Welcome to L.A. Part II, The Great Baseball Adventure
"You're in L.A. now, you don't mess around in this town," replied the young, headband-wearing Hispanic guy with a thin mustache that looked drawn on his face with a magic marker.
Several of the other thuggish looking men in Dodgers jerseys nodded or spat in agreement. "You're lucky," he added with a smirk.
Now seeing that at the time of the snide remark, Mustache Man and friends were surrounded by about 20 police officers, the same ones that he just hauled off one of their friends in a squad car - I smirked back, thinking... I don't think its as much of an issue of us being lucky as much as you guys being unlucky, or probably just jerks.
OK, hold up, let me back up a bit...
The scene of the crime is Dodger Stadium, where for more than three hours of the night, Giants slugger Barry Bonds played the villain role for most of the 44,000 in attendance as well as a large portion of the national ESPN Sunday Night baseball audience.
Mr. Bonds, whose biggest crimes seem to be injecting/injesting harmful substances in his body to make himself a better player and a general boorishness...at least towards the media. He's become the equivalent of a wrestling bad guy in the WWF.
Usually in sports, crowds boo a player based on what uniforms they're wearing, not as an act of maliciousness necessarily, but an act of theatre.
But with Bonds, it's different. It's personal. It's like if Saddam Hussein walked to the pitcher's mound and killed a baby, I'm not sure if people would of booed louder. But then again, who am I to question the moral purity of a group of people who are getting smashed consuming $7 beers yelling insults about a man's mother they've never met.
I'll say this about Bonds, I don't love the man, it's impossible to do, and I think Bonds would prefer it that way. And I don't think he's a good guy or positive role model either. But that's not the point. Intentionally or unintentionally, Bonds is deconstructing the Myth of the Sports Hero, and sports fans are very uncomfortable with that.
What people don't understand at Dodger Stadium is that Bonds isn't bothered by the boos and the jeers, well, he probably is in some way, but like Emperor Palpatine, the hate just makes him stronger and more defiant, "more powerful than you could ever imagine."
In the sixth inning, the Dodgers fans yell in indignation as their Hero Jeff Kent is plunked in the head with a stray 81-MPH changeup and crumples to the ground. Minutes later, the crowd erupts in cheers as Bonds is struck on the arm in retaliation, the old school baseball system of Frontier Justice. Never mind that Kent once lied about getting injured in a motorcycle accident or that he was allegedly involved in racially charged arguments with Milton Bradley last year, Bonds is The Bad Guy.
But indeed, I digress....
The real crime took place in the parking lot after the game. Joel, Collin and I had just gotten back in the Jeep, and were waiting for the slow clogged artery of traffic to lead out of the parking lot. We noticed a nearby what appeared to be a silver Lexus full of drunken Hispanic guys that had rear-ended a greenish Mustang. A couple slinked out of the car to inspect the damage, and perhaps intimidated by the six men, got back in the car and drove off.
Now, as is standard driving protocol, we let the Mustang in ahead of us, and we're ready to follow them when the Lexus just sped in front of us and cut us off and almost hit us. Meanwhile, they started yelling and cursing at us, saying things like "We're gonna f-- you up!" and "I'll kick your ass", witty stuff like that.
The three of us were a little incredulous, angry, and admittedly a little scared. We joked about rear ending them, but being chilled out guys, we just took the whole incident in stride and kept on listening to a quiet indie song on the radio.
In 99 percent of these sort of situations, one in which someone drives like an idiot or was rude or threatening to you, nothing happens. You drive off or they drive off and you just end up muttering about the whole thing. But within 30 seconds, two cops, a male and female are brandishing handguns and are approaching the silver Lexus with obvious intent.
One cop knocks on the front door and asks the driver to get out, while the second is watching the other side. Now for some bizarre reason, the skinny white guy that told the cops about the Lexus thugs feels the need to walk over and actually taunt them by yelling "Yeah, who's laughing now? Who's laughing now?!" I'm not sure if this dude think this whole scenario is going to make the Directors Cut of "Crash" or what, but it's plainly ridiculous. All of a sudden chaos ensues and the five remaining passengers in the car jump out, two of them begin to chase Bigmouth.
We're these dumb white guys trying out for a part in "Crash 2?"
