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Hey fans: Stop trying to kill each other

Let’s be real: It wouldn’t be a Bay Bridge series without smack-talking between A’s and Giants fans.

It’s part of the game. Whether it’s at a bar, on the sidewalk, or in an a hotel elevator. Yes, this little sports writer started a healthy Giants-A’s argument in an elevator. Sue me.

But what needs to stop is the unnecessary need to start a physical brawl and kick the snot out of each other because we rep different jersey colors.

Seriously, this isn’t gang warfare.

It’s an interleague baseball game.

Yelling “your team eats $%#&” would be plenty. There’s no need to rip your shirt off of your pudgy body and fling yourself drunkedly at another sports fan as if you’re fighting for your life in this year’s Hunger Games.

Yesterday’s game at the O.co saw yet another bay-fan-on-bay-fan beatdown, which someone so nicely filmed on their phone and posted to YouTube for our viewing pleasure. The video description says it all:

“A’s fan touches/pours beer on female Giants fan, male Giants fans in her group walk him outside and talk, fighting quickly breaks out.”

First and foremost: No male fan should ever pour your beer on a woman’s head, no matter how much you think she deserves it. And can bet that if she’s at a sporting event, she’s got a group of guys — or maybe sumo-wrestling girlfriends — with her that aren’t going to allow her to walk away with a beer-battered coif.

Video viewers will notice that the brawl took place at O.co. Not at a bar or a booze-fueled BBQ. These people paid money for tickets. The “shirtless wonder” was wound up enough to keep charging his orange-and-black opponent even after security showed up to stop the fight.

This isn’t a claim that any one fan base is more aggressive or fight-happy than the other.

This is an observation that it needs to stop: The SF-Oakland rivalry can continue without throwing punches.

Heck, we already got our Raiders-Niners game taken away. Let’s not get the Bay Bridge Series stripped from us too.

Last modified June 26, 2012 6:21 pm

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