We’ve been dodging this story of Bryan Stow, the Giants fan who was attacked in LA almost two weeks ago, because there’s nothing to express other than absolute sadness. Stow currently sits in a coma after part of his skull was removed when his brain began to swell, and his family says that he now has brain damage. Although I thought this incident was above sardonic comment, fellow KSKer Kogod found someone who did not.
John Steigerwald of the Washington Observer-Reporter asks what might have been a fair question, but does it in such an incredibly poor way that’s sure to spark outrage. In his latest column, “Know When You’ve Outgrow [SIC] The Uniform,” Steigerwald asks a few questions of “Bryan Snow,” [sic] the 42-year-old paramedic who wore a San Francisco Giants jersey to the LA Dodgers’ home opener and was jumped by two unidentified fans wearing Dodger blue.
And here come the quotes that will be following Steigerwald around for the rest of his professional life:
Maybe someone can ask Snow, if he ever comes out of his coma, why he thought it was a good idea to wear Giants’ gear to a Dodgers’ home opener when there was a history of out-of-control drunkenness and arrests at that event going back several years.
Remember when it was the kids who were wearing the team jerseys to games? It was a common sight to see an adult male coming through the turnstile dressed as a regular human being with a kid dressed in a “real” jersey holding his hand.
Cute.
More Steigerwald after the jump.
Are the 42-year-olds who find it necessary to wear their replica jerseys to a road game, those kids who are now fathers who haven’t grown up?
Are there really 40-something men who think that wearing the jersey makes them part of the team? It was cute when a 10-year-old kid got that feeling by showing up at Three Rivers Stadium in a Pirates jersey, but when did little boys stop growing out of that?[…]
Why not just go to [a game] dressed as a regular human being? When did it become necessary to wear a uniform to the game?
It’s obviously in poor taste to ask those kinds of questions while a guy is fighting for his life. I’ve said for years that fanbases are just gangs for white people. Steigerwald doesn’t come out and say that it Stow brought his fate upon himself, but he implied it, and the message is clear. One can presume what kind of professional consequences might come from that.
Way too soon.
