The Monday evening tasing-and-capture of a 17 year old domestic terrorist at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia dominated much of the sports blogosphere and sports yack radio yesterday, and the New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro warns, “the civil libertarians can have their field day talking about the cruel sight of a fan going down at the hand of a Taser, but they might want to talk to Monica Seles first.” Not being a civil libertarian, however, Vaccaro settles for talking to an imaginary friend unidentified baseball player.
That fan in Philadelphia who got himself good and tased, 17-year-old Steve Consalvi, didn’t just take one for himself. He took one for the team of imbeciles who’ve been leaping onto fields for 40 years and making themselves into look-at-me nuisances, making the athletes feel less and less like they’re working in athletic sanctuaries and more and more like they’re targets in a shooting gallery.
“Look, no one wants to ever come out and say this, but a lot of guys get freaked out when they see a guy jump over the fence and hold up a game,” an ex-major leaguer who spent a fair chunk of his career in New York told me yesterday, though he didn’t want his name used because the feelings he voices don’t exactly match the tough-guy image most big leaguers like to project.
Wow, who knew Kevin Elster had a tough-guy image to maintain? But seriously, though it might be unfair to hold Vaccrro accountable for a headline of “Tasing Should Teach Idiots : Stay Off Lawn”, how might the columnist explain last night’s incident at CBP? Sure, Mike’s aware “another knucklehead” took to the field in Philly, but if public torture is supposed to be such a terrific deterrent to pitch invasions, how did a similar incident occur a day later in the same venue?