Phillies College Night Gets Wild

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Hamels Gem 1, 04/04/07, originally uploaded by stksave27

Things got out of hand on Wednesday night at the Phillies game and we're not just talking about Tom Gordon and Ryan Madson.  From the Inquirer.

The Phillies said yesterday they would look at ways to improve college
nights at Citizens Bank Park after Wednesday's first college night got
out of hand
.

Rowdy fans threw objects from the upper deck onto the field and fans
below. There were 31 ejections Wednesday, which is higher than normal.
There also were reports of fights.

"We're very pleased about the increased attendance and interest by the college fans," said Mike Stiles,
senior vice president for administration and operations. "But we have
to curtail college fans or anybody else who engages in misbehavior that
takes away from the rest of our fans' enjoyment of the game. And so
we're going to explore ways to do that, and we have to find the right
balance."

And an email from The 700 Level reader Andrew:

So I had the pleasure of going down to the
Phillies night home opener last evening. Yes it was a cold evening but
I wore a double layer of thermal underwear so I was warm.(too much
info) I took the subway and was shocked at the standing room crowd on
the train. McFadden's was packed with drunk shot guzzling college kids.
I saw floody, spoke with him and he told me they had a pre sale of
35,000. When we got to our great seats 8 rows behind the plate my eyes
could not stop checking out the right field upper deck or the left and
center field outfield seats. Fights galore, food fights, beer bottle
throwing fights, fist fights among rival colleges, kids puking in the
bathrooms and hallways.
In a word it was great theatre. When McCann
tied up the game Victorino was showered with beer bottles, hot dogs
tennis and golf balls, they had to stop and pick the debris up and make
an announcement not to throw stuff onto the field. Oh by the way our
bullpen stinks.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia.  Now what kind of reject brings tennis and golf balls to a Phillies game?  Did anyone else witness this?

And the Ladies take on the evening.

UPDATE: When a reader sends me an email this long, I have to pass it along.

I was in the right field upper deck for the opening night game and
dollar dog night.  There was a lot of "asshole" and "you suck" chants
to people wearing everything from braves jerseys, hot dog costumes,
and even a batman costume.  The person who got it worst was some guy
wearing a Giants jersey who was purposely drawing attention to that
fact: he was treated to the asshole chant, then some shoving, and it
got so bad he had to leave.  Unfortunately for him, as he was headed
for the steps he got beers poured on him by what seemed like that
entire section, along with some bottles and hot dogs.  It was like the
beginning of the Pistons-Pacers fight.  Despite the fact that he was
wearing a Giants jersey and acting like an idiot, it got out of hand.
Other than that, there were a few minor skirmishes but no punches
thrown that I saw.

I have to say security did a terrible job.  The hot dog throwing and
debris started from a few drunk kids early on, maybe even the fourth
inning, and security didn't do anything.  Once, security saw the
person who actually threw the hotdog, so one security guard who looked
like Tony Dungee went over to the person and said something to him,
but didn't kick him out.  Once everyone saw that security wasn't going
to take any action, things got progressively worse from there.  Thank
god ballparks use plastic bottles these days.  Security shouldn't be
lenient; if someone is going to throw something, they should not get a
warning.  In fact, the same guy who got the warning earlier was one of
the people that threw a bottle onto the field from the upper deck.

There was definitely a tennis ball thrown onto the field behind 1st
base.  Howard was nice enough to toss it underhand into the crowd.  I
didn't see any golf balls - I think people mistook the balled up tin
foil of the dollar dogs for golf balls.  That doesn't make it any
better unfortunately.  I felt bad for the ball girls who had to pick
up those de-bunned hot dogs.  Even worse, quality, or at least cheap,
hot dogs went to waste.

Obviously the ugliest part was when McCann hit the game tying homerun.
Evertyhing was thrown, even a few hats.  It was a discgrace. Security
can't allow them to conduct themselves like that.  I've noticed this
throwing bottles phenomenon at college basketball games in the past
few years too. I am proud to be a fan, but I am ashamed of a lot of
these college fans recently.

-Dan

P.S. When the game went to extra innings, I heard the first
E-A-G-L-E-S chant of the year.  That didn't take long.

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