when the athletes/employees earn millions of dollars and have the freedom to do whatever — and I mean whatever — they want when they're not playing or practicing.

If African-American players are unwilling to accept this reality, NBA owners will speed up the internationalization of their team's rosters. Many African-American players with NBA-quality skill will soon find themselves circling the country playing basketball with Hot Sauce and the And 1 Tour while Yao Nowitzki collects a $10 million NBA check.

The black players will have no one to blame but themselves.

The columnist (who had a picture above the article, he's black) said black pro basketballers have to can the showboating and related cultural practices (like a melee?) because the (white) fans/customers-- who apparently don't like it-- are gonna be viewed as being in the right. David Stern's opinion is the only opinion one that matters, and he has no problems bringing in furriners who will play by the rules.

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The NBA is actually slowing down internationalization - young Europeans aren't panning out well, the older players brought over tend to not do well. There are what, maybe a dozen good international players right now? (Yao, Dirk, Manu Ginobli, Tony Parker, Pau Gasol, Peja, I guess Vlade still counts)

There are too many games in a season, and it lasts too long--the seven game series in the beginning are an embarassing, boring money grab. That hurts the NBA. Parity hurts the NBA badly, at least in terms of expansion and the number of teams in the playoffs.

It's pretty convenient to point the finger at the gangsta styled-showboating going on, the in-your-face bravado that has become part of the show. But is it helping the game?

It's also funny how he brings up baseball as a rallying cry for progression in athletic diversity. Baseball today is the second most ethnically diverse sport in the country (behind soccer) and yet this past 2004 season saw the least percentage of black american players since 1971. If anything there is a shortage of young black american athletes in baseball.

Allen Iverson, Latrell Sprewell

Am I wrong in thinking that singling out these two (particularly Sprewell) is really fucking stupid?

And while Lupica's quote - "If Jackie Robinson didn't go into the stands, then no one can." - is a choice soundbite, it's not exactly fair to compare this century to last century in terms of racial climate, social mores, and other mitigating factors. Also, reducing this shit to a sentence misses the underlying issues raised by this fucked up incident and threatens to sweep them neatly & discreetly under the rug until the NEXT time shit gets hot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/190000/images/_192971_eric_cantona_kung_fu_kick300.jpg

It seems to me more and more that the essence of sports fandom is hypocritical, which is exactly what I was trying to get at up above: the fans want conflict and showboating and brutality, and then they want to shake their heads sadly and pretend to be above it all whenever it gets a bit embarrassing.

Many African-American players with NBA-quality skill will soon find themselves circling the country playing basketball with Hot Sauce and the And 1 Tour while Yao Nowitzki collects a $10 million NBA check.

The black players will have no one to blame but themselves.

So if white owners decide to promote white players based on their race, it's the black players' fault? What a load of shit.

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Bottom line, though: JOURNALISTS BE GETTING A BRAINS, MORANS.

This has come up a lot over the last year (I listen to way too much ESPN Radio driving for work), there are always some ex-players or organization pinheads to jump on that bandwagon. "The NFL/NBA/etc. is giving YOU the CHANCE to earn..." etc. about Ricky Williams, Sprewell on down. Because the people who run the team obviously aren't profiting or running a business.

Great Ricky Williams quote in the Esquire or GQ (Bill Murray cover) - what's so wrong about what he did? Teams cut players all the time and no one dogs them - Ricky was just engaging in a little fair play.

Last night they were discussing this on the Tavis Smiley show but I was only halfway listening. I did catch a bit of the discussion on how incidents like this carryover to cause problems in the black community in terms of kids looking up to these athletes. Already there's too much of a problem with kids growing up thinking it is a priority to "keep it real" and seeing their heroes act like this just confirms it. But then so does our government bombing soverign nations. . .

Haha somehow I can't see the guys ESPN mentioning this.

The entertainment biz is the same way -- the cult of celebrity favours the bad boys and bad girls. Bad boys and girls sell more magazines, which causes the press to hound them even more to get the sleaziest dirt and the best pictures. But nobody's making excuses for celebs when they try to punch out the paparazzi.

But you're treating fans as The Fans, a monolithic entity. Among any group of millions of people, you're going to have a difference of opinions and values. Those who don't like showboating etc aren't really heard from until something like this comes along.

Artest was beating some unlucky guy.

Jackson was hopping in the stands and attempting to punch everyone in sight.

And O'Neal was attempting to brain a guy who was restrained and UNABLE to punch him or defend or protect himself.

Those are three utterly unjustifiable actions.

And yes, like I said, it would have helped if he had gotten the right guy.

Anyway. If the smoking gun article was correct won't this asswipe be going to jail now?