December 24, 2024 • 42 mins
Morgan White Fills in on NightSide with Dan Rea:
Continued conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Jimmy Myers about how society has changed the modern sports fan. It’s common these days to witness poor sportsmanship at sporting events, but has it always been this way?
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!
Continued conversation with award-winning journalist and broadcaster Jimmy Myers about how society has changed the modern sports fan. It’s common these days to witness poor sportsmanship at sporting events, but has it always been this way?
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's night with Dan Ray. I'm going Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'll thank you for re introducing me to the audience. Yes,
I'm Morgan White Junior. Been a part of the BZ
landscape roughly since nineteen ninety five ninety six. I'm here
tonight and I'll be here throughout the week into next
week filling in for Dan Ray. My guest tonight is
Jimmy Myers, and Jimmy, you touched upon it or caller
(00:30):
brought it up last hour Game five Boston Garden triple overtime, the.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Legendary game nineteen six.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
There were seventy six my mistake, there were two seconds
left on the clock, and for whatever reason, everybody thought
the game was over. The referee called both teams back
on the court because those two seconds had to be
accounted for and played out, and fans, a couple of fans,
(01:07):
rowdy fans, attacked the referee for bringing that to everybody's attention,
and you got directly involved when these fans were attempting
to beat up the referee. You tried to pull the
referee out of being punched and kicked, and then security
(01:30):
got involved, and we all know how that ended. But
you physically had to risk your well being to save
an NBA referee. And that gets me to talking about
fan violence. And that was way back seventy six, So
(01:50):
many decades later, and we see it happening a lot
of times after your team has won the championship, has
won the Stanley Cup, has won the Super Bowl, whatever,
And I want to talk about that. You and I
(02:13):
when we first arranged you coming on tonight, I brought
this subject up to chat with you about it, and
I forgot that you were directly involved in a fan
violence melee and what can we do.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
To stop it?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Look back at two years ago with Kansas City, that
community was destroyed, millions of dollars of damage by happy fans.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
They won, they won.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The Super Bowl, yet instill their fans went crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Morgan, it goes back further than it goes back to
the eighty seventies. I've watched this phenomena to a degree,
this aberin behavior situation get so totally out of control
that it's frightening to even think about taking a young
person to a parade or something like that. Unfortunately, the
(03:12):
Boston Marathon situation always stays in my head when these
terrorsts set off a bomb that wound up injuring and
maiming people and so forth. But to a degree on
the same level, I saw the city of Detroit just
about destroyed in nineteen sixty eight when the Tigers wound
up winning the World Series. Thank goodness they had won.
(03:33):
If they had lost, there's no telling what would have happened.
And I've seen so many other cities that wind up being,
you know, being the victims of millions of dollars of
taxpayers money that has to be used to repair the city.
I remember in sixty seven when the Red Sox won,
I remember how the fans had stormed the field. Now,
(03:55):
remember it had been twenty let me see, forty forty
six to sixty seven, twenty one years since the Red
Sox had even sniffed basically being in a World Series.
They got there in forty eight in the playoff, but
lost to Cleveland. But going back to that time, I
remember watching on TV and seeing the fans just storming
(04:16):
the field. When Lonboard got the last out. People were
running all over the place, grabbing players. They tried to
rip Lonboard's jersey off. Yeah, yep, well it's uniform. But
I go back to nineteen sixty five, three years before,
when John Hailchak stole the ball and Habilcheck could barely
(04:36):
get off of that court. I mean they pulled the
stirrups on his jersey so hard they left deep welts
in his shoulders, both shoulders, and they had to fight
to get off the floor. I remember, I remember so
many of these situations. They become They become nauseating to
me for one reason because I spoke to a couple
(04:59):
of psychiatrists o years and a couple of sociologists, and
they all come up with the same thing. This is
that release point that people who are normally not that
level in thinking anyway get a chance to get off.
They get a chance to say I can go out
now and do something in the midst of a celebration
(05:22):
that nobody's going to say anything about. Think about this, Morgan,
two thousand and four. Now, I'll give you a couple
of dates going back. Let's just go back to two
thousand and four. A girl was killed that night in
the midst of the Red Sox celebration, lost their life. Dumb,
dumb bol To. Something hit her. But if please're trying
(05:43):
to quell a riot, And I'm just saying that these
things they're so badly out of proportion. Now it makes
every single mayor of every single city, every governor of
every single state copprehensive in regards to how much security
(06:04):
can we actually get to make this thing fairly safe.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I'm told the Celtics parade this year was pretty pretty respectable.
I mean, there were a few arrests at the arrests
as usual, but I'm not talking about the type of
out and out violence that was in Kansas City a
couple of years ago. That was like over the top.
And I think all the time, I say to myself,
what compels someone to do something like this? When the
(06:31):
Philadelphia Phillies won in nineteen eighty, Philly's hadn't won, Phillies
hadn't won in years. Leeve me, I'm from Philly, I know.
And I talked to my sisters, my brothers, and I
asked him. I told him, I said, please just in
me your favorites. If you're going to the parade, please
be careful because those people are going to be drunk.
(06:52):
That's another reason a lot of these, a lot of
this has to do with alcohol. Lot these and people
think that now I can drink. Now I can do this,
and now I can pour champagne all over year, all
over my head. Most of them can't afford champagne, so
they're going to pour a cheap beer over their head
and if enough of it gets down, if enough of
it gets down into their stomach, then they're truly intoxicated.
