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12/14/04-
Off Topic- The Origin of the Malice at the Palace
The Beginning
Back in the day (mid 80's) the Pistons were bad- really bad. The Pistons didn't even have their own arena. After moving
from downtown Detroit they played at the Silverdome in Pontiac, an
outlying suburb of Detroit. Things didn't begin to turn around
until they drafted Isiah Thomas.
They played at the Pontiac Silverdome which was a horrible facility
even for football, and it was even worse for basketball. But
it did have one saving grace- it had a large seating capacity.
As the team improved, attendance began to climb. In 1998
61,983 fans watched the Pistons play the Boston Celtics. Later
that year 41,732 watched the Pistons play the Lakers in game 5 of
the NBA Finals. The Piston did a lot a great things to
encourage attendance. They gave away tickets to high schools,
civic groups, and a number of other organizations. The fans
who showed up witnessed the building of a team on its way to winning back-to-back NBA
Championships.
Glory Days
Eventually the Pistons grew so successful that they were able to
build their own arena. The Palace of Auburn Hills was
constructed a few exits down the expressway from the Silverdome and is
an outstanding facility. Great site lines, modern sound
system, a wide variety concessions, suites, and had plentiful
adjacent parking- basically everything a team and its ownership
could want. There was a downside for fans- capacity was a
paltry 21,000 people. As a result, as many fans were priced
entirely out of the arena. Lower level seating was dominated
by corporate interests. It wasn't unusual to see a fair amount
of empty seats during some games when the casual fans wouldn't even
bother to show
up. The Pistons were known as the "Bad Boys" and were known
for a rough and tumble style of basketball which lead to two
consecutive NBA Titles.
Decline
All good things come to an end and the Pistons struggled after
winning back-to-back NBA Championships. Slowly the Bad Boys
began to disband, Rick Mahorn was lost to the expansion draft,
Dennis Rodman to emotional problems predating his bizarre late
career antics, Vinnie Johnson, Bill Lambeer, and Isiah Thomas to
retirement. The Pistons struggled to play good basketball and
the corporate suits stopped coming to games altogether...
Renewal and the Seeds of Disaster
The Pistons marketing people kicked into overdrive. They did
everything they could to make a night at the Palace an event.
Giveaways, halftime entertainment, and discount tickets were
plentiful. The even went a step further which is almost
unheard these days. They lowered ticket prices. They
even went as far as to NOT raise ticket prices the first couple
years they returned to the playoffs. Fans returned to the
Palace in droves. First for the promotions and then later to
watch championship caliber basketball. Even as tickets prices
began to increase the Palace seemed to be filled with more "real"
fans than corporate types.
Their
rise to the top culminated last year when the Pistons won
the NBA Championship and all seemed good- maybe even great.
But lurking at courtside were a few idiots who would give Detroit a
bad name.
"Fans" Get Out of Control
Last
month, as a game with division rival Indiana came to a close, a
perfect storm of idiots came together on the floor of the Palace.
First, idiot #1 Ron Artest fouled popular Pistons player Ben
Wallace. Wallace, responded disproportionately and things went
downhill from there.
Why
did Wallace react so poorly? Well, besides Artest's well
earned reputation as a psycho, many believe that Indiana Coach (and
former Pistons Coach) Rick Carlisle went out of his way to lobby for
Artest to be named NBA defensive player of the year, breaking
Wallace's consecutive winning streak of the award. Pistons
fans and (probably Wallace) believe that Carlisle was just paying
back Wallace and Pistons organization for his unceremonious sacking.
Add to this mix the fact that Artest has been talking trash about
Wallace for years and you have a situation that bubbled over on the
court between Artest and Wallace. With Artest lying on the
scorers table antagonizing Wallace by ignoring him, a "fan" threw a
cup of beer at him and all hell broke loose.
We've
all see the video of what happened next suffice to say that it was
one of worst examples of player/fan violence in the history of
sports.
Lessons Learned?
I'm
not surprised at what happened. I was surprised it happened at
the Palace but considering the proximity of the fans to the court I
guess I shouldn't be. There are plenty of decent law abiding
folks who turn into idiots after a few beers. Joe Louis Arena,
Ford Field, and The Palace are full of "fans" who care little about
the game and only use it as an excuse to get trashed. An
alcohol-free environment is one reason I enjoy collegiate athletics
better than pro sports. Some fans may start the game trashed
from tailgating but most calm down by halftime.
It's
clear that the sale of monster beers and the sale of alcohol in
general needs to cut back at sports venues. A halftime cutoff
at football and basketball, end of the 5th inning in baseball, and
after the second intermission in hockey (if hockey ever returns) is
starting to sound pretty reasonable to me.
But
it's not just the alcohol, more distressing is the desire by fans to
be a "part of the game." Fans take things a little too
personally. From the guy at Michigan Stadium cussing out the
19 year old receiver for dropping a ball in front of a 100,000
screaming fans to the high school parent who screams at his kid's
coach and calls him ever name in the book. But it goes further
than the fans. It's the coach who puts an overage player onto
his little league team to win and the parent who threatens the
umpire because he called his kid out.
There
are people who quite frankly take sports too seriously. It may
sound funny coming from someone who spends so much time devoted to
sports as I do (coaching, volunteering, watching, and writing about)
but there are a lot of sports "fans" out there who scare me.
The Solution
I
don't know that the solution is but what we saw at the Palace will
happen again. Alcohol may lubricate the idiots
but it doesn't change the facts that the perpetrators were idiots
beforehand. And there are lot of idiots looking for a incident
to get involved in. I've seen ugly incidents at the little
league, collegiate, and pro level.
Think
about that the next time someone yells at you to sit down at the
stadium or won't move from your seat...
Go Blue!
Phil
Callihan
UMGoBlue.COM, Editor-in-Chief
phil@umgoblue.com
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Phil Callihan is the Editor-in- Chief of
UMGoBlue.COM. Phil graduated from the University of Michigan
in 1993 and has been a football season ticket holder since 1994.
Full Bio
Read More of Phil's Columns
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