Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Crossing the line

A fan once told hockey legend Phil Esposito that he hoped his mother got cancer and that his kids went blind. Devil Rays manager Lou Piniella has had batteries and beer thrown at him. So has Bucs coach Jon Gruden. The Lightning's Chris Dingman has been spit on and had soda dumped on his head.

Once there was an invisible wall that separated sports fans from athletes. Over the years, that wall has eroded.

Tennis player Monica Seles was stabbed during a match. A major-league first-base coach was attacked by a father and son in Chicago. A fan fell into the penalty box to challenge hockey player Tie Domi. It's no longer uncommon to see fans attack athletes physically and verbally.

But rare is the occasion when an athlete goes into the stands as Indiana's Ron Artest did Friday night in Auburn Hills, Mich. Artest, hit by a cup of beer, broke what was believed to be an unwritten rule by leaping into the stands and setting off, arguably, the ugliest riot in North American sports history.

"You just can't go into the stands," Piniella said. "If you have a problem, tell security. But under no circumstances can you go into the stands. Nothing good is going to come from it. It's a recipe for disaster, and we all saw how and why."

In practically every sporting event ever played, athletes have been booed and jeered. Usually, athletes accept that as a part of the game. But when an athlete is confronted physically or insulted beyond the usual good-natured heckling, he has a choice to make: walk away or go after the fan.

The choice is never easy, but it's almost always the same.

"I have been a target," Gruden said. "You just have to understand that sometimes things get crazy. It's unfortunate that people sometimes have to throw things and at the same time you have to show poise. You have to show restraint. You have to do that."

Easier said than done.

"It's easy to sit here calmly now and say you shouldn't go into the stands," Esposito said. "But it's a different story when you're playing a game. You're wired. You're in the heat of the battle."

Esposito said he once cracked a fan on the shins with his stick when the fan said something particularly nasty. He has seen other players go into the stands and said he would to protect a teammate. He also said he would have done it on several occasions if he could climb steps in skates.

The bottom line, Esposito said, is don't say an athlete should not go into the stands unless you have been an athlete attacked by a fan.

"I couldn't be in Ron Artest's position where you're laying down and a guy hits you on the face with a cup of beer," Bucs defensive back Dwight Smith said. "Regardless of what you are, or who you've become, you still have the same mentality you've had your whole life. I don't believe anyone would be able to let someone hit you in the face with something and just let it go by the wayside."

For the most part, football players are protected because they are so far away from the fans. Hockey has high glass, but players are vulnerable to thrown objects and still have to pass through the crowd when leaving the ice. No athletes come closer to fans than golfers, baseball and tennis players and, especially, basketball players.

"Fans pay good money to have seats close to the playing action and, really, 99 percent of the fans are great," Dingman said. "I don't mind heckling. I'll heckle back, and it can be funny. But I cannot tell you how degrading it is to have someone spit on you or dump pop on your head."

But almost always, as hard as it might be, the player turns the other cheek.

"It takes more courage to walk away," said Bill Barber, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1970s - one of the most despised teams in sports. "It's the toughest thing to do. You're being goaded and you can't do anything because if you put your hands on anyone, it's going to be a lawsuit. You can't win. The confrontation is between someone with nothing to lose and the athlete who has everything to lose - his reputation and the publicity. And the fan is just a fan. He's John Doe from who knows where."

That's what can aggravate a player. A fan who would never confront a player on the street for fear of getting pummelled suddenly becomes brave because he is part of a mob and, most of all, doesn't fear a player coming after him.

"The fan took his safety away by (throwing an object at Artest)," Smith said. "I heard someone say, "When he goes to a Celine Dion concert, he doesn't throw stuff at her and hit her!' When you're a fan and you pay to see stuff, there is a certain criteria to work by, and we (work by it) too."

The criteria usually is followed until emotions of the game spin out of control.

"And usually liquor is involved," Piniella said. "Fans get around their buddies, and they talk tough."

Most fans don't cross the line verbally. They might tell a player he stinks or make fun of his waistline or hair, but that's as far as it usually goes.

Rays fan Robert Szasz, the heckler who sits behind the plate at Tropicana Field, said fans have a right to heckle a player but within reason.

"It's all in good fun, and it never gets personal. And you have to know when to cut it off," Szasz said. "I strive for two things: be funny and hammer them with their statistics. That's fair, I think. But I would never curse or be crass or get personal. There is a line, and you can't cross it."

Athletes seem to agree that words should never entice a player into the stands, but getting hit by an object turns a black-and-white rule into a hazy shade of gray.

"When you're laying right there and a guy walks up and throws a beer at you in your face, it's tough to let that go by," Smith said. "I'm thinking how do you get to a point where you want to hit somebody with a beer who hasn't done anything to you or your family?"

This likely won't be the last incident involving fans and players. Dingman hopes the brawl in Auburn Hills will lead to increased security around the sports world. Perhaps the NBA's lengthy suspension of Artest will act as a deterrent. But it might be only a matter of time before Friday's ugly scene is played out again.

"I consider that horrific," Gruden said. "I think it is horrific what happened from the fans' standpoint and from the players' standpoint. I just think that is no way to act. It's a damn basketball game. It's a football game. We just have to remember that sometimes."