Fans Join The Gladiators

I'm considering writing a mini-memoir entitled 100 Reasons Why I Left San Francisco. I just added another one to the list. A few months after a Giants baseball fan was beaten half to death at Los Angeles Dodger Stadium, Oakland Raiders and San Francisco 49ers fans turned fandom into a bloodsport. By the time the fans were leaving Candlestick Park, two people had been shot and another beaten senseless in a stadium bathroom.

My first thought was "it's only a game." My second thought was "and it's a meaningless exhibition game at that." My first trip to Candlestick Park was back in 1962 when the Giants played the Houston Colt 45s (later, the Astros). The most violent thing I saw that day was a tipsy fan berating a hot dog vendor for getting his order wrong. I attended many baseball and football games over the years at The Stick (and its various other names), and though I noticed an increase in hostility and a decrease in civility, it never seemed like a dangerous thing to do. The rivalry between the Raiders and the 49ers was always intense, particularly when they were (and now again are) cross-Bay opponents.

The communities which support the two teams are very different. As Ed Driscoll at pajamasmedia.com describes it: "Niners fans were known for enjoying sushi, brie and white wine, while Raiders fans have long had a blue collar, Budweiser sort of ethic." But that assessment ignores the smaller group of San Francisco fans who come from gang territory, and gang activity may or may not have played a part in the crazed behavior that took place this past Sunday. At the risk of taking a cheap shot, O. J. Simpson was born and raised on lower Potrero Hill in San Francisco--gang territory even then.

As an avid 49ers fan, I occasionally made the trek to Oakland for games. But I always took public transportation, since I didn't want to be caught in the parking lot at night at the Oakland Coliseum (or its predecessor, a glorified high school-college stadium just off the Cypress freeway overpass). The Raiders were always known as a rough-and-tumble team, and their fans weren't a lot different. Candlestick's parking lots are divided into home and visitor sections, and when the Raiders played there, it was wise not to park a car with San Francisco license frames in the Oakland section. But even then, the worst you could expect was minor vandalism.

Over the past few decades, team rivalries among sports fans have gone from friendly jibing and occasional shoving matches to outright violent hostility. The games seem almost incidental to the tribal behavior taking place in the stands and the parking lots. The gladiators are no longer just on the field--they're everywhere inside and outside the stadium. The cruding-down of society and its tolerance of aberrant behavior in public seems to have become the order of the day at sports events. Trash talk has now moved into physical attacks. Fan enthusiasm has gone from wild displays of fandom (cheesehead hats, rainbow wigs, Darth Vader helmets) to violent criminal behavior. This latest incident is just another example of the breakdown of law and order and common civility.

The old baseball song goes: "Root, root, root for the home team, if they don't win it's a shame." Today, it's "Root, root, root for the home team, and win or lose it's time to rough somebody up." The old occasional fistfight has degenerated into beat-downs, serious bodily injury, and shootings. And I haven't even mentioned the practice of celebrating a victory by going downtown, smashing windows, vandalizing cars, and burning buildings down. I now live about as far from an urban sports center as is possible while still living in California. And that's a good thing.

Oh, and the 49ers won the game 17 to 3. I'm not sure how many of the fans duking it out in the stands noticed.