Reporters from Tribune newspapers around the nation give their take on the question of the day. Leave a comment with your opinion, and check back all day for updates.
From a fans’ perspective, which are the most unsafe baseball stadiums in the U.S.?
Phil Rogers, Chicago Tribune
I can’t say I was surprised that the Dodger Stadium parking lot was the site of a savage Opening Day beating, no more than I would have been to have heard that the same thing happened outside Candlestick Park. It’s the neighborhood around a ballpark that makes it feel shaky, not the ballpark itself.
I’ve known a couple people mugged outside of Turner Field in Atlanta, so I pay attention when I’m there after a game, and more bad things seem to happen near U.S. Cellular Field than Wrigley Field in Chicago. I used to get nervous around the old Yankee Stadium, but New York has seriously cleaned up its act. I’d call it Dodger Stadium, Turner Field and Detroit’s Comerica Park, in that order, although I’ve felt comfortable in all those places.
Mike DiGiovanna, Los Angeles Times
Even before last week’s incident, I felt Dodger Stadium was one of the most unsafe stadiums in the country. A Giants fan was shot and killed in the parking lot after a game there in 2003, and some of the most vicious fights I’ve ever seen from the press box have occurred in Dodger Stadium.
U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, home of the White Sox, seems to attract its share of far-too-raucous fans. Who can forget the father-son team that ran onto the field and attacked then-Kansas City Royals first-base coach Tom Gamboa in 2002, and the fan who came onto the field and assaulted umpire Laz Diaz in 2003?
Fenway Park in Boston can have a similar, bar-room-brawl kind of feel, especially when the Yankees are in town to play the Red Sox. With so many bars in the neighborhood, many fans are well lubricated even before the first pitch, and that can be a recipe for trouble, like the time I saw a fan throw a giant slice of pizza at Angels outfielder Garret Anderson while he fielded a ball near the left-field line.
But hey, with what’s going on at Dodger Stadium, I’ll take assault with a deadly pepperoni over assault with a deadly weapon any time.
Juan C. Rodriguez, South Florida Sun Sentinel
The simplest answer is the ones in the most unsafe cities. Drunken acts of violence are not limited to particular venues. The unfortunate incident at Dodger Stadium probably is no less likely to occur in Kansas City or Milwaukee or Philadelphia or New York.
I’ve covered games in 41 different stadiums, but attended games as a fan in only five facilities. Admittedly, I don’t possess much of a “fan’s perspective” on stadium safety. Generally when I get to and depart the ballpark, fans have either not yet arrived or the great majority of them have departed.
Obviously, I’m not decked out in opposing team garb, but I do carry a laptop. In more than 10 years of covering baseball, rarely have I felt uneasy around fans, whether I’m walk to the subway or parking lot, or waiting for a cab.
Bill Kline, The (Allentown, Pa.) Morning Call
When they say that 99.9 percent of all baseball fans are nice, they weren’t talking about New York and Philadelphia. True, alcohol makes louts out of most of us. But when you couple booze with the ornery disposition that most fans in those cities acquire by kindergarten, the combination is combustible. If you want trouble in New York or Philly, just pop on the visiting team’s cap, settle into your seat, duck and cover.
Because Phillies fans are behaving better since they blew up vile Veterans Stadium last decade, New York is the worst for feeling unsafe. Just walking to Yankee Stadium is more unsettling than watching Kirstie Alley confronting a pirouette. (Did we say to duck and cover?) For certain, most Yankees and Mets fans are nice. But odds are much better in New York that fans of the “wrong” team will be limping away at game’s end with battered egos and splattered clothes.
