Sports ugliness strikes again
The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on the assault by two "shirtless fans" on the Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa:
You can watch the melee for yourself here. But the video clip does little to explain the senseless beating (for the record, the younger attacker said to a TV crew, as he was being escorted from the stadium, "He flipped us off. He got what he deserved." Presumably that's by way of explanation.)
Tom Gamboa was bloodied, and so was baseball. Still, the incident wasn't unprecedented. CNNSI has compiled previous outbreaks of fan violence at sporting events.
Among the incidents listed was the stabbing of Monica Seles by a fan in 1993, which sidelined her for more than two years. Mr. Gamboa had watched that event and felt grateful he wasn't stabbed.
Players were, of course, justified in piling on top of the assailants and restraining them until police could arrive. But some of their postgame comments were overripe with bloodlust. "No punishment could be stiff enough," Sox first baseman Paul Konerko said to Phil Rogers in the Chicago Tribune. "I wish they had left the players out there to beat on them for an hour." Royals first baseman Mike Sweeney told Mr. Dutton, "I wanted to kill him," about one of the attackers.