But I remember the Philly celebration, and then I remember
(07:13):
when Julius Irving's team won in eighty three, and I
remember they had these ceremony. First they brought the team
the big parade to right the to the field they
used the I believe the Phillies Baseball field, and then
they went inside. But I've seen this too many times, Morgan,
and there have been deaths that had been associated to this.
(07:37):
I remember during the Lakers, during the Lakers' House in
years in the eighties, they had all kinds of security
all through the parade route, all away, all the beginning
through and at the end of the parade booth. But
you just can't control that many people. And then of course,
you know, the governors got together across the United States
(08:00):
and the mayors and they said, maybe we shouldn't have
these things. Well, this is a release to a lot
of fans that the good fans are not going to
act like that. They're not going to go out there
and do crazy stuff. They're just going to cheer their
team on Bravo as they ride by or whatever, cheers
and so forth. Yet at the same time, you still
(08:21):
gotta worry. I even fired off a missus to Patrick
Mahomes because when that first one, not last year, the
one before, he was pouring beer on himself, pouring beer
into the stands. And I've known Patrick since he was
a little boy. I've known his father. His father, Pat
Mahome's senior pictures fout the eleven Major League teams. So
(08:41):
I saw Patrick when he was a child basically, and
I said, you know, I know a lot has changed,
but you're a role model. You got to understand what
you're doing. He's talking out cans of beer into the stands,
you know, the full gans like Corys beer, whatever I
can of beer. I said, if you throw that thing
and it hits somebody in the eye or something, they
(09:03):
can lose an eye. Now, if you also, let's go
back a couple of years ago. Let's go let's go
back to the website celebration of two thousand and four
wasn't If I'm right, Coorra's Doorna was injured in that.
The manager's door was injured. You are right, Yeah, she
was injured in that. So I constantly see this, and
I asked myself, you know what I'm watching is out
(09:25):
here we go again, and I just hold my breath
and say, please, let these people get home, Let the
cops be able to do what they need to do.
And I mean, I've seen the burning cars, I've seen
all the damage done. And then you go down to
you walk through that battle zone and next day and
you say to yourself, this was supposed to be a
happy occasion. This was supposed to be a celebration.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Jimmy, let me stop you here. We'll pick this point
up right after we take a break. Anyone else, if
you want to call in, fine, If you want to
just sit back and listen, that's fine too. Seven two, five, four, ten,
thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten, thirty eleven,
sixteen twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let me tell you tomorrow night, Christmas evening, I'm going
to be doing Christmas trivia for the first couple of hours,
and Donna help Her is going to be in at
ten and she and I will be doing some reminiscing
about holiday specials. And on Tuesday, next Tuesday, I will
(10:40):
not be at the Midway restaurant. That's New Year's Eve.
I will not be there, but I will be there
the following Tuesday. I do believe that's the seventh of January. Now,
Jimmy Myers and I are here, we're talking about fan violence.
Let me give you an example. Your mom and or dad,
(11:04):
you're both, You're one or the other, doesn't matter. And
you've taken your kids to go see the Patriots, the Celtics,
the Bruins, the Red Sox, and it's just an everyday game.
It's another game on the schedule. And i'll say Red
(11:26):
Sox for this example. You hear some leather lunged, loud
mouth yelling ob seeing things about what he sees in
the field good to bad Yankees or Red Sox, and
(11:47):
you wish an usher would come and make this person
behave because you don't want this embarrassing behavior in front
of your kids. Now, multiply that to you're on the
parade route, you're in front of City Hall where the
duckboats and the caravan of cars with all the players
(12:12):
are on it, and the crowd is just unruly, and
you fear for the safety, not of you, of your children.
That is just a reality that happens. This is not
a Twilight Zone imaginary episode.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
This is reality.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Whether it's in Boston or Detroit, or Philly or Kansas City.
When your team wins the championship or they lose the championship,
mob mentality takes over, and we've got to be able
to stop at Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
More than as I mentioned before, I've spoken with very
professional people in this business, a psychiatrist, psychologists, sociologists, and
particularly I've spoken to a lot of security people, police, FBI,
so forth. And it's a dilemma of something that we're
(13:18):
going through now that we may not go out of
for a while. The frightening part for me in this
is the fact that I always ask myself when I'm
watching a parade or something, please don't let anybody get killed.
Please let these people get home safely. I mean, I
know they're going to be arrested. There always are some
people are going to be spending night in jail and
going to court the next day and getting a police
(13:40):
record for something that they should not be getting a
police record for. They should not be having to deal
with the court system the way we have to. But
this is our way of life. I mean, I remember,
I remember at the times of some of the big
parades when the Yankees won in the sixties. That's what
I really picked up sports. Yankees was the dominant team.
(14:04):
Remember the year that Dodger beat the Yankees in sixty three.
They swept them at Sandy Kopax, who was from Brooklyn. Oh,
oh my goodness, he put a beat down on them
like you would not believe. He took out twenty five
batteries and two which game one. In Game four, they
swept them, And I remember the parade in Los Angeles
afterwards pretty orderly. Nobody was tearing up anything. They were happy.
