Fans of basketball's Detroit Pistons cemented their reputation as The Worst Fans in America Friday. Their team down 15 points in the final 46 seconds of the game, they rallied their hometown spirit by pelting the visiting Indiana Pacers with beer and other concession-stand comestibles. All hell broke loose. At least two Pacers jumped the barricades and carried the fight into the stands, while fans likewise took to the floor to trade punches with marquee players. Officials were helpless, security was overwhelmed, and those players who chose not to mix it up simply stood frozen with their mouths agape. It was all staff could do to get the players down the tunnel while beer and ice poured down from above.

Anyone who had access to a microphone declared they'd never seen anything like it. Yes, we know all about soccer riots, but there's no such thing as a basketball riot. It's not the basketball way.

The sad part is that Indiana will wind up suffering most, its team decimated by sanctions for its part in the riot.

Detroit has ballyhooed its bad-boy reputation since its championship days in the late '80s. I didn't like it. Nobody liked it. We loved to hate those Pistons. But last season, as Detroit nearly swept my formerly-beloved Lakers on the way to the Championship, I found myself actually rooting for them. I wondered where the hate had gone.

Ah! Here it is.

I hope you rot in the Eastern Conference basement for another 15 years, you Rust Belt punks.

Farmington Hills/14-Mile represent!

The suburbs of Detroit are quite lovely (and about as dangerous as a bar mitzvah).

I left in '86, so I only had the '84 Tigers to rally behind. I don't recall any burned cars or anything like that when they won. The Pistons and Red Wings absolutely sucked back then. The Lions still do.

Soccer riots usually involve sections of "fans" from rival clubs meeting for fights inside and outside the grounds. Coins and missiles get thrown all the time and the police don't do squat, however if individuals can be singled out for throwing racist abuse they usually get ejected. Ironic, really.

Recently England's black footballers were subjected to a lot of racist abuse by large sections of Spanish fans during a recent friendly. The consensus is that the England team should have walked off en masse, or not come back out after half time. I can't imagine what would happen at an NBA game, or any other US sport for that matter, if large scale racist abuse took place.

Finally, only once in recent memory has a soccer player attacked a "supporter"

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Finally, only once in recent memory has a soccer player attacked a "supporter"

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Wow! Jes, what are your thoughts on this kick as a soccer fan and as a martial artist?

Now if only we could see a few baseball and football riots once in a while. The bastards get paid enough, they should damn well take a few blows to the head for my passing amusement.

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While we're on the subject, when you are under attack from a professional athlete, you might ask yourself a few questions before deciding to stand your ground. Like, am I a professional athlete? Do I spend hours each day honing my reflexes to near-superhuman levels? Do I have the strength of two or three ordinary fellows? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," you might consider cowering behind something solid, like another professional athlete or a goalpost.

Plus the fact that the athletes are already warmed up. They've been playing for nearly an hour and have time to stretch out and get limbered up, while the fans have just been sitting on their duffs, sloughing down hotdogs. It's not a fair fight. I could go a few rounds with Bernard Hopkins if I had proper time to warm up, but not if all I've been doing for the last hour is yelling insults.

It occurs to me that releasing lions into the arena would be an excellent way to spice up a low-scoring game.

Or: Any shot that goes in off an opponent's groin is worth 10 points.

Basketball should go the way of the NHL.

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NHL.

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Finally, only once in recent memory has a soccer player attacked a "supporter"

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Wow! Jes, what are your thoughts on this kick as a soccer fan and as a martial artist?

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I could start to sell tickets to enter a 70,000 cap stadium with a Glock and 500 rounds of hollow points at noon, and retire by midnight. A few dozen pressure washers and a convoy of semi's with body bags, later... I'm a rich man and Darwin just got the biggest leg up since fish started to breathe air.

Sports, like all other "civilised" forms of competition, is degenerating into another seething, barely-clinging-to-the-thin-veneer-of-civility wankfest full of beer addled shitbags - who want the whole thing to erupt into killing motherfuckers with sticks just as badly as NASCAR fans want to see some racer boy do a Brody into the wall at 240 MPH.

The sad thing is... a lot of people think that's "bitchin!".

Until.. you know.. they get THEIR asses kicked. Then they sue.

Sports are gay.

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(The footage after that shows him falling on his arse, then getting up to hit the "fan", then hundreds of police and stewards intervening)

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I was at wrestling one time and everyone started chanting 'show your tits' and eventually someone did. Would this acceptable anywhere else? Hells no. But no one thought anything of it. I was embarassed once I got my shirt back on.

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Sports are gay.

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Spoken like a true used-to-be-the-last-one-picked-for-sports kid.

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I was always picked first for "Dogpile on the Weakling", Phreaky. So that blows YOUR whole theory out of the water!

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My next comment is, given that hockey players wear something akin to straight razors on their feet, why do we see so much punching to the face and so little kicking? It's not like any of them have teeth or brains to injure up there.

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Well, if that is the same incident, kitty, the player who got hit fell on his head and broke his neck.

Which it is, but I had forgotten that little part of it. I'm doped up on drugs right now (of the perscription persuasion), so details like broken necks kind of... slip.

That and I hate the Canucks. They're a bunch of chumps.

Fuck those shit eating Canucks!

I was raised to hate the Pistons. However, I felt they were the lesser of two evils last season. I also have a distinct hatred for the Indiana Pacers. I have always been a huge Ron Artest fan since his time spent with the Chicago Bulls. I had the chance to meet him once at a lame ass school thing where he was a speaker. Really nice guy! After he spoke he spent time afterwards signing autographs and talking to the students. But yeah, he's always been a crazy ass.

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Sports are gay.

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Spoken like a true used-to-be-the-last-one-picked-for-sports kid.

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You could watch your parents pummeled to death at a sporting event.

Oh; indeed I shall, Crabulous One. Indeed I shall.

You're a fucking idiot.

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That explains your continued presence here.
Bend over, I'll drive.

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Sports are gay.

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Spoken like a true used-to-be-the-last-one-picked-for-sports kid.

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That's pretty much how I learned to hate sports. Is there a better way?

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Your other option was to be pummeled in the head during dodgeball by various tiny girls in your class.

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I've read that back in its early days, basketball was played inside cages. Thus, the players became known as cagers--something you rarely hear them called today. The cages were used to keep the fans and players separated from each other. Maybe it's time to go back to that system.

Ron Artest may be a crazy bastard, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he ventured into the stands--he was promoting his new rap CD. A week or so before the brawl, Artest had asked for time off from playing basketball so he could promote said CD. The Indiana Pacers said, "No," of course. Now Artest has all the time off he wants.