Big A Works Hard to Keep the Tipsy From Tussling : Computers Used to Track Fans’ Actions as Stadium Strives to Uphold Its Image

In the last inning of a Yankee game at the Big A, uniformed police officers have to break up several fights among spectators in the outfield seats. Warring fans are tossing beers at each other again.

A suntanned man in shorts, so drunk he can’t remember his name, is thrown out of the ballpark because he is ignoring an order against launching paper airplanes. Fans wearing cardboard food trays on their heads--with beers in them--are told to take off their hats or leave.

“I’ve been here when you don’t have time to take names. You’re just busy running from fight to fight,” said Anaheim Police Detective Gary Churchill, who moonlights at the stadium. “After 20 years, I don’t like it on nights like this, but it pays child support.”

Even in Anaheim Stadium, rated by one sports magazine as the best ballpark in the country, fan behavior can get out of hand. But soon troublemakers will face even closer scrutiny, thanks to a first-of-its-kind plan to identify problem situations by using data fed into a computer. Though not everyone is sure it will be effective, the plan is gaining attention as a progressive approach to a familiar problem at sporting events.

Said Richard Levin, spokesman for the baseball commissioner: “It’s not an official pilot program, but naturally, all clubs are keeping an eye on it to see if it works. . . . We’re very interested.”

In their orange coats and white caps, the cheery crew of Anaheim Stadium ushers, most senior citizens working part time, are the key to the plan. Since the start of the 1986 baseball season, they haven’t just been helping California Angel fans find their seats. They have been watching whether they drink too much. And if they create a ruckus, the ushers report it on alcohol abuse score cards.

Before the 1987 season begins, the information will be fed into a city-owned computer. From this, patterns of behavior will be gleaned: In which inning of a Detroit Tigers game did fans get boisterous? Where were they sitting--or standing? How much beer was sold that night? How many fights broke out during a Saturday night game against the Red Sox? Had those arrested been drinking? Did they spill a lot of beverages? What was the score of the game? Did it make a difference?

Angel and City of Anaheim officials hope to end up with a computerized profile of spectator behavior for any given inning of a game.

Insights will be drawn on where to put more ushers and security, and where and when to sell less beer and hard liquor, or none at all, stadium operators and an Angels spokesman contend.

“The ushers won’t be naming names,” said John Hays senior vice president in charge of marketing for the Angels and the man who came up with the idea last year. “We’re looking for patterns of behavior.”

While commending Anaheim Stadium for its enterprise, some observers, including American League President Bobby Brown, said other ballparks might attain the same results without using a computer. Bill Turner, who was named general manager of the stadium in August but who has run day-to-day operations since 1981, admits that that is a possibility.

“This is all pretty much stuff we already know from common sense,” said Turner, 61. “I mean, we know New York fans and Boston fans and Detroit fans . . . like to have a good time. We already know most of our problems are in the cheap seats where you’ve got people who spend $3 on a ticket and $30 on beer.

“But having it down on paper will mean the difference of flying by the seat of your pants and trying to fly a 747.”

Cost in Computer Time

Besides, Hays added, the cost of the experimental program amounts to the time it will take to operate the computer. “We have really nothing to lose,” he said.

When instituted, however, the computer demographics program will be only the latest wrinkle in a sophisticated alcohol-abatement program at the Big A, where 3 million cups of beer are sold to spectators each year.

Some of the measures directly affect the fan:

- “Don’t Drink and Drive” signs are posted throughout the 70,000-seat stadium.

- Pregame public address system announcements are made requesting fans to refrain from excessive drinking and language that doesn’t fit a “simple code of decency.”

- Fans in some general admission areas aren’t allowed in other parts of the stadium.

- Tailgaters have been corraled into designated areas of the parking lot so that, according to Hays, “we can put more staff in the area” and “provide more trash receptacles.”

- A limit of two beers per snack bar visit has been imposed.

A decision to eliminate sales of the 32-ounce “jumbo” beers still sold at Los Angeles Rams football games came last year only hours after a disturbing tangle that Baseball Commissioner Peter H. Ueberroth happened to witness.

Red Sox outfielder Rick Miller, a former Angels player, interrupted a home game to dive into the stands behind the visiting team dugout, where his wife and 5-year-old son were nearly involved in a fistfight with fans. As an alarmed Ueberroth watched from behind the Angels dugout, Miller put a chokehold on one of the combatants. Police arrived and arrested three people for assault and battery and disturbing the peace. One officer was injured. Miller, who said one of his friends was involved in the scuffle, chose to escort his wife and son out through the clubhouse.

