NFL Mlb Fans

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.



Currently, there are two fascinating teams in sports.

One is the New England Patriots, an angry group of individuals that's systematically destroying everyone on their schedule. They go into contests with the goal of humiliating their not-nearly-as-blessed opponents, and they revel in the fact that this frustrates the hell out of you. They are great, they know it, and they're going to remind you of it every chance they get. They don't like you.

The other captivating team is the Colorado Rockies, who are playing with, to quote the lovely Annie Savoy, "joy and verve and poetry." Just as the Patriots do, the Rockies play to win ... but not because it proves anything to anyone, but because they like each other, because it's fun, and because they appreciate the extraordinary circumstances in which they find themselves. They are uninterested in, and unable to, explain their own success. They're having too much fun for that.

And they exist in sports right now as a perfect antidote to the Patriots.

(Also at the bottom: Before we get to the bottom, I'd like to alert you to our 2nd effort of Postin' Up, a FanHouse Podcast. It's an all football edition, covering both college and NFL, answering the question of whether or not the Patriots are the new Yankees, and, as always, "Bigger Douche" ... Anyway, back to the bottom here ... Derek Jeter will pay for your parking if you let him park Little Derek for a while ... the Super Bowl is being outscourced ... and Jake Westbrook earns Yesterday's MVP...)

A few weeks ago, as I purchased tickets to the Saints/Rams game in New Orleans this November on StubHub, I wondered how teams could sit idly back knowing people were re-selling their tickets for gross profit on the Internet (for the record, I paid $70 apiece and a limb for $35 tickets). Historically, there's never been a profit a sports team hasn't liked, and if they could find a way to make extra money on something like ticket sales, why not?

Little did I know that the wheels have already been set in motion. If you live in St. Louis, take solace in knowing that, at the very least, the Rams and Cardinals will be making money twice on ticket sales. Each team will be offering a re-sell option for ticket holders who can't use their tickets. After you pay the team for your tickets, you can bring the tickets back to them, where they'll sell them to someone else for whatever price you set. They take a "convenience" commission. You keep the profits. It's like Flip This House, but you don't have to think about pastel-themed dining rooms or what tile to use in the master bath.

This is being made possible by the repeal on scalping in Missouri, although scalping in front of stadiums (or as I like to call it, the black market without all the fun of drugs or prostitution) will still be a no-no -- this is an Internet-only venture. The San Francisco Giants, in a move that contradicts the city's decidedly bohemian (read: dirty hippy) ethos, have already been using a system like this.

I'm really trying to find a reason to be indignant about this, but I can't come up with anything good. The system is literally identical to StubHub, a service I use fairly often. If someone is willing to pay more than face value for an event, that's their right. The seller sets their price for a good, the buyer decides whether or not to pay it, and the middleman takes a piece for the trouble. Let's hear it for the free market!

Still, I feel dirty knowing that teams are profitting twice on ticket sales. Something about it just doesn't seem right. Any anarchists out there care to conjure up some reason for me to want to rebel against the system for this?

Not everyone is as clever or expressive as Vernon Wells. SLAM! Sports goes through a list today of the greatest fan/athlete altercations of all time. Most are pretty recent, but they dig back into the archives, too. It goes from Michael Ray Richardson and his "big-time" Jew lawyers, all the way back to Ty Cobb in 1912.

Some of them don't even count as altercations. Jake Plummer giving the finger to fans, and Davis Love III crying like a little girl. Some are tragic, like Monica Seles getting knifed, and some are sort of bizarrely sad, like the idiot Ligue family attacking a first-base coach. Some, like soccer player Eric Cantona's dropkick of a fan lead to bizarre quotes that I don't even understand.

"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

I don't have any idea what that means. Really. None. Anyway, here are my two favorites, both of which I'd never heard of before today:

During an on-ice scuffle between the Rangers and Bruins at Madison Square Garden, Boston's Stan Jonathan was sliced open by an object thrown from the stands while Terry O'Reilly was being menaced by a stick-wielding fan. Bruins players climbed into the stands and began scuffling with fans. Mike Milbury actually removed a fan's shoe and beat him with it.

Ty Cobb makes Ron Artest look like a peace activist. In 1912, Cobb waded into the stands to pummel, spike and boot a heckler. "Don't kick him!" fans cried. "He has no hands!" The victim had lost all but two fingers in an industrial accident. "I don't care if he has no feet," snarled Cobb when informed of a suspension.

If either of his remaining fingers was the middle one, I doubt he'd ever show it to Ty Cobb again.