When the worlds legends and losers collide

by Tom Edwards

Fans often become a part of sports memories. Take for instance the friendly goof that ran beside Hank Aaron after he cranked his record-breaking 715th home run on April 8, 1974. That fan could have done something terribly malicious to Aaron and the moment.

It wouldn't have taken much, maybe a Boy Scout's pocket knife and a quick lunge. Instead he ran alongside, seemingly dancing on air, and shook Aaron's hand as the new home run champ triumphantly trotted around the bases. Those, fortunately, were different times.

Recently, less savory baseball fans, if one can even call them fans, have created sports memories of a more dubious nature. These drunken buffoons guzzle copious amounts of brewhaha and work up their Dutch courage over the course of several innings. By mid-blackout they feel an ill-advised itch to dole out a country whoopin' to a coach, umpire, or player on the field. Their intended victim always possesses greater strength, and not surprisingly, better motor skills-not to mention the 75 testosterone-charged brutes on both teams who live for retaliatory maulings.

These fence hopping mopes have depths of intelligence far shallower than that of a moderately stupid dog.

This is why they operate in packs of 2 or more for an even greater degree of hilarity. A father-son tandem elevates the comedic value quantum. After stumbling onto the field, slurring some incomprehensible taunts, and balling their digits for pitifully sissified, slowmotion haymakers that poorly miss their targets-their plans of domination suddenly backfire. Per usual, within mere seconds, they quickly find themselves eating sod under a devastating hail of vicious right crosses and stomping cleats in the eye of a relentless Category 5 jock hurricane.

Many want stiffer penalties for these boneheads. Others call for tighter security. Some mention pouring less booze at concessions. Many players who know better believe in the deterring power of vigorous, regular beatings. Finally, a voice of reason.

99.99% percent of fans know that if they enter the professional athlete's workplace to do them harm, there will be physically and emotionally painful consequences. The other .01 percent: Let them try to eat the lions. We all need a good laugh every once in a while.

Consider other sports like football. Does anyone want to discover the joys of smelling salts, spine and neck stabilization, and a few years of sick leave from work? All a curious fan has to do is stagger out onto the field, talk a little smack, and take the brunt of a savage creaming by a couple of genetically mutated defensive ends.

The following phase of their tortured life would be defined by chronic labored breathing, vertigo, and an embarrassing degree of incontinence-especially when confronted with anything vaguely reminiscent of football. Their bratwursts and cheese fries would most certainly have to be run through a blender and served with a straw at every tailgate party thereafter. Sorry, doctor's orders.

The ice rink is another particularly unforgiving place to tread-not just because you need skates but because of the primal, barbaric, criminal nature of the league itself. Hockey players pound on each other's faces nightly. Many are frustrated sexually because they lack teeth, straight noses, and a grasp of the English vernacular. Most are downright homicidal. All would gladly feed an out-of-line fan enough knuckle sandwiches to punch a Subway card the length of the moon and back.

The NBA has players with wingspans that could reach out and palm an assailant fan's head far before that hoop dupe could come close to landing a punch. They could then pump up their sneaker for an excruciating size 19 punt to the posterior.

The soccer field is known for its exceptional level of crazed goonery--especially in South America where many of the players have a taste for the Bolivian Marching Powder. They also take a fancy to cleaning the mud off of their cleats with an opponent's teeth. In Europe, it's even worse. The games typically interrupt the on-field riots.

How about boxing? A Female Junior Flyweight could hit an obnoxious fan stupid enough to crawl into the ring with the rapid fire precision of a woodpecker to soft maple. A prizefighting Heavyweight might be able to deliver a crowd-pleasing pugilistic decapitation, or at least another regular non-geriatric customer to Fixodent and Depends Undergarments.

Any takers for strutting out onto the track during the middle of a NASCAR event to clean some plows? There would be nothing left on the track but a furry patch of mullet trailed by a pair of cutoff Tuffskins and a 75-yard long grease spot. The missing flip flops and Blue Blockers could probably be found using video tape analysis of their trajectories up into the vast sea of Blue Blockers and flip flops in the cheap seats.

In Spain, fans seldom feel the urge to scamper into the ring of a bullfight. They know that a bull won't think twice about dropping his horns to skewer an unruly fan's caboose.

Likewise, every obnoxious fan should know that when they encroach the field of play to inflict harm on anybody, they're like a slow fat man dropped right smack in the middle of a bullfight wearing nothing but flameglow red buttless leather chaps, and the swarming, encircling bulls, or athletes, are hardly there to merely spectate and wait for a more P.C. enforcement of the incredibly simple rules of territory.