(14:27):
That was sixty three. Then you come back to eighty
when Magic Johnson's team won. Go up seventeen years and
a whole bunch of things had changed since that time.
I mentioned the sixty seven Red Sox mainly because the
city was you know this is they have a piece
on right now on your sports channel. It's called The
(14:48):
Impossible Dream Year sixty seven. You should really watch it.
I mean everybody in this town should watch it. Remember
this team are not won during the Ted Williams era.
Basically he was in the forty six World Series and
only hit like one. Twenty five Cardinals beat him, didn't
And from then up to sixty seven basically nothing. And
then Yas takes this town on this magical ride. I
(15:11):
mean one of the Triple Crown great pitcher, I mean,
great great hitter, Jim Lonboard, pitched his butt off coming
down the stretch they went on the last day. The
fans were on the field, but I didn't see that
kind of violence. Now, there was a lot of you know,
I saw a lot of craziness out there. Then I
spin up to when I become a reporter and I
(15:32):
start covering some of these events, and I was there.
I was there when Chris Shamblers hit the home run
in Yankee Stadium that won, that won the World the
won the Pennant America Lick Pennant against Kansas City and
Richard Chase was my cinematographer at WBZ at the time,
and I remember Richard when when Chris Shamblers hit the ball,
(15:54):
we both looked. I looked at Richard. We got to
get on the field, We got to get out there.
He says, take the microphone. I'm going to hold you
to my back. But going out in the middle of this, Morgan,
it was like the most chaotic scene I have ever
seen in my life up to that point. Now, I
remember when fifth get the home run the year before,
(16:15):
in seventy five. I was there a filmy bar. Yes,
I mean they played they played the Hallelujah Chorus or whatever.
That night. People were going nuts. But the Red Sox
didn't wind up winning. The Yankees won to get into
the World Series in seventy six, did wound up getting
swept by Cincinnati because Cincinnati beating the Red Sox in
seventy five and came back and swept the Yankees. And said,
(16:37):
but this night, Chris Shambles is home run. I remember
the damage that was done to that field. Now Shambles
is trying to run around the basis. This is a
true story, Morgan. Chris Shamers can tell you this to
this day because I was there. Richard Chase and I
right out on the field was shooting. Richard Chase is
(16:57):
sixty six, so he's shooting down to the crowd. I'm
owning the microphone for sound, for natural sounds, because they're
doing films, and people were ripping up grass off the
field and stuffing it in their mouths, in their pockets
and there, you know, in their paths whatever. And I'm
looking at all these people going nuts. Now I know
(17:18):
the Yankees had not one since it sends start. Let
me see, when was the last time. I'm in the
series sixty four and they lost to the Cardinals and
twelve years of gone by. Young were used to losing
back to winning back in the thirty forties and fifties
just about every other year whatever. So I'm watching shambles
run around the basis. By the time he got the
(17:40):
second he was mobed, Morgan. I mean, it was like
a sea of humanity just fucked this man up. And
he was pushing and shoving. They were ripping his jersey off.
I saw scratches on him where people had torn his skin.
He got to third base, Morgan, We got the third base,
(18:00):
and he was smart. Chase and I were Richard Chase
and Ire on the mound. By this time, he ran
into the dugout, down the steps and into the locker room,
up the tunnel into the Yankees' locker room. Now the
Yankees are on the first base side. This is the
thirsd base dugout. He ran into the visitor's dugout just
to get away from the cloud. Now by this time,
(18:22):
everything is a madhouse, Morgan. It's just getting more and
more intense. It's just getting wild, right, So we start
backing up into the Yankees dugout, and I'm standing there
and I see this little black man sitting on the
Yankees bench, and I knew who he was. And the
(18:46):
cops started swinging billy clubs, knocking people down, blood slime
all over the place, and they went after this man.
Dance says, you're listening to this. I saw this with
my own two eyes. Richard Chase saw this with his
own two eyes. And they started approaching this little man,
(19:07):
and I ran over and dove in the middle of it.
I said, don't touch him. This is Willie Randolph's father,
Willy randalls the second basement for the Yankees, right Willie Randolph.
Willy Randolph came out of the dugout and just his
shirt in his tants. I mean it's a T shirt
and pants, grabbed me and his father and started pulling
his father comfortably to beat his father into the ground.
(19:30):
They thought it had stolen Willy Randall's glove. Willie Randall
had tossed it to his father in the midst of
the celebration. These stories that I remember for the rest
of my life. But I remember the chaos that caused
the cops to come down into the dugout and get
ready to hit this older gentleman. Miss Randall's one the
nicest people in the world. Willie Randolman could still tell
you the story to this day. So he said, you
(19:52):
know you helped save my father. I said no, I
just happened to be there. But I kne who your
father was, which was much more important because they were
beating up everybody with your chase had a camera, so
they weren't going to hit him. Plus he was sixty six.
Jimmy Mius was Jimmy MIAs said, the cord wrapped around
him like a little baby. I was at taxed to
his back, so they weren't going to hit me because
I got the microphone in my hand. But they were
(20:14):
going after this little old guy, and he just said,
and Willie ran off and grabbed him from the from
the lower seats and pulled him into the dugout wallast
was going on. But this is the kind of stuff
I'm telling about. When stuff like this happens, things get
out of control, and they get out of control fast,
and before you know it, somebody's laying on the ground,
either seriously injured or in the case of the young
(20:36):
lady at the at the at the Red Sox celebration dead.
