9/14/2004 03:56:00 PM by Rob

Plexiglass?

An open plea to my fellow sports fans:

I don't want to have to sit behind plexiglass, like they do in hockey, to watch a baseball game.

Let's take some events, not in order, just since 2000:

2003 - Yankees vs. Red Sox groundskeeper bullpen fight.

2003 - A's fan hits Carl Everett in the head with cellphone tossed from 2nd deck.

2000 - 19 Dodgers vs. Cub fans when a fan struck Chad Kreuter

2002 - Ligues vs Kansas City coach Tom Gamboa

2003 - Sox fan vs umpire Laz Diaz.

2004 - Rangers vs A's fans, pitcher arrested for tossing folding chair into stands

Now, people have been raining shit on the fields, walking out onto the field, picking fights with players and vice versa, since play began. So this really isn't a new thing.

But let's be honest, this is a new time, a new day. Since 9/11, we have such concepts as Homeland Security, and we have already given up some personal freedoms, such as the right to dash through airports, and for the right to utter the word "bomb" within 500 feet of an airport.

Pretty soon, we are going to have to live with plexiglass shields between us and the action.

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