Golf has always been the “gentlemanly” game, for better or worse. Even at the pro level, fans have been well-behaved, staying quiet as the player stands interminably over the ball, mutely surrounding any ball hit into the crowd, as if it was about to explode, cheering politely no matter if a shot was terrific or off the mark. Yet, over the last month or so golf has had two instances of fan intrusion that, along with incursions in other sports, has got me thinking about the relationship between fan and athlete.
In case you missed it, fans swarmed onto the fairway on the 18th hole of the PGA Championship, overly excited by Phil Mickelson’s impending victory, jostling his playing partner Brooks Koepka, and making it difficult for him to make it to the green to finish the round. Then, in Scotland, a fan came out of the crowd while Rory McElroy was waiting to hit, calmly took a club out of McElroy’s bag and started to swing it as if he was going to tee off. I’d never seen anything like it.
They were just two incidents in a slew of recent bad fan behavior. You had the woman waiving a sign saying hello to her grandparents stepping in front of bikers at the Tour de France, causing massive pile up which, injured numerous riders. A Yankee fan hitting Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo in the back with a baseball in the midst of a game. An English “football’ fan shining a laser onto the face of the Denmark goalie during a key penalty shot in the European Cup semi-final. Islander fans throwing beer cans, et al., onto the ice after their team won game 6 of their recent series with the Lightening. A Knick fan spitting on Trae Young in Madison Square Garden. And what would any litany of bad fan behavior be without an entry from Philly, where a Sixers fan dumped popcorn on injured Russell Westbrook as he was exiting the court.
While this litany all occurred in a short time span, bad fan behavior has been with us a long time. The English soccer hooligans of the 80’s and 90’s make the laser incident look tame. (Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs” is a classic on hooligan culture). There was the father and son in-game attack on Royals first base coach, Tom Gamboa. And my personal favorites, the fan riots on Death to Disco night in Detroit and 10 cent beer night in Cleveland.
Yet, it seems as if things may be heading to a different level. Maybe it’s some post-pandemic (if we are post-pandemic) expiration of pent-up steam. Maybe is an outgrowth of an on-line culture that lets people anonymously vent hatred. Maybe it’s another symptom of a society where moderation is becoming increasingly out of style. Or maybe its gotten no worse, and I’ve just become another old fogey who remembers the past through a rose-tinted haze.
For most of my life I have been a very vocal fan. I remember leaning far over the second balcony at the old Spectrum berating Rick Mahorn during a time out in an era when blaring music did not invade every moment of every break in the game. (He later came to the Sixers and became one of my favorite players). There was also the time I took advantage of rare good seats at a Phillies game to scream continuously at Bill Russell from the time he appeared in the on-deck circle as a pinch-hitter until he grounded out (thank you very much), calling him a bum and a Lasorda charity case, among other things. I’m such a mild-mannered sort. I’m not sure what possessed me.
That, of course, is the point. We get ourselves so worked up for these sports spectacles that it’s easy to become someone else, or at least let a side of ourselves usually hidden emerge. After all, these contests are often couched by the players and media in the language of war, with victory being the only alternative, all else being humiliating defeat. So much is supposedly on the line, when in fact little is.
The good thing is that this euphoria can be truly cathartic. There is no doubt that it is a great feeling to get caught up in the emotion of a sporting event. To feel your heart pounding as a playoff game comes down to the final minutes, victory or defeat hanging in the balance. To let out a primal roar after a key basket, goal, touchdown or home run. And it is impossible to avoid the devastation when the shot goes off the rim, the puck off the post, the ball is dropped in the end zone or the home run dies on the warning track. It is the life of a sports fan (especially a Philly sports fan).
The thing about strong emotions, like those engendered by sports, is that it is very hard to keep them in check. By their very nature these emotions are at the boiling point, and it is all too easy to blur the line between avid fan and mindless jerk. To go from leaning over the railing screaming to throwing the drink that just happens to be in your hand. From having your heart pound like your life depended on the outcome of the game, to truly believing that it does. For some that line blurs to non-existence.
As long as we invest so much into sport, we are going to have these explosions. Whether the current state of society makes it worse remains to be seen. We can only hope that people keep their hate on-line, as obnoxious as that is, rather than bring it to the stadiums and arenas. As for me, I am a lot less vocal than I once was. Part of that is age, and part of that is not wanting to contribute to a potentially toxic atmosphere. And yet, the urge is still there. There’s plenty of bums out there to be booed. Just so we leave it at that.
