Baseball Fans on the Field: Vote for Your Favorite
On Monday, a Pennsylvania high school student named Steve Consalvi leapt onto the field during the eighth inning of a Phillies Game at Citizen's Bank Park and briefly eluded security. Unlike similar stunts, Consalvi's prank made national headlines and went viral on the Internet because it ended with the 17-year-old being shot with a police taser in front of thousands of fans.
The video on YouTube has gotten over a million hits.
The Consalvi affair has raised serious questions about the police officer's use of force. It's also just a strange story. (Consalvi, oddly, had the courtesy to call his father and ask permission to run on the field. He also spurred a copycat the next day, who was not tasered.)
But baseball has a rich tradition of unauthorized fan antics - sometimes good-natured and sometimes truly awful. Here are some of the best, in no particular order. Vote for your favorite at the bottom.
1. Sometimes the security guys are the stars (without drawing their tasers). As this fan tries to elude two guards in front of him, he gets blindsided with an elbow from another guard closing in from behind. It looks painful.
2. As security guards at Jacobs field escort one fan off of the outfield, another gets inspired to take his star turn - sprinting from the first-base side stand and sliding head first into second. Cleveland rocks?
3. What better way to celebrate Mother's Day than with public jackassery? This guy also gets slammed from the blind side. Where's Michael Oher when you need him?
4. Anybody can just run on the field. This guy tried to do a little break dancing before getting horse-collared and handcuffed.
5. The last game at the old Yankee stadium, the (renovated) House that Ruth Built. The police knew that some idiot was gonna celebrate with an on-field appearance. That's why there were literally dozens of them on the field at the end of the game. But that didn't stop this guy, who ends up under a pile of at least a dozen officers. This isn't the greatest video but it comes with a bonus soundtrack of frat boys singing the "Cops" theme.
6. Although men commit the overwhelming majority of arrestable offenses at baseball games, this is an equal-opportunity blog post. Here a woman somewhat-gracefully plops over the outfield wall and makes a dash for Barry Bonds, but doesn't quite make it. Bonds (who, recall, boasted chemically-enhanced strength at the time) appears totally indifferent.
7. Alas, there doesn't appear to be a video for this one, but it's really not as amusing as the others. In 2002, an apparently drunk father and son attacked Kansas City first-base coach Tom Gamboa. A folded-up knife was found on the ground after they were subdued. Not up for voting.
