At Friday's home opener at Yankee Stadium, a young woman ran out onto the field and gave Derek Jeter her phone number. In recent years, in an effort to discourage people from running on the field, the sports programs and newspapers have not been showing such incidents. But last night's SportsCenter and today's paper were both treating this very frivilously, like it was cute. Geez folks, did the Monica Seles incident teach us nothing?

I don't mean to take this oh-so seriously, but just because the intuder was a blond female shouldn't really serve as an excuse. No way SportsCenter shows a guy running out to give a player his number!

The tape of that girl totally cracked me up, and I thought "Good for her!" when she eluded security. But your post made me think twice about it. Sure, this girl was totally harmless, and it was all done in good fun. But you never know ... it might inspire bunny-boiler-type to rush onto the field, with some potentially ugly consequences.

The flip side of that is that she was treated much more harshly than male fans who run on the field. Whereas with men it's usually some drunk who gets a disorderly citation, she apparently was jailed overnight. In a tragic sidenote, Jeter did not call.

They don't seem to show any of these incidents during the live game telecast, but shows like SportsCenter always show them if they're unusual enough.

do these skanks really believe the players will show any interest/respect for them after such blatant displays of skankitude?

What's especially galling is that knapsacks are still banned from Shea Stadium (and other parks?), yet they can't keep a fan from approaching a player on the field.

The most ludicrous post-Sept 11 stadium ban was on *umbrellas* (this was at Shea at least). To prevent an attack by the Penguin?

[quote]Originally posted by Bill W:
What's especially galling is that knapsacks are still banned from Shea Stadium (and other parks?), yet they can't keep a fan from approaching a player on the field.

The most ludicrous post-Sept 11 stadium ban was on *umbrellas* (this was at Shea at least). To prevent an attack by the Penguin?

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Ha. Great line! I may steal it sometime.

The backpack ban is my biggest pet peeve right now.

At the Expos home opener vs. the Marlins last week, many "Contract This, Selig!" and "F*U Loria!" banners were barred from the Big Owe, and when a few crafty fans managed to get an anti-Loria banner on top of the Marlins dug-out late in the game, they were quickly escorted out of Le Stade.

So, let me get this straight: free speech in the stands is wrong, but assaulting players on the field (if you're a big-chested blonde) is okay. I will never understand the rules of baseball.

And Loria is up to his old trix down in fish-land. A reporter asked a coach how fast Josh Beckett's pitches were in a particular game, and the coach confessed to not knowing - Loria?Sampson et al won't pay for a guy to work with the Jugs gun during the games ......

[quote]Originally posted by Seph:
At the Expos home opener vs. the Marlins last week, many "Contract This, Selig!" and "F*U Loria!" banners were barred from the Big Owe, and when a few crafty fans managed to get an anti-Loria banner on top of the Marlins dug-out late in the game, they were quickly escorted out of Le Stade.

So, let me get this straight: free speech in the stands is wrong, but assaulting players on the field (if you're a big-chested blonde) is okay. I will never understand the rules of baseball.

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[quote]Originally posted by Seph:
At the Expos home opener vs. the Marlins last week, many "Contract This, Selig!" and "F*U Loria!" banners were barred from the Big Owe, and when a few crafty fans managed to get an anti-Loria banner on top of the Marlins dug-out late in the game, they were quickly escorted out of Le Stade.

So, let me get this straight: free speech in the stands is wrong, but assaulting players on the field (if you're a big-chested blonde) is okay. I will never understand the rules of baseball.

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Yeah, that's because MLB owes the Expos and doesn't want Selig to be criticized. Frank Robinson and Omar Minaya are doing a great job. I'm sure that upsets Selig. He would love to see the Expos do poorly to make his contraction plan more popular.

Anything to make Selig look foolish (not that he doesn't do a great job of that all by himself) is tops in my book....I'm glad to see that both Montreal and Minnesota have winning records thus far....while the Expos are obviously a REAL long shot to stay in contention (despite the fact that they do have quite a few young, talented players) I've always considered Frank Robinson to be a highly underrated manager and think he will do a terrific job this year in Montreal....Robby did an excellent job managing the O's for quite a few years, especially in '89 when he took a team with the worst record in baseball in 1988 (0-21 to start the season) to within 2 games of the AL East title....Let's see what Selig's response would be if either the Twins or Expos manage to remain competitive all season (which in the case of Minnesota is not an unrealistic expectation considering the weak AL Central competition).