The little boy sat on his mother’s lap, crying. He might have been 6, 7 or 8. It doesn’t really matter how old he was. What mattered is he was shaken by what was taking place around him: a full-scale riot.
Your heart went out to the little guy. He had come to watch the Detroit Pistons play the Indiana Pacers in an NBA game at Auburn Hills, Mich., and what he was now witnessing was a free-for-all.
It was the ugliest and most frightening thing I’ve ever seen in sports.
As replay after replay was shown on ESPN, fellow writer John Sleeper and I – over in the Palouse to cover Saturday’s Apple Cup between Washington and Washington State – watched in our hotel room late Friday night.
We didn’t say much, just kind of sat there in stunned disbelief that something like this could happen.
It was thugs against thugs. Players fighting fans. Players and coaches trying to break it up.
One fight would end and another begin.
Then the camera caught the little boy. And you imagined yourself with your own son or daughter sitting in your lap terrified at grown men slugging one another.
You wanted to reach out to the boy, hug him and say, “It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t all right. And who knows what kind of emotional scars this would leave on the little fella?
I had to watch several replays before I knew what all had happened. And I’m sure I still don’t know.
Not even those who were there can probably tell you everything that occurred.
What I saw was the Pacers’ Ron Artest deliver a hard foul as the Pistons’ Ben Wallace was shooting a layup. Then Wallace shoved Artest with both hands. Then they went at one other with coaches and players trying to pull them apart. When finally they did that, Artest lay down on his back on the scorer’s table, seemingly under control. Then someone threw what appeared to be a cup of beer at him. And Artest rose up and charged into the crowd, his prey in sight, his temper boiling. Pacer teammate Stephen Jackson joined in and suddenly fists were flying again.
When that fight was quelled, Artest walked back onto the court and the next thing you saw was another fan approaching him. The fan said something. And Artest swung. Moments later, teammate Jermaine O’Neal delivered a real haymaker on another fan who was on the court. A punch that if you or I did it on the street, we’d be arrested for assault.
And things got ugly once again. Just when you thought you had seen the worst, a chair came flying into the crowd. And you thought, “My God, won’t it ever end?”
You sat there in the safety of a motel room halfway across the continent and all kinds of thoughts passed through your mind.
Someone could have been seriously injured. Or killed. Maybe even an innocent child.
You wanted the most severe punishment handed out. You wanted Artest, Wallace, Jackson and O’Neal suspended for a year. You wanted the fan who threw the beer banned from ever attending another NBA game. You wanted the idiot who threw the chair to pay a huge fine and spend time in jail. You wanted the fans who showered the players with beer and whatever else as they were ushered off the court to have to clean up roadside trash for a year.
There would also be 1,000 hours of community service for Artest, Jackson, O’Neal and Wallace, preferably cleaning toilets.
Saturday morning, as I sat in my room writing, the NBA announced the punishment: All four players have been suspended indefinitely. To do the right thing, commissioner David Stern should extend indefinitely to the rest of the year. That is the only way they’ll learn that what they did was unacceptable.
Some will argue that if we were put in the same situation as Wallace, we would have retaliated against Artest. And that if someone had thrown a beer at us, we would have gone after them.
It’s human nature, they would argue. Maybe so. But the players have to understand that that’s what the security people are there for and that there are rules against going into a crowd. Now the question is, was the security adequate to handle the situation Friday night? If not, then that issue needs to be addressed and quickly. Artest, meanwhile, needs to take anger management classes during his time off and to realize that fists are not the answer.
Another eruption like we had Friday night and we could have what they had in basketball’s early days in this country: a barrier made of chicken wire between the fans and the court. That’d really be a step forward for mankind, wouldn’t it? But it may come to that because of sub-human actions.
I’d offer these suggestions to make sure players think twice before doing something stupid.
Any player committing a so-called hard foul would be assessed an automatic $50,000 fine.
Any act of retaliation would draw an automatic $100,000 fine.
Any other fighting on the court would cost a player $200,000.
Any player going into the stands after a fan would pay an automatic $250,000 fine.
Any player punching a fan would cough up $500,000.
Hit them where it hurts: in the pocketbook.
That’s the only thing these guys understand.
As I write this, the TV is on to a college football game. And what’s this? Players from South Carolina and Clemson got into a fight before their game on Saturday. Then they fought again during the game.
And Brent Musburger asks if these young men didn’t learn anything from what happened in the NBA the night before.
No, apparently they didn’t.
Shamefully.
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