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| | Monday, October 18 | |||||
| BOSTON -- There were plenty of taunts but no reported trouble Monday night at Fenway Park where a beefed-up security presence was in place to prevent a repeat of the ruckus that temporarily halted Game 4 of the ALCS on Sunday.
Fans booed the umpires while they were introduced and took the field for Game 5 between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, paying no attention to a videotaped plea from Red Sox star
Nomar Garciaparra to be "courteous" and "respectful."
Some fans brought signs that read: "Dump the Umps!"
But there weren't any problems Monday night as the Yankees won
6-1 to take the best-of-7 series five game.
"I don't think there was one problem at all," Red Sox
spokesman Kevin Shea said of Monday night's game. "Last night,
there was a handful of people who acted inappropriately. Today
everybody was great."
Blown calls against the Red Sox in the eighth and ninth innings
of Game 4 sparked an outburst by some Fenway fans who hurled
debris, boos and insults at the umpires and Yankee players.
When umpire Dale Scott called Garciaparra out at first base on a
close play in the ninth, Red Sox manager Jimy Williams sprang from
the dugout to argue, and was ejected by Scott.
Fans reacted with a stream of bottles, cups and other debris, prompting the umpires to clear the Yankees from the field and bullpen -- a move that halted play for eight minutes. Boston fans Bryan Fuller and Lauren Cooperstein showed up wearing dark glasses and using canes to guide them along -- their version of blind umpires. They carried a sign that said: "I could be an umpire, too.""The odds and the gods were already against us. We didn't need the malevolent umpires we had," 28-year-old Cooperstein said. John Harrington, the team's chief operating officer, pinned the disturbance on just a few of the thousands attending the game. "A very small group in a crowd of more than 33,000 people behaved outrageously, inappropriately and uncharacteristically for Red Sox fans," he said.Officer Kevin Jones, a Boston police spokesman, said he knew of no arrests. "You have 36,000 fans there, and a lot of them are standing up," he said. "It's hard to identify the person who is throwing." Williams denied Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's assertion that his actions incited fans. "When Georgie Porgie speaks, I don't listen, I didn't incite the fans," Williams said. "But what they did last night is not the right thing." Kevin Hallinan, baseball's executive director of security, said the problem Sunday developed when police left the ballpark before the end of the game to redeploy outside to handle exiting crowds and traffic. Police were directed to stay inside the park as long as needed Monday night to make sure it was secure, he said. Mayor Thomas Menino said the unruly fans shamed the city. "The inappropriate behavior demonstrated last night by a handful of Red Sox fans was an embarrassment to the city of Boston," he said. "That was not what Boston is about. Tonight's game will give us the opportunity to show the world that we are not only the most loyal and supportive fans, but we are courteous and sportsmanlike as well." Yankees manager Joe Torre said he didn't mind the taunts Saturday of Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens, but said fans shouldn't have chanted, "Just Say No!" on Sunday at Darryl Strawberry, who has battled drug and alcohol problems. "What went on with Darryl Strawberry yesterday I thought was over the line. I didn't think that was right," Torre said. "Watch TV, go to the movies, listen to the radio. Everything's down now. There are no barriers at all." Boston Herald columnist Michael Gee called the fan conduct "a disgrace." "A certain number of the 33,596 fans at Fenway Park couldn't hold their liquor. Or maybe they were born pigs," he wrote. "Each and every person reading this should be ashamed for what some of his neighbors did last night. If you love sports, you should be sickened." Globe sports writer Dan Shaughnessy described the game as "a hail of errors, bad umpiring, and worse conduct by Boston fans." "It was scary," he wrote. "Police were unable to stop dozens of unruly spectators from tossing things and the reigning world champion Yankees cleared the field while officials weighed the merits of resuming the game." While Yankees' wives were escorted from Fenway Park by police after Sunday night's game, Hallinan said there were no incidents involving them, although there was taunting. "It's the nature of the beast," he said. "The wives are cheering when the other fans are not. It's not out of hand and was fairly good natured." Hallinan also said the Red Sox security official who got into a shouting match with Yankees reliever Jeff Nelson had apologized to the Yankees. | ALSO SEE El Duque closes out Red Sox in 6-1 victory
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Yankees vs. Red Sox series page
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