Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Stop The Madness!!!

Late Saturday night, 49er16 sent me an email regarding the tragic death of David Sale, who as I'm sure you all know by now, was beaten to death outside of a bar connected to Citizens Bank Park. I intentionally did not talk about it for I did not want to get into the rant that I knew I was going to get into if I talked about it. However, the media firestorm that has come from this has driven me to a point where I can no longer be quiet about this. The madness must stop.

Because of a reputation, based mostly on things that happened in the last century, the tragic death of David Sale is being blamed on Philly sports fans and the sports culture here in general. Yeah, hard to believe, I know. Something bad happens at one of our ballparks and it's because of the "hooliganism" in Philadelphia that caused this to happen.

Why can't you people wake up? Why are you such hypocrites? Do you honestly think this only happens in Philadelphia? If so, please, go back to Kindergarten for that is where your intelligence level is right about now.

You are quick to prosecute us yet you are too blind to see the other headlines that the media conveinently hides from you. For what kind of a story is it that a Los Angeles Angels fan was killed while leaving the stadium earlier this year? Folks in Los Angeles are not like that. They are not hooligans, criminals, and thus like Philadelphians are. They are cool, laid back, surfer dudes. All of them. Hooliganism does not exist in Los Angeles. No, not at all.

And what about the 03 shooting of a Dodgers fan by a Giants fan? Surely, it must have been some sort of freak accident. There is no other logical explanation. I mean, after all, sports fans out west are all laid back surfer-dudes. You can't blame this on a sports euphoria that exists all over the world, including California. No, this kind of stuff can only happen in Philadelphia for sports hooliganism lives only there. No where else in the world. Just Philadelphia.

Okay, enough of the absurd sarcasm and more to the straight facts. I'm not trying to trivialize anything having to do with the deaths. They were very tragic indeed as. You can't trivialize a mother losing her son and a sister losing her brother for good. But a point needs to be made to shut up some people of the mainstream media (*cough*cough*Colin Cowherd*cough*cough, who even went as far as to essentially say our school system sucks; yeah, um, that explains why some of the nations finest universities are in the city of Philadelphia) who are as thick-headed as I depicted them to be with the above sarcasm about the 2 real deaths that occured. I don't take pleasure in doing this. I'd rather take John Gonzalez's advice and focus more on what really happened, as in an innocent kid died way too young, and not argue about this, but the mainstream douche bags have driven me to it.

Let's take a look at David Sale's murderers. Just to save time for me as I have a live blog to get to in 30 minutes, I'll quote the above linked Gonzalez column. You'll find the emphasis of the point is still there.

Three men - 28-year-old Francis Kirchner, 35-year-old Charles Bowers, and 45-year-old James Groves - have been charged with murder. In 1995, Bowers was sentenced to six to 23 months for stabbing a man four times. In 2006, Kirchner had to undergo court-ordered anger-management counseling after he and some associates broke a man's cheekbone. If history is any indication, these are not nice people.
Face it, these are not sports thugs. These are thugs thugs. These guys would be considered thugs in New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Baton Rouge, Anchorage, where have you. So why are we blaming this on a sports culture?

The answer is shockingly simple: it's our portrayal in the media. Whether we like it or not or we want to admit it or not, everything in the media is a continuance of some story and the media only covers what they see think will garner them the most ratings. Let's face facts, Philly fans do have a reputation. We did cheer when Michael Irving was wheeled off a football fan for the last time, and we did boo Santa Claus (I have a major gripe with this story as well and how it's been portrayed, but that's another rant for another time). But given the reputation of Philly fans, which makes a better, more interesting story for the media to cover? A bunch of thugs beating up a guy outside of a bar that just so happens to be outside of Citizens Bank Park? Or a San Francisco Giants fan killing a Los Angeles Dodgers fan in a stadium parking lot? The Philly thugs, of course. Even though the 03 Giants incident is to an infinite power more of a sports crime and a bigger example of sports hooliganism, hey, Philly has the more interesting media story because of our reputation, therefore, that's a bigger story. And while the Giants fan may have gotten his headlines back then, was everyone blaming that on the horrible obnoxious sports culture in San Francisco?

People frequently claim that sports hooliganism, if you will, only takes place in Philly. Now I assume that most of you have been around sports long enough to know what I am saying is more than true, but still, the point needs to be made. Every professional sports team is going to have their people! Yes, even Philadelphia. I'm not here claiming that Philly fans are angels of the sports world or something, but give me a break here. Drunkeness occurs at any and all sporting events. There are always guys who just can't limit themselves to a beer or 2 to enjoy the game with and go way overboard and in turn get nasty, obnoxious, and in some cases, violent. That can happen anywhere in the country. Scratch that, that does happen everywhere in the country. Because let's face it, it's human nature for that to happen. During sporting events people want to party and when people party they tend to drink alcohol, in some cases lots of it. And when the human body has too much alcohol, especially in a person obnoxious when he is sober, you know things are going to be taken to the next level. The level that was reached in that parking lot in 2003 and the level that was reached outside of Citizens Bank Park last Saturday. It does not matter if we're in Philadelphia, Los Angeles or Kalamazoo, THIS STUFF HAPPENS! GET USED TO IT AND STOP PIN-POINTING OUR CITY AS THE ASSHOLE SPORTS CITY OF THE COUNTRY WHEN MUCH WORSE HAS HAPPENED ELSEWHERE!!!!!!!!!! OH, AND COLIN, HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA AND DREXEL UNIVERSITY?!?!?!?!?!? Sigh....why do I even waste my breath on someone who the best thing most people can say about him is that he is a skidmark on the underwear of life?

However, in the grand context of it all, none of this stuff even matters, now does it? Who cares about Colin Cowherd and what happened in what sports city? Someone way too young died a death that he did not deserve to die.

RIP David Sale.

3 comments:

  1. I have to say it has surprised me that San Francisco doesn't have the same national reputation as Philadephia.

    I remember for years when the Giants played at Candlestick, the fans used to throw Double-A batteries at Dodgers players. I've seen 49ers fans get in fights with Cowboys fans.

    I think the reason San Francisco doesn't have that same reputation is because the teams play in San Francisco. Everyone thinks San Francisco is all peace and happiness. But it's not that way at Giants and 49ers games.

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  2. Exactly. Philadelphia is known as a rough city (and in part it is with the large amount of murders that occur in the city each year) so when something like this happens in the context of sports, it (wrongfully) gets magnified to the nth degree. Anywhere else, it's more or less just another story.

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  3. good post, JFein. i agree with you.

    imho, there is a bias that exsists towards dying industrial cities that have horrible crime issues(think Philly, Baltimore,Pittsburgh,Cleveland, and Detroit). in other words, these kinds of events will be played up when it occurs in places like that,because it reflects the popular perception of grimness and needing sports to have civic pride in these cities. NY,LA,SF, etc are perceived as cultured& above this, therefore random sports fan violence don't fit into the narrative about those places. and the less said about the jackass that i won't listen to on the 4-letter(wont say his name)the better.

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