Sap Sighted, Sank Same

In Toronto tonight a fan ran onto the filed and was shoved to the ground by second baseman Orlando Hudson. The fan pointed obliquely towards the second base bag and Hudson though he was pointing at his double-play mate Chris Woodward. Hudson tackled the fan presumably to protect his teammate. The man was arrested and will be charged with trespassing which carries a hefty forty-nine dollar fine--and that's Canadian dollars. 49 Canadian dollars come to about 83 cents in American currency.

These sorts of incidents used to happen all the time: a fan would run on the field and slide headfirst into second. It was an annoyance but no one seemed to notice after the dypso was removed from the field. However, now any fan on the field is automatically assumed to be an attacker, and perhaps rightfully so. There has to be stronger deterrents than a night in jail or a $50 fine.

I'm not sure what can be done about this nor how long it would take, but it seems that baseball is headed down a path where someone, a player, coach, umpire, or fan, is going to get hurt. It's apparent that the on-field, between-inning security is not enough. With SARs scares and falling attendance, baseball doesn't need anymore negative publicity. It's time for MLB to stop selling beer to fans until they are so inebriated that they lose all inhibitions. Either that or just erect a barrier like in hockey. But baseball has to do something since their measures just are not working.