It was a brief, unremarkable era in our local baseball history, and, as with many other things, it started as a spontaneous expression of joy and evolved, ever too quickly, to something darker than that. It may well be that there were other such instances of rambunctious behavior, but for the purposes of this argument, it shall be contained to five dates:
- Sept. 24, 1969.
- Oct. 6, 1969.
- Oct. 16, 1969.
- Oct. 10, 1973.
- Oct. 14, 1976.
- Sept. 17, 1986.
Six times, in the space of 17 years, one of our teams won a big baseball game, and six times the field became a wild scene of public anarchy — fans spilling onto the field, digging up the grass, digging up the pitcher’s rubber, digging up home plate.