Interesting/scary story from a blogger who attended last night’s playoff-spot-clinching loss at Dodger Stadium:

Manny threw a ball into the stands about five or six seats to my right. Some people went crazy trying to get it, and a woman fell over the wall onto the field. She stayed on the ground for a few seconds, then I guess decided that, since she was on the field, she might as well go for the ball, which had rolled toward the Dodgers’ bullpen.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around people who fall over the walls at sports stadiums. Or people who get into scuffles over foul balls and such. Really, what does a foul ball prove? I’ve caught a foul ball. I was 10. I have no idea where it is right now. If I did, I doubt it would be prominently displayed. I digress. Back to the blogger.

This woman was not running toward the playing field. She had a glove in her hand, had clearly fallen over the wall accidentally, and was obviously going for the ball that was running along the wall. A security guard finally saw the woman when she started to run.

It sounds to me like he didn’t see her fall. What happened next is the real story.

I looked away from the woman just in time to see the security guard (whom we had taken to calling “Tex” in previous games, but now he’ll need a new, less positive, nickname) take off in a sprint directly at her. I figured he would just grab her and stop her, but this guy, apparently deeming the woman a huge threat to national security, tackled her by the neck, pinning her against the wall. Right now, I can still see this woman’s head as the guard forced it against the wall. I looked away because I was seriously afraid I was about to watch her neck snap. I didn’t want to see someone die at Dodger Stadium. My fiance kept watching and said that then, with his arms still around the woman’s neck, the guard threw her to the ground. By the neck. I looked back and saw that, at this point, three of his coworkers had come over to help, and they decided that they needed three of them to hold this woman down and cuff her, then drag her off the field.

This seems a big excessive – both on the part of security and the blogger. Can we get any other accounts of the incident? A statement from the Dodgers perhaps? I guess we’ll have to wait and see if there’s a lawsuit coming.

The woman who wrote this account has vowed to stay away from the Dodgers until the offending security guard is fired. (He can be seen in the upper right corner of the blog until he gets his walking papers.) Keep an eye out for him during the Playoffs.

[Robots Took My Medicine]