General Mung Beans
Banned
Is it possible for there to be baseball in the United States like soccer riots in Britain. By that I mean really violent ones with several deaths. Could at least one or two of such riots happen in the US too?
I'm guessing not at the Major League level - nor probably in the upper Minor Leagues. Baseball today is the low-cost, family entertainment spectator sport. I am not sure if there could have been such riots earlier in the history of the sport.
Now, there may have been some close calls on some Little League diamonds - parents can get so out-of-hand.But you don't have the numbers there for a large-scale riot.
I guess if you used the team rivalries as channels of ethnic discontent. Like the situation you had in Glasgow with the Rangers and the Celtics.
Years ago I was in Fenway Park, sitting there, when a fight started next to me. I don't know what triggered it off, but one guy had a split lip, and the other got his glasses broke; one of them had a cup of hot chocolate, and he dropped it, and the hot liquid burned right thru my tennis shoe, burned the crap out of my foot.
Amost instantly a crowd appeared out of nowhere, about 10 guys grabbed each of the combattants, who then tried to fight the ones who were breaking the fight up. The one with the split lip tried to point at it, which was hard with so many others having hammerlocks on both his arms, and he screamed "look what he did to me!" About 5 minutes later the cops came around, when everything was over and they just muttered for everyone to settle down and watch the game, which everyone was doing already.
So that's the closest I ever got to a riot at a ball game.
Get rid of Kennesaw Mountain Landis as commissioner and have him replaced by someone more in favour of integration, and it'll happen sooner.Perhaps a PoD which "forces" incorporation of the Negro Leagues into MLB. Problem is, I don't see one - Jackie Robinson came about ten years earlier than the upsurge in the Civil Rights movement. The only earlier line I see is Teddy Roosevelt (hey, he straightened out football, right?) but that seems way too early.
You guys ever hear of Ten-Cent Beer Night in Cleveland? That came within an eyelash of turning into a riot.
Hmm perhaps the New York Yankees could be the white "Old Guard" immigrants like the Irish or Italians while the Mets could be blacks and Hispanics. Or in LA the Dodgers could be whites while the Angels are Hispanics what do you say to that?