‘Monster Beer’ Ban

Turner said getting rid of the “monster beers” had been under consideration, but a final decision was made that night. Eighteen ounces is now the largest helping of beer available at Anaheim Stadium.

Then there’s the “Anaheim Way.”

All Anaheim Stadium ushers must graduate from the Anaheim Way Academy, sort of an in-house hospitality training program held in rooms in the stadium administration office. Parts of the course are also used by nearby Disneyland. Workers at the Anaheim Convention Center and two city-owned public golf courses are also required to attend Anaheim Way classes.

Turner himself went through the course, which is based on a philosophy of how employees should treat stadium visitors. It has been published in a manual that all workers must carry with them for handy reference.

Strict rules are enforced regarding hair length, uniforms and such details as gaudy nail polish on women and earrings on men. (If one usher in a typical crew of 100 is cold, for example, all the rest also must wear stadium-issued jackets. More than once, a female usher has been reassigned to work in a more sheltered part of the stadium so that all the ushers don’t have to put on their jackets, several workers said.)

Efforts are made to keep the stadium grounds--and work force--well-groomed.

“It’s like your own home,” Turner said. “If you keep it clean, then your guests don’t abuse it. . . . If you treat a person as though you have invited them into your own home, they’ll behave accordingly.”

Anaheim Way graduates face speedy discipline if they are not courteous.

“We wouldn’t discharge someone for calling a fan a name for the first time, because they have to take a lot of abuse,” Turner says. “The third time, though, we let them go.”

The Anaheim Way training is added to other instruction that isn’t unique to Orange County.

At the ballpark, about 900 ushers, parking lot attendants, crowd-control employees and concession stand workers have undergone special training to help them spot inebriates and graciously refuse to sell them beer or liquor. Refresher courses are given to veteran employees at the start of each season.

Dealing With Drunks

The training includes a video produced by beer maker Anheuser-Busch that all new employees must watch. Along with tips on dealing with drunks, actors portray various “personality profiles” of some “typical problem fans,” said John Trosper, concession manager for the Zsabo Corp. at the stadium. “I’ve seen it. It’s very enlightening. . . . They use a lot of humor.”

Some police officers and stadium bartenders blame problems on fans who are drunk even before they pass through the turnstiles.

Rick Haulenbeck, 35, an Esperanza High School English teacher and coach who tends bar part time in the Stadium Saloon, said Zsabo “likes to blame the police and the police like to blame us, but it’s the tailgaters. Most of the problems are with people who come in here already tanked.”

Despite the army of officers stationed to search arrivals at Gate 9, the entrance for outfield seats, some fans still go to great lengths to smuggle alcohol, said Sgt. Ron Welch, director of police security at the stadium.

A young woman cradling what looked like an infant seemed surprisingly unburdened with diaper bags and baby gear. A shrewd policeman asked the mother how old her child was. The woman took a little too long to answer. When he parted the blankets, ostensibly to admire the child, the officer found a new bottle of vodka.

Another fan tried to smuggled spirits by wearing a Banana Republic outfit complete with safari hat and binoculars. But the oddly-shaped lenses caught the attention of a policeman, who found liquor inside.

Watching for Smugglers

One officer is assigned to look exclusively for smugglers, Welch said. Once fans pass the turnstiles, the officer watches whether they pat their calves for their bottle on the ride up the escalator.

Police at the stadium have for years barred fans from bringing in containers such as bottles, cans or vacuum bottles, regardless of their contents. But savvy spectators recently challenged the no-container policy, correctly claiming that there was no city ordinance banning them. So last Tuesday, the Anaheim City Council voted to expand an existing ordinance that prohibits bringing alcoholic beverages into the stadium to include a ban on containers.

Officials say the measures already in effect have helped limit fan problems even before the computer plan is introduced. As the Angels’ division-winning 1986 season drew to a close, fan arrests and ejections were fewer than last season, according to the Anaheim Police Department, which provides the stadium’s security force. Citations--mostly misdemeanor tickets for trying to smuggle liquor into the ballpark--soared.

“The fans will always be smarter than we are,” said Angels marketing official Hays. “We can only try and do our jobs better, and if we can avoid automatically shutting off the beer taps in the seventh inning like other places are doing, just by gathering a little more specific information, we ought to give it a try. You have people paying good money to watch baseball; why should they not be able to buy a beer and a hot dog and have a good time?”