Reading about the chaos at this weekend’s preseason “Battle of the Bay” game between the 49ers and Raiders makes me angry. I think a start to a solution is to ban alcohol at the games. Except for maybe the private boxes where any stupidity can be contained. Does that sound wrong? Maybe to someone. And probably classist. But I am a 100% acknowledged classist so no big surprise. But my sense of classism is more geared towards ghetto, tacky, rude, etc. It’s not how much money you have. It’s how you act. How you treat others.
Most of these fights (and stabbings, shootings, etc) are caused by drunk jerks (probably a few that aren’t even drunk but I guess more are.) You take a person who is already a jerk and then let him drink non-stop from 8am when tail-gating begins and wonder why they become belligerent? Can most people have a beer and watch the game and have fun? Of course. But guess what – all you need is 1 (or 15) drunk jackasses to seriously hurt people.
Going to a sporting event should NOT be dangerous. You should be able to go to a game wearing whatever the heck team jersey you want and not have to worry about someone punching you. Or worse. That is ridiculous.
And you don’t need alcohol to have fun at the game. You can tailgate or watch from the stands and be sober and still have it be fun. If you can’t, then you have bigger problems to address. If you want to get stupid drunk while watching the game, then stay home and watch it on TV.
I always hate when you have to make rules to conform to the lowest common denominator because these are usually the people that I think don’t even deserve to breathe. But I’m fairly harsh that way. The world is over-populated anyway so let’s lose the a-holes first. And then the world is a better place anyway. Win-Win. Makes sense to me. But my rant is digressing to a different rant.
For public safety – yeah – I would support banning alcohol in the parking lots/tailgating, sold at the stadiums, etc. Will that ever happen? After hell has its own sea of glaciers. But maybe someone should try it as a test. How much could the stadium lose? Who knows. But how much does it cost to have in-stadium police stations (Philadelphia and Tampa Bay do that I know of – probably more.) And all of the extra police needed to control thuggish crowds.
Ghetto fans, gang-bangers and just plain drunk jerks are always going to be around. Certain teams do seem to attract more of a thug crowd (looking right at you Oakland) but all cities/teams have them. For all sports. Look at all of the stupidity that occurs when teams win OR lose championship games. “F Yeah – our team won/lost – now let’s loot and set fire to stuff!!” Now, all of those people probably aren’t drunk (just insanely stupid or plain criminal) but my guess is a good chunk are somewhat inebriated. So you can either have an entire police force at a silly game to attempt to keep peace or you can try taking away something that is contributing to the mayhem. Do I blame alcohol? *Absolutely not.* Fact: people are responsible for their own condition. Plenty of people can have a drink or 2 or even tons and still be perfectly sane (and probably just vomit or fall asleep.) I blame stupidity, jerkishness and a Lord of the Flies mentality.
Some people argue that these people aren’t real fans of the teams so why penalize the fans. Well, they are fans. Are they fans of the team for the “right” reasons? Probably not. Oakland has had a thug, gangster reputation for a long time. LA gangs LOVE their merchandise so then display their devotion to the team. They are liked because they were seen as the thug team. Great reason. Of course now they are just the crap team. But with the same “Black Hole” Orc fans.
I have been to probably 7-10 49ers games. And about 15 or so Giants games. The thing I always liked about them was that the SF crowd definitely seemed to be nicer. I went to the SF/Oakland World Series games and the difference in crowds and atmosphere between seeing them in Oakland and seeing them in SF (including the “earthquake game”) was vast. Now, I am definitely not saying SF doesn’t have thug fans. I know they do. But you couldn’t pay me to see another game or concert in Oakland. Not worth it. I don’t ever want feel so unsafe for simply being in attendance at a game or anything else.
Stories came out after the game that the 49ers will be cutting tail-gating hours. That might help a little but it’s still going to be 4 hours or so. So 4 hours of drinking and then game time drinking is more than enough for mayhem. And some of the players (49ers) came out and said how the violence worries them since their families are also in the stands. Frank Gore came out and said “it’s just game.” So if the people getting paid to play this game want you losers to knock it off, pretty sure by being thugs you are showing the rest of us just how big of ghetto losers you are. Sadly, it never seems to be you who gets beat up, shot, stabbed, etc.
The owner of the 49ers also said he has requested that the Battle of the Bay game be discontinued. This is a very good idea. It’s a dumb preseason game anyway. I hope the NFL agrees. If not, then they can pony up for the National Guard unit to come in and keep the peace at the next one.