At this point, you might be wondering what the heck we're doing in all of this. And I'll have to admit, that it had a cool voyeuristic quality at first, like we were watching a live action version of "Cops." I was taking cellphone pictures and we just sort of laughed about it. But as soon as we realized there were six drunken angry gangster dudes outside their car and a few feet from us and only two police officers, we suddenly realized our potentially precarious position.
But everyone was too distracted to notice us...a potbellied man who had rushed out of the car was cuffed and was struggling with the cops and yelling and...BOOM he suddenly is thrown against our Jeep and falls to the ground with two cops on top of him.
Now the events of the next 5 minutes or so are a little fuzzy in my mind...even if your author is a trained, professional journalist and former crime reporter. Instead of a clear narrative with a definite set of characters, plot, and falling action, I remember specific indelible images in my mind. For example:
-The tackled man's pants somehow fell to his ankles, and was either wearing no underwear or a very loose pair because all of his sensitive parts were on display for several uncomfortable minutes. The tackled man yelled something about his wrist being broken again, but how he could still fight and take down the cops 1-on-1.
-The two cops slowly become a crowd of 20-30 uniformed officers and stadium security. One of them had a baton out and was pointing it at one of the Lexus crew, who was in return challenging him to use it, "Come on bitch, hit me. I dare you! Hit me!"
-The tackled man got up and threw his elbow at an officer. Another po-po responded by putting his arm behind his back and pushing him against the passenger side window of the Jeep.
-Minutes later, the dust settled. One man was arrested, and the horde of cops were writing and supervising and discussing cop things. We were told to stay where we were because we were Official Witnesses.
-We wait around for about an hour. During that time, my kindly roommates offer a half-apology (and cigarettes) to some of the Lexus thugs. (Which I was admittedly against doing.) That's when the incident in the first paragraph of the story occurred. Needless to say, when it was time for the supervising detective to get a statement from me, I wasn't afraid to paint a negative, but true picture of the Lexus Thug Crew.
So, that's about it. A Lieutenant told us that the arrested man would be charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and possibly assault against a police officer. We may be called to court to provide expert eyewitness accounts. In the meantime he told us he would try to get us free Dodgers-Cubs tickets for Wednesday.
I can't wait, personally. Who needs heroes to look up to when you can have so many villians to boo.
"You're in L.A. now, you don't mess around in this town," replied the young, headband-wearing Hispanic guy with a thin mustache that looked drawn on his face with a magic marker.
Several of the other thuggish looking men in Dodgers jerseys nodded or spat in agreement. "You're lucky," he added with a smirk.
Now seeing that at the time of the snide remark, Mustache Man and friends were surrounded by about 20 police officers, the same ones that he just hauled off one of their friends in a squad car - I smirked back, thinking... I don't think its as much of an issue of us being lucky as much as you guys being unlucky, or probably just jerks.
OK, hold up, let me back up a bit...
The scene of the crime is Dodger Stadium, where for more than three hours of the night, Giants slugger Barry Bonds played the villain role for most of the 44,000 in attendance as well as a large portion of the national ESPN Sunday Night baseball audience.
Mr. Bonds, whose biggest crimes seem to be injecting/injesting harmful substances in his body to make himself a better player and a general boorishness...at least towards the media. He's become the equivalent of a wrestling bad guy in the WWF.
Usually in sports, crowds boo a player based on what uniforms they're wearing, not as an act of maliciousness necessarily, but an act of theatre.
But with Bonds, it's different. It's personal. It's like if Saddam Hussein walked to the pitcher's mound and killed a baby, I'm not sure if people would of booed louder. But then again, who am I to question the moral purity of a group of people who are getting smashed consuming $7 beers yelling insults about a man's mother they've never met.
I'll say this about Bonds, I don't love the man, it's impossible to do, and I think Bonds would prefer it that way. And I don't think he's a good guy or positive role model either. But that's not the point. Intentionally or unintentionally, Bonds is deconstructing the Myth of the Sports Hero, and sports fans are very uncomfortable with that.
What people don't understand at Dodger Stadium is that Bonds isn't bothered by the boos and the jeers, well, he probably is in some way, but like Emperor Palpatine, the hate just makes him stronger and more defiant, "more powerful than you could ever imagine."
