Dodgers Players Charge Stands at Wrigley Field
By David Hill
These days, it is rare to see teams charge into the stands. However, when drunk Chicago Cubs fans began attacking Los Angeles Dodgers players in the bullpen, all bets were off.
At times, Wrigley Field is more of a bar than a ballpark. The Cubs have had their moments of success, but have spent most of the past century as the Loveable Losers. Fans headed to the park to drink and have a baseball game in the background. Sometimes, those fans would get a little too inebriated, leading to a situation like the one that occurred on this day in 2000 with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The incident began with drunk Cubs fans dumping beer over the Dodgers players. Finally, tensions boiled over when a fan grabbed the hat off of Chad Kreuter‘s head, and proceeded to hit him in the back of the head. This set off a bench clearing brawl, when Dodgers players and coaches charged the stands to fight with Cubs fans.
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The brawl delayed the game for almost ten minutes, with fans and players fighting in the bleachers. In the end, sixteen players and three coaches were ejected from the game, and would end up receiving a total of 76 games in suspensions. Several other fans were arrested, and there was a great deal of debris strewn about the field.
In the end, the Dodgers had the last laugh. With one out and runners on first and third in the top of the eighth inning, Todd Hundley hit a three run home run to give the Dodgers a 6-4 lead. While the Cubs would get a run back in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers would still come away with the victory.
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For the most part, “fights” in baseball involve players milling about on the diamond and maybe yelling at one another. On this occasion, the Dodgers had one of the uglier incidents in recent baseball history.