Kick 'Em Out

This past Sunday, I joined my brother, nephew and a friend at the San Diego Chargers game. I'm splitting some season tickets with my other brother, dad, and friends and this was my 3rd or 4th game this season.

It's been an exciting season. The Chargers are doing well, leading the AFC West. The games have remained exciting and suspenseful. Oh, and after 28 years, I finally learned most of the rules of football. I finally understand the game.

I do not, however, understand the stadium beer sales rules.

Especially when the raiders play.

Apparently, Raiders fans have a little bit of a reputation for unruliness. For the first time, we saw mounted police officers. They must have been helping enforcing beer rules that limited sales to one beer per person per purchase. Typically, it's at least 2 beers. Beer sales were stopped at half-time. Typically, you have about an extra 45 minutes, through the end of the 3rd quarter, to buy beer.

Is this really justified?

Well, we saw a man get his nose broken in a fight in our section. That same fight sent a man down 5 or 6 rows of seats and resulted in the arrest of about 6 people. We saw another man fall over the railing into one of the tunnels, about 10 feet. By fall, of course I mean he was thrown. Or chased.

Clearly there is a problem with Raiders fans. What happens if a few teams in the league just refused to play them? Why should owners face the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in beer sales just because a team's fans have demonstrated a total inability to be civil?

And who ever thought I would ever blog this much about football?