Editorial: All fighting in pro sports is a disgrace

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2004 | 8:58 a.m.

In professional sports, it's a long-held tradition for league officials, broadcasters and writers to condemn fights among players. On the surface, everyone takes the high road. Fines and suspensions are levied and obligatory criticisms pour forth. Yet in reality the penalties are light and do not serve as deterrents. It's silently understood that fights add interest, much like the crashes in auto racing. Bench-clearing incidents in baseball are shown on TV sports shows. Hockey fights get the same treatment, as do fights in the other major sports. Some fights become best sellers, such as with John Feinstein's book, "The Punch: One Night, Two Lives, and the Fight That Changed Basketball Forever."

But what's going to happen now, with fights between players and fans becoming more and more common? Will this, too, become generally tolerated because it adds interest? The pinnacle of this trend, to date, was Friday night's bloody spectacle in Auburn Hills, Mich., in the final seconds of the basketball game between the home team Detroit Pistons and visiting Indiana Pacers.

Altogether, nine fans were roughed up and nine players were suspended, with the heaviest suspensions, including one for the rest of the season, costing three players millions of dollars. The severity of the suspensions are being debated around the country, with some commentators criticizing National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern for being too harsh.

In our view, all of the suspensions were warranted. We would even approve of expulsions for any players found to have physically attacked fans for any reason other than self defense. Sports needs to adopt some cardinal rules, starting with fighting. Fights among players should be dealt with much more seriously. And any attack on a fan, other than in self defense, should mean the end of a player's career in professional sports -- and the beginning of a criminal investigation. Criminal penalties also should be enforced against fans who deliberately throw things at a player or who intentionally enter the playing area.

It will be terrible for sports if a fight involving fans becomes as common as a fight involving players. This can be avoided but only if fighting, all fighting, ceases to be tolerated as "part of the game."