The Baseball Action <i> Under</i> the Stands

The gates had just opened at Anaheim Stadium last Friday for the Angels game, and most of Sgt. Jack Parra’s squad of Anaheim cops were at the turnstiles trying to spot the booze smugglers. It’s the law: Fans can’t bring alcohol into the stadium. You can get a ticket that will run you about $90 or $100, Parra said.

He concedes the irony. At the same time that his men are seizing six-packs and fifths, the concession stands are selling beer and cocktails and the message board is flashing “This Bud’s for You.”

“I wish they’d cut it off at sometime in the game,” Parra said, “even the top of the ninth. It just adds fuel. They did stop selling the giant 32-ounce beers. Now they only sell you two at a time, but you can walk from one stand to another. And if you’re too drunk to walk, your buddy’ll go get it for you.”

The alcohol persuades people to do odd things. The ushers up in the right-field cheap seats said that earlier in the year, the rowdies were catching and eating the giant moths that flitted near the lights. Sometimes they dipped them into their nachos cheese first. “The record is 22,” said usher Warren Amthauer. “I’m not kidding,” he added.

Alcohol is the main reason there are 30 Anaheim police officers at the stadium during the game. By the later innings, the booze builds high enough in various bloodstreams to make fighting seem appropriate.

(It could be worse, Parra said. “If this was a football game, we’d have drunks and fights already. In football, it’s gang against gang. They almost emulate the action on the field.”)

The rowdiest baseball crowds are for Yankee games, Parra said, but Detroit and Boston are very close seconds. And Friday nights are the worst. This was Detroit on a Friday night, so Parra’s squad was preparing for a dreadful evening.

It started at 8:40, the first complaint of a rowdiness. With three officers standing by, the two men in their 20s voluntarily came through the tunnel to talk it over.

“I wanna tell you,” said one in thick, clumsy tones as he handed over his driver license, “I respect you guys. When I was young, I hated you guys. I just wishhhhhh . . .,” but his sentence trailed off. Both eventually were arrested for being drunk in public.

At 9:15, things heated up. A man was brought in handcuffs to the tiny squad room under the stands, followed by his weeping girlfriend. He had aimed abusive, sometime obscene language toward those around him, ushers said. He continued while in the squad room.

“He snitched off his girlfriend,” Parra said. “He said, ‘If I’m going, take her, too.’ There’s a warrant out on her.” (It turned out to be from Hawaii for bad checks.)

Both were placed in small holding cells, one barely larger than a closet, the other actually a closet. From there they shouted insults at each other.

“If you don’t gimme a call, I’m gonna call a lawyer!” the man shouted.

“Kick his butt, officer!” shouted the woman. “I hope you’re satisfied, Larry.”

“Larry?” said one cop. “You said your name is Anthony.” They checked the new name, and there was a traffic warrant out for him as well.

“I want names!” the man shouted through the closet door. “I want all your names, and I’m gonna get them!” His tirade didn’t end until an officer arrived to drive them both to the city jail.

At 9:45, they pulled in another, a man in his ‘20s who, dressed in a concessionaire’s shirt, had tried to crash the press box, ushers said. This is a very big deal to the stadium management, because that’s where the VIPs reside. Officers said the man had fought several ushers, then several cops who had arrived to help. He calmed down once in the station and was quietly driven to jail.

By this time, the game was in the ninth inning and the concession stands were most of the way toward selling 21,700 beers and cocktails to many of the 35,891 people attending.

Officer Frank Stroobant, who was acting as desk officer and dispatcher, was harried. Fights and disturbances were breaking out simultaneously in scattered areas, and his men were having trouble reaching all of them.

The stadium exploded in cheers, and the piped-in radio account said the Angels had tied the game. Stroobant put his head on the desk and moaned. Extra innings--it meant more drinking, more fighting, extra hours of work.

A new pitcher was brought in. Fights broke out at aisles 125, 119 and 138. An error let in the winning run to end the game.

Almost immediately, a call came from the field boxes close by. Parra went and found a burly man pushing a wall of three ushers trying to herd him out through the tunnel. Parra and two officers wrestled the man into the security office, bent him over a table and handcuffed him. “I’m sorry, guys,” the man said. Too late.

For the next 45 minutes, the man, locked in the holding cell, noisily progressed through the typical phases: (1) Let’s be reasonable, (2) I’ve had enough of this, (3) I’ll sue, (4) Let me out or I’ll blankety-blank, and (5) I gotta go to the bathroom.

Parra told him to stop kicking the door or he’d be Maced. After one vulgar threat, the man quieted down. As he was led away to jail, he remarked, “I’m really sorry I caused you a problem.”

Parra--by then the last man left of the squad that had arrested six, cited 12 and ejected nine persons that night--headed past the stacks of empty beer kegs to the exit gate.

He was going to meet a friend at a bar, he said. “I need a drink.”