On April 4, 2011Bryan Stow a married father of two went to Dodger Stadium to enjoy the opening day of the baseball season with two of his friends. Unfortunately, Stow and his friends did anything but enjoy the game. They were taunted and threatened by two men during the game, and attacked outside the stadium in the parking lot. Two of Stow’s friends got away but the assailants caught up with him, struck him on the back of the head knocking him to the ground and then kicked him senseless. Both assailants fled in a four door sedan driven by a woman.  The event was all over the news and the assailants were eventually caught. Stow had to be placed in a medically induced coma because of the brain damaged he suffered from the attack.

Why were these men taunted, threatened, and then attacked? The answer, they were all wearing Giant’s jerseys. They were Giant fans at a Dodger game. I guess you can’t wear your teams’ jersey to a game without the fear of being attacked by the fans of a rival team. At least that is what Paul O’Neil, the part time broadcaster on the YES network for the Yankees says. This past Sunday (September 4, 2011) the Yankees were playing the Toronto Blue Jays. I was flipping back and forth watching both the Mets and the Yankees. Between innings, the camera panned into the stands revealing a fan wearing a Boston Red Sox jersey. O’Neil seeing this commented, “It takes a lot of nerve right there wearing a Red Sox Jersey to Yankee Stadium.  There not even playing the Red Sox.” After what happened at Dodger Stadium in April I was stunned. So stunned I had to watch the encore presentation of the game to be sure I heard what I heard. Unfortunately what I heard was accurate.

O’Neil, a long time player for the Yankees was always known for his hot head.  If he got called out on strikes, or didn’t get a hit in a clutch situation the camera would pan into the dugout to find him reacting in some type of immature rant or worse case scenario taking his bat and smashing it into a Gatorade cooler. When the pitcher for the Blue Jays Bret Cecil was taken out of the game after giving up a homerun, the camera caught him in the dugout smashing equipment. O’Neil seeing this said on the air, “Don’t stop there, there is a few more things that you can throw.”  O Neil’s fans may have viewed him as a role model for his grit and determination; I view him as a bully because of how he uses his position to instill fear and intimidation.   As an announcer he put the entire country on notice; don’t wear an opposing team’s jersey to a Yankee game or you might end up like Bryan Stow.   As a player, call me out on strikes and the dugout will look like Beirut.  He is no longer a player, and the truth be told he was mediocre at best on any other team but the Yankees. That’s why the Cincinnati Reds gave him away for Roberto Kelly. Maybe the Reds got fed up with his immature antics and saw him as a poor example for their young fans. Bravo.

O’Neil needs to be called out by the YES network and Major League Baseball. It is comments like the one he made that contribute to a pervasive attitude which tells our youth to draw lines in the sand, and bully and intimidate any person with a different view or in this case a different team.  Players and announcers have the ability to influence our young people in a variety of ways and have the responsibility of making sure that their influence is a positive one. Even the great Mickey Mantle commented after his liver transplant what a poor role model he was and pleaded with young people not to be like him. O’Neil doesn’t have the courage to emulate Mr. Mantle.  He is too prideful and too arrogant.