WHICH ONE'S BEVIS?
September 27, 2002
by Bill Hogan

When I was a kid, my father would occasionally take me out to the ball game. A nice experience, but largely uneventful. He'd have a couple of beers and buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks. We'd root hard for the home team and were always disappointed if they lost.

There was little conversation, we mainly just watched the game - he liked to keep score. Not what you'd call a real memorable father/son bonding moment, but good fun nonetheless.

Kansas City Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa got the crap beat out of him last week – blindsided by a couple of hoodlums - at Comiskey Park in Chicago. It turns out the nitwit assailants were a 34-year-old man and his 15-year-old son.

Father and son, tattooed shoulder to shoulder riding handcuffed in the back of a squad car – now there's a real memorable (bail)bonding moment.

What better way to show your teenage son how much you care than to let him land the first punch against a defenseless, unwitting old man. There'll be plenty to talk about over Thanksgiving dinner this year!

Dumb and Dumber received national television exposure and became the talk of the sports world. They parlayed their 15-minutes of fame into an insider's tour of the Cook County penal system and some quality time in the hoosegow. All my dad did at the ballpark was spring for the hotdogs and teach me the correct way to score a 6-4-3 double play.

Beavis and Butthead managed to garner, in twenty seconds, the kind of publicity that every guest of the Jerry Springer Show has been dreaming about for years. They succeeded in bringing shirtless trailer-trash into the national spotlight.

I commend the media for making the distinction between these two morons and the rest of the baseball fans at Comiskey Park. For once, they correctly identified this disturbing incident as the isolated calamity that it was.

However, by continually broadcasting video of the escapade, by calling the elder Jackass by his proper name and by publishing countless photographs, the media has given Mo and Ron exactly the kind of public exposure they were looking for.

While their behavior is shameful and unfathomable by most human standards, there are some in this country that are envious of the fact that they didn't think of it first. There's a reason they don't broadcast the naked guy sprinting around the warning track to the television viewing audience anymore.

For every sane person who couldn't imagine appearing on Jerry Springer, there's a 400 pound, toothless stripper in a g-string eagerly waiting in the wings to make an entrance onstage after the next commercial break.

Forget about making celebrities out of these two Yahoos; let them wallow in obscurity in a barred cell somewhere outside of Peoria.

Of course justice would have been better served had Dim and Wit not been escorted off the field unscathed.

Half the Royals bench piles on these guys and they get up and walk away without a scratch on their bodies that wasn't made from a tattoo needle. Simpleton Sr. should have left the park handcuffed to a stretcher.

I guess it isn't necessary to test any Kansas City players for steroid use. If this stunt was pulled at a football game, they'd still be looking for body parts.

What do you think Brian Urlacher would have done to a shirtless Hell's Angels wannabe who just cold cocked the defensive coordinator? It would have looked like the fight scene between Apollo Creed and Drago in 'Rocky IV'.

Heck, if the Tweedles (Dee and Dum) attacked (American Captain) Curtis Strange, I bet the U.S. Ryder Cup team would have administered a better beating without soiling their knickers.

The question of what MLB can do to prevent something similar from happening in the future could have been - should have been - answered as soon as the first Royal off the bench reached the first base coaches box. Pin junior to the ground and pummel the father until he cries uncle.

Then publish a close-up of his battered body crawling up the first base line looking for his teeth.

Sound harsh? So is pounding the hell out of Tom Gamboa for no good reason. And contrary to what some may believe, having your application to appear on the Jerry Springer Show rejected is not a good reason.

*********************