I mean, that takes everything away from any type of celebration.
I think I'm pretty sure their parents settled some kind
of lawsuit. It's not gonna bring their child back. Five
million dollars tens. That's not going to bring your loved
one back. And all this person did was went to
(20:58):
the game and to celebrate when they want, that's all.
And they were in Saint Louis when they won, so
I think this was going on during that time everybody
went to Famiway Park or whatever. I'm just saying, this
is so crazy, Morgan, and it's just too hard to
try to break down to people to make them understand. One,
(21:21):
I don't drink them, so maybe that pushes me to
a different level. I've never been a drinker. I won't
become a drinker now because I'm diabetics and there's no
way I'm going to put alcohol in my body. But
I would tell anyone who drinks, if you really want
to go to these things, you really want to appreciate
what this moment is about, go sober, drink afterwards, Go
(21:43):
home and drink afterwards. You don't have to drink before
you get there. Yeah, but no, you don't have to
drink before you get there. Drink while you're there, and
then drink as the cloud is dispersing. And then I
also know, I also know from clear experience that alcohol
looses loosens inhibitions in certain people, sometimes the wrong things,
(22:04):
a lot of times the wrong things. But I'm saying, Morgan, Morgan.
But when you're a victim of it, it's different. I mean,
I know, I've heard the N words flattered when people
get drunk or whatever, and I say to myself, they
would never say that if they were sober, They would
never act like that if they were sober. But now
they're in a free flow situation. We can say anything
(22:27):
we want, we can do anything we want. No life
doesn't work like that. I looked at the Dodgers parade
this year. Well I looked at the Dodgers parade this year,
and they had so much security on that parade route.
It was incredible. And go back to the days when
they used to go back to the Giants winning the
Super Bowl, the Yankees winning during those years, Jeter's years,
(22:53):
and the two Super Bowls, even Lauren Taylor Super Bowl.
That parade down to Canyatar Heroes is one of the
most dynamic things you'd ever want to see. I'm telling you,
if you don't have to be a New York fan
to understand the magnitude of how they get two to
three million people in that one confined area and cops
(23:14):
are all over the place. I really ever heard any
real bad things. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are,
but they do a pretty damn good job of doing
that one. And when the WNBA women won this year,
when the Liberty won, their parade was pretty pretty tame
too considering. And I think they had two million at
(23:35):
that parade because that's the first time the Liberty they
ever won a Titland the twenty eight years of the WNBA. Yeah,
it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Let me take my break here and when we come back,
we have a call from Popkinton who wants to join us.
So time and temperature on night side eleven thirty one,
twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
On night side on w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Dan is off tonight. He's off until the first of January.
That's a week from today, next Wednesday. My name Morgan
White Junior. I'll be here through all the night sides
between now and then. I've got Jimmy myern S here
it with me and we're going to take a phone
call from Hopkinton. Bob, I thank you for holding for
(24:25):
fifteen minutes. Welcome.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Oh you're no problem, no problem. Okay, Well, thank you
very much for taking my call. And I wish you
Morgan and you, guess Jim a very merry Christmas, Happy
Honkah and happy Cornsa from Hopkins in Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Thank you, thank you and your family, well.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Thank you, and I you know, some of the topics
you were talking about reminded me of a couple of
things myself. I grew up in Boston, and of course
the horrific bombing at the Peloponi, which starts here and absent.
She kind of hit us all pretty hard. And and
you know, there's a couple of things I want to
(25:06):
call me in doing that. But before I do that,
you mentioned somebody that was shot by the police with
basically a bean bag shotgun. Let's just supposed to something
like that. Ye, and her name was was Vicky snow Grove.
And you know, this is the thing that bothers me
is we don't remember these people that are innocent victims,
(25:31):
you know. And I'm glad you mentioned that that woman,
and God rest her soul. She's a young girl, very young,
very young girl.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
You know. You know, that's terrific. And I think about
I think about I think right now as you're talking,
I'm thinking about everyone who is who loses a family member.
This time of the year is probably one of the
most difficult. Well, Thanksgiving, Christmas and so forth. These holidays
(26:01):
we have more suicides, we have more situations where people
are just you know, so torn with grief from loss.
And that was the senseless loss. But go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Well I was going to say, you know, God bless
you because that's profound. You mentioned that. Because my mother
died many many years ago and she died on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, So it's kind of sad, but you got to
look at it like, you know, for a Christian to
die on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, that's a good
day for the person to go to heaven, Heather than
maybe Easter Sunday.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I'd like to believe that. I believe that, I believe
you died in that day. You definitely should be granted
to go to Heaven. I hope so.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
But the other thing I wanted to mention too is,
you know, these these things they're hard to control because
even with a large police presence or even the National Guide,
and sometimes we have a lot of back up here
in Hopington because everybody starts from Marathon, the hundreds and
hundreds of people all at once, so we have a
lot of especially after nine to eleven, and it's hard
(27:07):
to really controlled. And sometimes, like you folks were mentioning
on the program tonight, the more psychology sometimes spreads to
the police, and the law enforcement at least got going on.
