Football Played by 11, Not 12

With the Raiders and the Chicago Bears occupying the same stadium Sunday, it is astonishing to think that a serious concern at the Coliseum is how violent the crowd might be.

Few men on either of these NFL teams have ever turned the other cheek when it came to a fight. More often than not, any cheek that did get turned was on the receiving end of a fist. But the incident involving that Pittsburgh Steelers fan last Sunday was enough to turn the stomach of even the meanest Raider or Bear, including the stomach of Refrigerator Perry, which takes considerable turning.

Some badfella who fancies himself a fan of the Raiders took exception to the enthusiastic support some other character was offering to the visiting Steelers, so he proceeded to turn the guy’s face into chop suey.

Evidently, he beat on the poor guy for close to three minutes before security was able to intervene. At a prizefight, that’s an entire round. Tyson-Spinks didn’t last three minutes. You can do extensive cosmetic surgery, given three minutes.

Well, stadium officials can do only so much. They can ban booze. They can inspect bags. They can beef up security.

But they can’t read people’s minds, and they can’t baby-sit every single person in every single seat at every single football game.

So, you buy your ticket, you take your chances.

No longer is it safe to sit at a football game. We now have hooligans, same as soccer. Wherever you go, some Mr. Potatohead is going to be seated someplace near you, spoiling for a fight.

Before long, it’s the fans who will have to wear protective equipment at football games. Shoulder pads, helmets and cups.

Husbands will be pounding their wives on both shoulders before games.

“Ready, honey?”

“Ready, dear.”

“OK! Let’s go spectate!”

Crowds will get louder and meaner. They’ll start asking the players to keep the noise down. Teams will be penalized 15 yards after a touchdown for every fan who gets spiked.

Some of this is a direct result of the continuing misbegotten effort to involve fans in NFL games.

Coast to coast, football teams on every level brag about their home crowds being their “12th man.”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t go to football games to watch any 12th man. I go to watch the 11 men.

What we get is a steady increase of one team’s crowd attempting to top another’s. Seattle is loud, so Houston wants to be louder. Cleveland’s fans bark, so Cincinnati’s coach tries to whip his into a lather.

Then there are the fans who show up with painted faces, making themselves look as though they just got back from robbing a bank somewhere in Gotham City.

And then there are the fans who spend an inordinate amount of time at every football game attempting to persuade everyone in their section to do one of those wave-things.

The wave is the worst thing that ever happened to sports in America, with the possible exception of Dave Kingman.

During Michael Chang’s Davis Cup tennis match the other day, the audience started doing a wave. This, heaven help us, happened in Austria.

Austria gives us Mozart and a nice boys’ choir, and what do we give back? The wave.

Oh, well. Fans just don’t want to be left out of the action, I suppose. They want to feel they are part of the game--including the guy who sits there every week with the Bible sign, which, heaven help me , has never once gotten me to read my Bible.

Matter of fact, if this guy would just agree to stay away from every American stadium for one year, I would agree to memorize my Bible from cover to cover.

At least, some fans are relatively harmless at sporting events. They stay out of your way.

But let’s talk for one minute about these people who won’t just sit down and watch the damn game.

I do wish these people who take it upon themselves to walk all over the stadium, carrying banners supporting their team, whooping it up, playfully taunting the home team, would go back to their seats and sit in them.

That’s what your ticket to a football game is supposed to buy you--a seat. Go sit on it.

At a hockey game in Detroit once, an old guy socked me in the spine. I turned around.

“Put that out,” he said.

“Put what out?” I asked.

“That cigarette,” he said.

“I don’t smoke,” I said.

“Well, you better not,” he said.

Like I was saying, it can get rough up there in the stands. Let’s not make it any rougher. The disabled list is supposed to be for the players.