Posted by TMS:

perhaps they should put up plexi-glass behind both baskets to keep the fans out of harm's way when these rough & tough basketball players get it on? just throwing it out there.

Posted by playa2:

Posted by fishmike:

are there fans on the ice in hokey? Do kids and woman sit in folding chair on the rink? Are people at risk when hockey goons fight?

Most NBA fights dont happen at midcourt, they happen on the sideline or under the baskets where fans are sitting.

Baseball, football, hockey... none of them really apply. Why dont people think the media coverage and tougher penalties are because when NBA players brawl it puts the league and fans in tremendous risk??? Everyone ignores that

When Kermit Washington hit rudy tomjanovich in his grill and broke his face, no fans were injured and the altercation took place around mid court yet Kermit was suspended for so long it was unheard of back then.

They made Kermit feel so horrible in the media that it changed his entire life.

I watched a special on NBA-TV a week or two ago with he and his ex-wife talking about all the troubles they recieved had after the incident.

again.. thats a unique situtation that has little to do with the issue. That punch ruined a guys career and almost killed him. How many surguries did Rudy need to fix that? That was a case of the punishment fitting the crime.

And there have been instances in recent years in hockey where guys have been suspended for a year and been all over the news. I dont follow the sport closely enough but its happened.

Posted by playa2:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/recap?gameId=261221027

Nashville Predators and Buffalo Sabres play in a blowout game last night.

The media is not making this front page news anywhere.

Listen how the announcer on espn describes the altercation.

Listen how uses his words carefully to make it sound as if it's not as bad.


Media bias in sports with is on a all-time high.

On Nov. 7, 1896, the Trenton YMCA team became the first basketball players to go out on their own and turn professional.

Clad in distinctive uniforms — red, sleeveless shirts, black padded knickers, wool stockings and high-top gym shoes — the Trentons won their first game against the Brooklyn Y, 16-1.

The downtown Masonic Temple hosted the historic event by converting its third-floor banquet hall into a home court. By this time, the peach baskets used by Naismith's first basketballers had given way to portable hoops with cloth netting. But the balls themselves were lumpy, leathery, pumpkin-sized spheres. And the nets had no hole at the bottom — so after every score, an official had to poke the ball out of the net with a long pole.

The court was also ringed by something new to basketball — a 12-foot, chain-link "cage" separating players from fans.

"The Trentons had conceived the idea that a cage would make the game faster by stopping all out-of-bounds delays," wrote Marvin Riley, the referee at that historic game. "That cage was an object of both interest and sarcasm for a long time. It was called 'Trenton's monkey cage.'"

By the 1920s, the cage had been phased out of the game. Still, headline writers fell in love with the word as a synonym for basketball, and players are sometimes still called "cagers."