It's crazy like they were going to attract the poor
black man who is the father of a baseball player
and he's trying to beat him up, you know, and
(27:28):
and I think that, you know, it's sad to say,
you know, you hate to put axample on people celebrating,
but they might be better off to maybe not even
have these celebrations. I hate to say that, but I
think that might be.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Owned So all right, I don't I think I think
you make a very good point there. They we are
reaching a point where governmental where governments, particularly your your
state government and your city government, are really thinking about
canceling these things when they can. But it's just it
becomes too overwhelming when when you have this many people,
(28:04):
millions of people want to celebrate. The Celtics had not
won a title since Paul Pierce's team back in two
thousand and eight, so basically this was the time for
everybody to be celebrating. You know, they had lost the
Golden State in twenty twenty two, and everybody thought that
might have been the time. But my whole thing is
that what compels someone in their mind to lose that
(28:29):
sanity section of their mind in the midst of a celebration.
That's not what this was supposed to be about. And
I think that's I don't say it's a mental defect
in everybody that does this. I'm just saying that the inhibitors,
the inhibitors in your mind, they just lose. You just lose.
(28:50):
They just lose themselves. And you say we can do
anything we want to do. No, you can't.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Now you can't, Bob, thank you for the call.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Okay and everything real quick, go ahead, okay, real quick.
Because when I was in high school, we had our
football games over at Waite Stadium and I was at
Boston Tech. We won the game against English. Now these
attitudes and mentality they spread to the young people. So
we won the game. My brother and I were walking
(29:20):
home we lived in Jamaica, plane walking down to Eagleston Square,
and five kids, five kids from English, jumped us because
they lost the game and just kind of suggest kids, Yeah,
it's a good example.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
This is what Thank you Morgan. This is what you
would do. Is we were talking about when it started.
Uh well, there was a rash of it this year
at the rivalry games, you know, Alabama and Auburn and
uh you know there were four incidents this year, four
where players trying to take flags and plant them. The
(30:01):
Michigan players trying to plant their flag in the middle
of the o at Ohio State. That was the biggest
one because it turned into a melee on the field.
Police had to use pepper spray, They had to use
mace to get some type of control of that crowd,
and that crowd stormed to field so fast that the
cops they couldn't control it. So by the time they
(30:22):
started spraying, they said a couple one hundred people were
sprayed with pepper spray. Anyone out there you're listening to me,
if you ever get hit with pepper spray in your
eyes or whatever, you could lose your sight. So you know,
you better be thinking long and hard before you want
to run out there on the field.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Jimmy, I want to tell your story. I don't know
which number Super Bowl it was, but it was a
Super Bowl where the Patriots lost to the Giants.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Going to be two thousand and seven or two thousand
and eleven if I'm right, one of those things.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think it was twenty eleven. I am in Las
Vegas with my son, Yeah, okay, now Evan was twenty
three years old. Then we got to see I was
invited to a private party at Caesar's Palace by a
(31:21):
private party. They just had one of their function rooms
cordoned off. Yeah, there was buffet food and whatnot, but
there were a couple thousand people in this room. You
all know the outcome of that game. The Giants won
the two minute warning. There were escalators up and down
(31:45):
to the main floor. So two thousand people going down
the escalator.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And we heard everything of nasty things about Tom Brady's mother,
and you can well imagine all of the comments that
were being made. Now, Evan is twenty three, and I said, Evan,
(32:13):
I don't care what you think about this. Don't let
hold my hand until we get to the people movers outside,
because I did not know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I know, if you're in the middle, it's a frightening thought.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I'm in my fifties at that time, and here I
am holding my son's hand, who's the crown man.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Grown man.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But my parental instinct took over. I don't want anything
to happen to my son.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Me.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I don't want anything to happen to me either.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But my son comes first, of course, And I'm just
thinking that he's a father. Now think about he's the
father of too. Yeah, there's no telling what could have
happened in the midst of all that that was going on.
I remember, more importantly, I think it was the two thousand.
I'm pretty sure it's two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Hold the story, eating hope or I know where you're going.
Hold this story. Let me get the last breakout the
way time of temperature on night Side eleven.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Jimmy, I'm sorry I had to stop you, but you know,
break up them, dam But you were about to tell
me about the Patriots.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I remember that, Yeah, I remember that, and I remember
I remember the people, the shots of the people, the
Patriot fans leaving the stadium that night. And I remember
the Giants fans. They were they were beyond themselves, which
they probably should have been, because it's still geting to one
of the greatest victories in the history of the Super Bowl.
(34:03):
But I also remember that parade to the Canyon of
Heroes for the Giants that year. I mean, it was
way over the top, Morgan. It was like became it
became a little dangerous to me. And I watched it.
I was watching the whole thing from the studio, and
I said, are monitoring this? And I said, well, the
cops over there, or they here, they wherever or wherever.
(34:26):
But I remember that Pature's fans that night were so
sad in regards to not completing the perfect season or whatever.
But I spun back a couple of years before when
the Red Sox won in two thousand and four and
the Patriots won in two thousand and four. I remember
both parades. Remember well, the death of the girl obviously
was terrible, but I remember when the Patriots won that year,
(34:49):
they would think of was the second of their back
to back two thousand and four to us back to
back Super Bowl in it. During that run, I remember
that the security for that parade was so great. Now,
this is when duck boats really started to become popular
because of that time, they weren't using duck boats, but
they started using them then. And I remember seeing the
(35:10):
parades because I got to watch all this stuff. I
got to cover it. And even this year's Dodgers parade
had to cover. And I'll see the Super Bowl parade
or whatever in Michigan, their parade when they won last year.