In the sixth inning, the Dodgers fans yell in indignation as their Hero Jeff Kent is plunked in the head with a stray 81-MPH changeup and crumples to the ground. Minutes later, the crowd erupts in cheers as Bonds is struck on the arm in retaliation, the old school baseball system of Frontier Justice. Never mind that Kent once lied about getting injured in a motorcycle accident or that he was allegedly involved in racially charged arguments with Milton Bradley last year, Bonds is The Bad Guy.
But indeed, I digress....
The real crime took place in the parking lot after the game. Joel, Collin and I had just gotten back in the Jeep, and were waiting for the slow clogged artery of traffic to lead out of the parking lot. We noticed a nearby what appeared to be a silver Lexus full of drunken Hispanic guys that had rear-ended a greenish Mustang. A couple slinked out of the car to inspect the damage, and perhaps intimidated by the six men, got back in the car and drove off.
Now, as is standard driving protocol, we let the Mustang in ahead of us, and we're ready to follow them when the Lexus just sped in front of us and cut us off and almost hit us. Meanwhile, they started yelling and cursing at us, saying things like "We're gonna f-- you up!" and "I'll kick your ass", witty stuff like that.
The three of us were a little incredulous, angry, and admittedly a little scared. We joked about rear ending them, but being chilled out guys, we just took the whole incident in stride and kept on listening to a quiet indie song on the radio.
In 99 percent of these sort of situations, one in which someone drives like an idiot or was rude or threatening to you, nothing happens. You drive off or they drive off and you just end up muttering about the whole thing. But within 30 seconds, two cops, a male and female are brandishing handguns and are approaching the silver Lexus with obvious intent.
One cop knocks on the front door and asks the driver to get out, while the second is watching the other side. Now for some bizarre reason, the skinny white guy that told the cops about the Lexus thugs feels the need to walk over and actually taunt them by yelling "Yeah, who's laughing now? Who's laughing now?!" I'm not sure if this dude think this whole scenario is going to make the Directors Cut of "Crash" or what, but it's plainly ridiculous. All of a sudden chaos ensues and the five remaining passengers in the car jump out, two of them begin to chase Bigmouth.
We're these dumb white guys trying out for a part in "Crash 2?"
At this point, you might be wondering what the heck we're doing in all of this. And I'll have to admit, that it had a cool voyeuristic quality at first, like we were watching a live action version of "Cops." I was taking cellphone pictures and we just sort of laughed about it. But as soon as we realized there were six drunken angry gangster dudes outside their car and a few feet from us and only two police officers, we suddenly realized our potentially precarious position.
But everyone was too distracted to notice us...a potbellied man who had rushed out of the car was cuffed and was struggling with the cops and yelling and...BOOM he suddenly is thrown against our Jeep and falls to the ground with two cops on top of him.
Now the events of the next 5 minutes or so are a little fuzzy in my mind...even if your author is a trained, professional journalist and former crime reporter. Instead of a clear narrative with a definite set of characters, plot, and falling action, I remember specific indelible images in my mind. For example:
-The tackled man's pants somehow fell to his ankles, and was either wearing no underwear or a very loose pair because all of his
-The two cops slowly become a crowd of 20-30 uniformed officers and stadium security. One of them had a baton out and was pointing it at one of the Lexus crew, who was in return challenging him to use it, "Come on bitch, hit me. I dare you! Hit me!"
-The tackled man got up and threw his elbow at an officer. Another po-po responded by putting his arm behind his back and pushing him against the passenger side window of the Jeep.
-Minutes later, the dust settled. One man was arrested, and the horde of cops were writing and supervising and discussing cop things. We were told to stay where we were because we were Official Witnesses.
-We wait around for about an hour. During that time, my kindly roommates offer a half-apology (and cigarettes) to some of the Lexus thugs. (Which I was admittedly against doing.) That's when the incident in the first paragraph of the story occurred. Needless to say, when it was time for the supervising detective to get a statement from me, I wasn't afraid to paint a negative, but true picture of the Lexus Thug Crew.
So, that's about it. A Lieutenant told us that the arrested man would be charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and possibly assault against a police officer. We may be called to court to provide expert eyewitness accounts. In the meantime he told us he would try to get us free Dodgers-Cubs tickets for Wednesday.
I can't wait, personally. Who needs heroes to look up to when you can have so many villians to boo.
