Security Precautions Will Take Top Priority

A variety of events, including the home run derby, the Futures game and the Major League Baseball gala, are being held this week in conjunction with Tuesday night’s All-Star game at U.S. Cellular Field.

Commissioner Bud Selig can only hope that one of Chicago’s other favorite pastimes -- getting drunk, shedding your shirt, running onto the field during the game and attacking someone -- doesn’t make it onto the all-star agenda.

The Chicago White Sox, at the insistence of MLB, have instituted a number of security measures since two of baseball’s uglier fan incidents thrust U.S. Cellular Field, known as Comiskey Park until January’s $68-million naming rights deal, into the national spotlight over the last 10 months, and baseball officials don’t expect such incidents to mar Tuesday night’s game.

“Since the last incident, there have been some changes made by the White Sox based on our recommendations, and the same plan of action will be in place for the All-Star game,” said Kevin Hallinan, baseball’s senior vice president for security and facility management.

“The White Sox have done a real good job, and we think they made some good changes. We’re very confident going in that we’ve addressed these issues.”

White Sox fans, many hailing from Chicago’s blue-collar South Side, have a reputation as being more aggressive and unruly than their Wrigley Field counterparts on the North Side.

Old Comiskey Park, remember, was the site of the infamous Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979, when a Bill Veeck-inspired promotion that was supposed to provide a diversion for fans between games of a doubleheader turned into a giant melee, with some 7,000 fans wreaking havoc on the field.

There were so many alcohol-induced fights in the stands at old Comiskey that after buying the team from Veeck in 1981, one of the first things new owner Jerry Reinsdorf did was ban the sale of hard liquor in the park.

During last month’s White Sox-Cubs series at U.S. Cellular, a fight broke out in the upper deck that was so vicious players took notice.

“There were guys falling five or six rows,” Cub outfielder Tom Goodwin told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It was like the Hatfields and the McCoys....”

But it wasn’t until a bare-chested father and his teenage son attacked Kansas City Royal coach Tom Gamboa during a game last September, and until four fans, including one who assaulted first-base umpire Laz Diaz, ran onto the field during a game in April that the White Sox, MLB and government officials stepped in.

Since April, fans are no longer allowed to move from the upper deck to lower levels at U.S. Cellular without a ticket, even late in the game. Ushers are more vigilant checking tickets to make sure fans are in the right seats.

The ball boys and ball girls down the lines were replaced by security officers, to augment the dozen or so security guards -- all off-duty or recently retired Chicago police officers or state troopers -- already positioned at both ends of each dugout.

Ushers and security guards pay closer attention to alcohol consumption and have the authority to cut off liquor sales to those who have had too much to drink.

“If someone’s desire is to get onto the field of play, it’s very difficult to stop them,” White Sox spokesman Scott Reifert said. “We’ve tried to erect as many hurdles as possible, and we continue to increase those.”

Among the biggest hurdles, Reifert believes, are stiffer penalties for stadium trespassing, a warning the public address announcer relays to fans every game.

Reifert was among those who testified before the Illinois State Legislature earlier this year, and lawmakers eventually voted to bump what was previously a misdemeanor to a Class IV felony, with fines jumping from $100 to as much as $2,000 and either jail time or community service added to sentences.

“That night [of the Diaz incident], all the people who ran onto the field weren’t drinking,” Reifert said. “We’ve had guys who say it’s on their life list of things to do, to run onto a field during a game.

“If a bunch of buddies dare each other, pass the hat, and one guy makes a fool of himself and is charged $100 for trespassing, it’s no big deal. But if he faces a minimum $2,000 fine and possible jail time, there’s a disincentive to run on the field.”

Eric Dybas of Bolingbrook, Ill., the 24-year-old fan roughed up by several players and security guards after running into Diaz on April 15, was charged with aggravated battery and criminal trespassing.

William Ligue Jr., who led his 15-year-old son in the attack on Gamboa last September, pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated battery and faces up to five years in prison. He blamed the incident on alcohol and drugs. A Chicago judge has recommended a sentence of six months in a boot camp for Ligue’s 16-year-old son.

The two spectators charged onto the field, hit the 54-year-old Gamboa from behind and landed a number of blows before Royal players and security guards arrived.

“No punishment could be stiff enough,” White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko said after the incident. “I wish they had left the players out there to beat on them for an hour.”

There have been some 20 incidents of fans running onto major league fields this season, including one in which Dodger outfielder Jason Romano body-slammed a fan to the turf in the ninth inning of a May 21 game in Dodger Stadium.

The majority of fan-on-the-field incidents occur in later innings, a fact that Hallinan is well aware of as he puts the finishing touches on security plans for Tuesday night’s All-Star game.

“We’re going to be more proactive, determine who [these fans] are and don’t let them get into position [to run onto the field] in the first place,” said Hallinan, who begins All-Star security planning a year in advance. “We’re going to work at it throughout the game, and coverage won’t fall off in the later innings.

“Once the game starts, our momentum doesn’t decrease. We meet with various decision-makers at least three times during the game to determine what’s happening, where the potential hot spots are, what adjustments are necessary. Our job is not over until the lights go out in the stadium.”