It's just like I try to tell you, Morgan, it's
it's a phenomenon now that to me, we may have
(35:30):
outlived or we may have this, this celebration may become obsolete.
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Okay, it just.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Might well at the risk of millions of dollars of
damage to a community and potential lives hospitalized or lost,
versus another way of doing it, where the cheering public
(36:02):
doesn't get to go to a spot an area to
say yay, our team one will.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Be That's gonna be hard, Morgan, because even if you're
headed the stadium, you still got to get the players there,
you still have to get the fans there, and you're
still going to need a heavy police presence to be
able to control that. I'm compared. I'm not comparing New
York to Boston because you can't. The New York has
(36:32):
ten million people in that metropolitan area. It's even show
up for an adventure.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
It's a different topography.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
But even if one million of those people show up,
you have an overflow crowd. Like I said in Coming
Down the Canyon of Heroes, there's never less than two thousand,
two million people there. Two million people. That's that's too
much to control. I mean, I don't know. I don't
have the answer right now. But you know, I continually
(37:01):
talk to people, say what can you do? You're cording
off the streets, you do this, you do that, you
do that, and then you're at the mercy of what
you pray are the more sane people or the people
who know how to control themselves and just cheer. I mean,
if you're gonna be up, you're being up in a building,
throw confetti down on the on the on the parade
(37:24):
or whatever. But I don't know about this one, Brodner,
And this one, this one constantly baffles me. I sit
back with this one sometimes in I say, where are
we going with this? Where are we going?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
How did the Dodgers pull it off last fall? Because
I don't know anything.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Overly, Yeah, I'm telling you they have control. I'm saying
some cities have done a better job than others. Remember,
the Dodgers won, So there is a euphoria there. You know,
there's a There is now a heavy Asian community or
(38:04):
a heavy Asian population that attends the Dodgers game. Hispanics, Asians.
They probably one of the most mixed crowds that you
could ever ask for but it was a jubilant time.
I remember they hadn't won since twenty twenty, so these
people had a chance to, you know, ramp up for
this and so forth. And I'll believe me, they didn't
think they we want to beat the Yankees in five games.
(38:25):
They we did not think that, So it was more
less a shock factor. Plus there was also the aspect
that was thrown into the mix, whereas even some of
the newscasters talked about this parade is being dedicated to
the memory of Fernando Valenzuela. We would like for this
thing to be peaceful, and the people responded because remember
(38:50):
his number was on the back of the mound for
the first two games. His thirty four was at the back,
was at the back of the mound, and they when
they came back and they won it, you know, it's
in La with the number there, everybody talked about Fernando then,
and it's I don't know, you know, because I got
(39:11):
a lot of friends in La. But I watched the
whole parade. I didn't see any I didn't see too
much craziness. I saw people that were under control, I
say more than I saw Golden State's parades too. I
saw the Warriors parades. They were all pretty pretty pretty
much under control. I mean, Golden State in San Francisco
was a mellow place, so most of those people were
(39:32):
just happy. And remember once they won that first one
in two thousand and fifteen, they lost sixteen and it
won seventeen and eighteen. I mean, they were like, this
is this is the thing that we do. Plus they
hold it their meeting. I mean, the end of the
parade is out there by the water, the bay, a
part of the bay. That place is beautiful. I said
(39:55):
to myself. They got it separated, they got it open
and the police can control what's going on on the stage.
And then again once they won in twenty two, same thing.
But I don't know, I don't know. Well, we did
a lot about the Morgan.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
We in Boston. Overall, the Celtics parade was well behaved.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Overall, Yes it was, Yes, it was, and it covered
you know, a lot of congratulations. Congratulations to the fans
for that, because they really really handled this well this year.
Mayor Wu and her staff, they were on top of
this from the moment the Celtics were. They were prepared
for this long before they won. When they got into
(40:44):
the finals, they were preparing for this. They said, Okay,
this is what we're going to do. This is how
we're going to do it. You know, give her, give
her her staff their props. They deserve it.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Well, we may have to go and do it again
this year.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You don't know where. You know, this couple of things
that I'd like to bring up before we leave each other,
you know, thank you. Okay. I was thinking about the
ceremony for the Menino family and I thank them for
doing that. It was on your news earlier that they
continue a tradition of giving away gifts and so forth.
(41:22):
Mamanino and family, thank you. It's a blessing that you
remember Tominino in that way. And last but not least,
you know the situation in the Middle East. It hurts
my heart because I heard the newscast saying there will
be no Christmas tree in a certain places. They're forty
five thousand people dead and so forth. And yet at
(41:45):
the same time I saw this evening on the news
that they're investigating the investigation for corruption of Benjamin Ett.
