Wrigley Fan Adds His Suit to Injuries

The day after the Dodgers were slapped with the most suspensions in baseball history for a brawl with fans at Wrigley Field, one of the fans filed a lawsuit against both teams and several players, including catcher Chad Kreuter, claiming Kreuter choked him while other Dodgers pummeled him.

Ronald Camacho, one of three men arrested on misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges after the May 16 melee in the stands, said in an interview he suffered neck and shoulder strains and a bruised face after shouting at Kreuter to leave the stands and go back to the bullpen.

The backup catcher had chased another, unknown fan into the seats after the fan allegedly struck him in the back of the head and swiped his cap.

“I said something like, ‘You guys don’t belong here--you need to get the hell out of the stands,’ ” said Camacho, a 32-year-old construction supervisor. Kreuter “might have said a few choice words back. And then I was surprised . . . to find his hands around my neck. If you want to do that you join ‘Ultimate Fighting’ or something.”

A lifelong Cub fan who lives a block from the storied ballpark known as “the Friendly Confines,” Camacho said he “never balled a fist or anything” during the bizarre altercation but was struck several times.

“I felt like I got hit by a truck,” he said, before being carted off by security guards, held for three hours at the park and then turned over to police.

The Dodger players, meanwhile, “didn’t get arrested, they don’t have criminal charges against them,” he lamented.

Camacho’s suit, filed late Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court, names all 19 suspended Dodgers.

“It is unprecedented for major league baseball players to go into the stands of a baseball park, acting in concert and with the intent to injure spectators,” the suit reads. The players “acted as if they were common thugs and goons. . . .”

The suit also accuses the Cub organization of failing to provide adequate security, of falsely imprisoning Camacho and of failing to provide him with medical care.

The Dodgers said they would have no comment on pending litigation.

The altercation broke out during the ninth inning when Kreuter pursued the cap thief over a brick wall and into the stands along the right-field line. Much of the Dodger bullpen followed, scuffling with Cub fans as beer and catcalls rained down on them. The game was delayed for nine minutes.

In the ensuing days, Cub officials lambasted the Dodger players for climbing the wall while Dodger officials decried what they called a lack of security at the ballpark and defended Kreuter and the others for pursuing the alleged assailant.

With some exceptions on both sides, Chicagoans blamed the Dodgers and Angelenos blamed Wrigley Field yahoos.

On Wednesday, Frank Robinson, major league baseball’s vice president for on-field operations, made clear which group the league believed shouldered most of the blame when he suspended 16 Dodger players and three coaches for a total of 84 games--the most ever for a single fight--and levied $72,000 in fines.

The Dodgers are appealing the decision.

Two other Cub fans were also charged with disorderly conduct, Charles Carlin, 20, of nearby Des Plaines, Ill., and James Maness, 31, of Chicago. Neither has claimed to have been injured in the scuffle.

Maness is a friend of Camacho and the two went together to the game but sat in seats a few rows apart, Camacho said. Maness was ushered out and arrested after rushing to Camacho’s side, Camacho said.

Camacho’s attorney, Karen Conti, is also representing Maness but said Thursday Maness was not seeking damages, only to have the disorderly conduct charges dropped.

Carlin, reached at home Thursday, commented only briefly: “I’m not going to sue. I’m not going to sue the Dodgers, anyway. I’m not going to talk about it.”