Sheff fakes a boo boo. it wasnt THAT bad gary..
Even Anthony Davis’ wife is roasting him for missing clutch free throws now
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[image: Los Angeles Lakers v Minnesota Timberwolves] Photo by David
Berding/Getty Images
Anthony Davis missed two free throws to nearly cost the Lakers a...
2 hours ago
5 people gave us their .02 cents:
Rightfully the guy was arresting for ASSAULTING Sheff.
LOL..give me a break..he was arrested for getting involved in the play..not assaulting sheff..
Yeah, believe whatever you have to in order to sleep guilt free at night. Poor Sheff looks like he went a round with Tyson in his prime. I guess we're lucky the guy didn't bite Shef's ear half off.
Where are you? DId you go to Boston to bail that numbnut fan out of jail? I know, I know ... he WASN'T ARRESTED! Okay, this is boring. Bye.
NO EXCUSING THIS EXCUSE
By MIKE VACCARO (NY Post)
CHRIS HOUSE isn't the kind of guy who ever would have tried to bust Gary Sheffield's lip. We know this because House told his fiancee, and his fiancee told the world, and that's what passes for a defense in the latest example of athletes and fans crossing the invisible line that is supposed to divide them and keep them in their proper places.
It is no defense. It is garbage. No matter how much the future Mrs. House wants to make her husband-to-be sound like the most caring potential suitor since Mike Brady.
"He would never do that," is what Jodi Ingerbritson told the Boston Herald about her fiance. "He was just going for the ball."
Beautiful. So now, the best way to defend lecherous fans who tread where they don't belong is to say the crime they cop to isn't nearly as bad as the one with which they stand accused. Nice. "Really, officer, I didn't mean to crack up the car, I just wanted to steal it . . ."
It is moronic behavior like this that always gets lost in the haze when athletes fight back. When House leaned over the waist-high fence at Fenway Park on Thursday night, he immediately set in motion everything that followed, whether or not his elbow intentionally collided with Gary Sheffield's face, whether or not there was any contact at all.
Sheffield reacted the way almost anyone else in a similar situation would have behaved. He fought back. Now, he did this before throwing the ball back into the infield, which was a terrible lapse of judgment. Then, after retaliating, after getting rid of the ball, he wandered back for more. That'll earn him a suspension from Major League Baseball disciplinarian Bob Watson next week, and it'll be justified.
But again, one more time, we're forced to ask: What about the insipid behavior that starts things like this? What about Chris House? His faithful fiancee, standing by her man the whole way, seemed incredulous that anyone should question his judgment. Red Sox fans, not exactly an impartial jury, weighed in on their side of the issue, digging up that tired old chant that had lain mostly dormant in the first week of the season.
Let's remember something. Let's remember what the future Mrs. House said:
He was just going for the ball.
Guess what? It wasn't his ball to go after. It wasn't like one of those balls that trickles down the foul lines, into the corners, bouncing amid a tangle of arms. This was in right field at Fenway Park! It was the warning track! The second Chris House's arm broke the invisible plane that extends from the top of that 4-foot fence all the way to the sky, he was asking for something: an arrest, an ejection, prosecution.
Yes, even a faceful of Gary Sheffield's mitt.
Sheffield still shouldn't have done it. And he knew he shouldn't have done it. The name "Ron Artest" kept buzzing around his head, the way it is sure to buzz around every athlete's head from now until the end of time, joining the names "Frank Francisco" and "Milton Bradley" as a permanent cautionary tale that will keep even the most emotional, temperamental athlete — and Sheffield qualifies on both counts — from ever crossing from their side of the great divide.
But every once in a while, it would behoove fans to remember things, too, like the creatures who egged on Artest in Auburn Hills, and the critters who provoked Francisco, and the subhuman father-and-son duo that attacked Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa one ugly night in Chicago.
Again: One of these times, the incident won't end until someone's lifeless body is sprawled on a gurney, and it isn't likely to be the pro athlete's body. Fans are begging for their games to come wrapped in plexiglass sometime soon. Certainly, the Red Sox should immediately question the wisdom of a 4-foot fence in the field of play.
That's part of the charm of Fenway, you say?
Tough. Times change. It now takes six hours to move through an airport security line. That's our world now. Only in sports, fans can't blame the inevitable shifts in standards on any sinister force. Only themselves. Some nights, that's plenty sinister enough.
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