Yahoo is continuing. He's the Prime minister of the country
and he and his wife were accused of stealing millions
from their people. There's got to be some justice in
this world somewhere. But as I approached these minutes, as
(42:08):
I approached the moment, the day of our Savior, and
I think about he's looking down, and I pray every
day for the world. I say, I don't know, I
don't know where this is going to wind up, but
I just pray for all of us, Morgan, because we need.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
To share me true wordson never spoken. I've got to
say thank you to you, and I'm doing the rest
job of this. Thank you to Anthony, said Marco. Thank
you to my producer Dan, thank you to Nancy, thank
you to Gray, thank you to all the night Side listeners.
Merry Christmas to all.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Thank you. Dennis Wilson by Boston
It's night with Dan Ray. I'm going Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'll thank you for re introducing me to the audience. Yes,
I'm Morgan White Junior. Been a part of the BZ
landscape roughly since nineteen ninety five ninety six. I'm here
tonight and I'll be here throughout the week into next
week filling in for Dan Ray. My guest tonight is
Jimmy Myers, and Jimmy, you touched upon it or caller
(00:30):
brought it up last hour Game five Boston Garden triple overtime, the.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Legendary game nineteen six.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
There were seventy six my mistake, there were two seconds
left on the clock, and for whatever reason, everybody thought
the game was over. The referee called both teams back
on the court because those two seconds had to be
accounted for and played out, and fans, a couple of fans,
(01:07):
rowdy fans, attacked the referee for bringing that to everybody's attention,
and you got directly involved when these fans were attempting
to beat up the referee. You tried to pull the
referee out of being punched and kicked, and then security
(01:30):
got involved, and we all know how that ended. But
you physically had to risk your well being to save
an NBA referee. And that gets me to talking about
fan violence. And that was way back seventy six, So
(01:50):
many decades later, and we see it happening a lot
of times after your team has won the championship, has
won the Stanley Cup, has won the Super Bowl, whatever,
And I want to talk about that. You and I
(02:13):
when we first arranged you coming on tonight, I brought
this subject up to chat with you about it, and
I forgot that you were directly involved in a fan
violence melee and what can we do.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
To stop it?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Look back at two years ago with Kansas City, that
community was destroyed, millions of dollars of damage by happy fans.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
They won, they won.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
The Super Bowl, yet instill their fans went crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Morgan, it goes back further than it goes back to
the eighty seventies. I've watched this phenomena to a degree,
this aberin behavior situation get so totally out of control
that it's frightening to even think about taking a young
person to a parade or something like that. Unfortunately, the
(03:12):
Boston Marathon situation always stays in my head when these
terrorsts set off a bomb that wound up injuring and
maiming people and so forth. But to a degree on
the same level, I saw the city of Detroit just
about destroyed in nineteen sixty eight when the Tigers wound
up winning the World Series. Thank goodness they had won.
(03:33):
If they had lost, there's no telling what would have happened.
And I've seen so many other cities that wind up being,
you know, being the victims of millions of dollars of
taxpayers money that has to be used to repair the city.
I remember in sixty seven when the Red Sox won,
I remember how the fans had stormed the field. Now,
(03:55):
remember it had been twenty let me see, forty forty
six to sixty seven, twenty one years since the Red
Sox had even sniffed basically being in a World Series.
They got there in forty eight in the playoff, but
lost to Cleveland. But going back to that time, I
remember watching on TV and seeing the fans just storming
(04:16):
the field. When Lonboard got the last out. People were
running all over the place, grabbing players. They tried to
rip Lonboard's jersey off. Yeah, yep, well it's uniform. But
I go back to nineteen sixty five, three years before,
when John Hailchak stole the ball and Habilcheck could barely
(04:36):
get off of that court. I mean they pulled the
stirrups on his jersey so hard they left deep welts
in his shoulders, both shoulders, and they had to fight
to get off the floor. I remember, I remember so
many of these situations. They become They become nauseating to
me for one reason because I spoke to a couple
(04:59):
of psychiatrists o years and a couple of sociologists, and
they all come up with the same thing. This is
that release point that people who are normally not that
level in thinking anyway get a chance to get off.
They get a chance to say I can go out
now and do something in the midst of a celebration
(05:22):
that nobody's going to say anything about. Think about this, Morgan,
two thousand and four. Now, I'll give you a couple
of dates going back. Let's just go back to two
thousand and four. A girl was killed that night in
the midst of the Red Sox celebration, lost their life. Dumb,
dumb bol To. Something hit her. But if please're trying
(05:43):
to quell a riot, And I'm just saying that these
things they're so badly out of proportion. Now it makes
every single mayor of every single city, every governor of
every single state copprehensive in regards to how much security
(06:04):
can we actually get to make this thing fairly safe.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I'm told the Celtics parade this year was pretty pretty respectable.
I mean, there were a few arrests at the arrests
as usual, but I'm not talking about the type of
out and out violence that was in Kansas City a
couple of years ago. That was like over the top.
And I think all the time, I say to myself,
what compels someone to do something like this? When the
(06:31):
Philadelphia Phillies won in nineteen eighty, Philly's hadn't won, Phillies
hadn't won in years. Leeve me, I'm from Philly, I know.
And I talked to my sisters, my brothers, and I
asked him. I told him, I said, please just in
me your favorites. If you're going to the parade, please
be careful because those people are going to be drunk.
(06:52):
That's another reason a lot of these, a lot of
this has to do with alcohol. Lot these and people
think that now I can drink. Now I can do this,
and now I can pour champagne all over year, all
over my head. Most of them can't afford champagne, so
they're going to pour a cheap beer over their head
and if enough of it gets down, if enough of
it gets down into their stomach, then they're truly intoxicated.
But I remember the Philly celebration, and then I remember
(07:13):
when Julius Irving's team won in eighty three, and I
remember they had these ceremony. First they brought the team
the big parade to right the to the field they
used the I believe the Phillies Baseball field, and then
they went inside. But I've seen this too many times, Morgan,
and there have been deaths that had been associated to this.
(07:37):
I remember during the Lakers, during the Lakers' House in
years in the eighties, they had all kinds of security
all through the parade route, all away, all the beginning
through and at the end of the parade booth. But
you just can't control that many people. And then of course,
you know, the governors got together across the United States
(08:00):
and the mayors and they said, maybe we shouldn't have
these things. Well, this is a release to a lot
of fans that the good fans are not going to
act like that. They're not going to go out there
and do crazy stuff. They're just going to cheer their
team on Bravo as they ride by or whatever, cheers
and so forth. Yet at the same time, you still
(08:21):
gotta worry. I even fired off a missus to Patrick
Mahomes because when that first one, not last year, the
one before, he was pouring beer on himself, pouring beer
into the stands. And I've known Patrick since he was
a little boy. I've known his father. His father, Pat
Mahome's senior pictures fout the eleven Major League teams. So
(08:41):
I saw Patrick when he was a child basically, and
I said, you know, I know a lot has changed,
but you're a role model. You got to understand what
you're doing. He's talking out cans of beer into the stands,
you know, the full gans like Corys beer, whatever I
can of beer. I said, if you throw that thing
and it hits somebody in the eye or something, they
(09:03):
can lose an eye. Now, if you also, let's go
back a couple of years ago. Let's go let's go
back to the website celebration of two thousand and four
wasn't If I'm right, Coorra's Doorna was injured in that.
The manager's door was injured. You are right, Yeah, she
was injured in that. So I constantly see this, and
I asked myself, you know what I'm watching is out
(09:25):
here we go again, and I just hold my breath
and say, please, let these people get home, Let the
cops be able to do what they need to do.
And I mean, I've seen the burning cars, I've seen
all the damage done. And then you go down to
you walk through that battle zone and next day and
you say to yourself, this was supposed to be a
happy occasion. This was supposed to be a celebration.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Jimmy, let me stop you here. We'll pick this point
up right after we take a break. Anyone else, if
you want to call in, fine, If you want to
just sit back and listen, that's fine too. Seven two, five, four, ten,
thirty eight, eight, eight, nine to nine, ten, thirty eleven,
sixteen twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let me tell you tomorrow night, Christmas evening, I'm going
to be doing Christmas trivia for the first couple of hours,
and Donna help Her is going to be in at
ten and she and I will be doing some reminiscing
about holiday specials. And on Tuesday, next Tuesday, I will
(10:40):
not be at the Midway restaurant. That's New Year's Eve.
I will not be there, but I will be there
the following Tuesday. I do believe that's the seventh of January. Now,
Jimmy Myers and I are here, we're talking about fan violence.
Let me give you an example. Your mom and or dad,
(11:04):
you're both, You're one or the other, doesn't matter. And
you've taken your kids to go see the Patriots, the Celtics,
the Bruins, the Red Sox, and it's just an everyday game.
It's another game on the schedule. And i'll say Red
(11:26):
Sox for this example. You hear some leather lunged, loud
mouth yelling ob seeing things about what he sees in
the field good to bad Yankees or Red Sox, and
(11:47):
you wish an usher would come and make this person
behave because you don't want this embarrassing behavior in front
of your kids. Now, multiply that to you're on the
parade route, you're in front of City Hall where the
duckboats and the caravan of cars with all the players
(12:12):
are on it, and the crowd is just unruly, and
you fear for the safety, not of you, of your children.
That is just a reality that happens. This is not
a Twilight Zone imaginary episode.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
This is reality.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Whether it's in Boston or Detroit, or Philly or Kansas City.
When your team wins the championship or they lose the championship,
mob mentality takes over, and we've got to be able
to stop at Jimmy.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
More than as I mentioned before, I've spoken with very
professional people in this business, a psychiatrist, psychologists, sociologists, and
particularly I've spoken to a lot of security people, police, FBI,
so forth. And it's a dilemma of something that we're
(13:18):
going through now that we may not go out of
for a while. The frightening part for me in this
is the fact that I always ask myself when I'm
watching a parade or something, please don't let anybody get killed.
Please let these people get home safely. I mean, I
know they're going to be arrested. There always are some
people are going to be spending night in jail and
going to court the next day and getting a police
(13:40):
record for something that they should not be getting a
police record for. They should not be having to deal
with the court system the way we have to. But
this is our way of life. I mean, I remember,
I remember at the times of some of the big
parades when the Yankees won in the sixties. That's what
I really picked up sports. Yankees was the dominant team.
(14:04):
Remember the year that Dodger beat the Yankees in sixty three.
They swept them at Sandy Kopax, who was from Brooklyn. Oh,
oh my goodness, he put a beat down on them
like you would not believe. He took out twenty five
batteries and two which game one. In Game four, they
swept them, And I remember the parade in Los Angeles
afterwards pretty orderly. Nobody was tearing up anything. They were happy.
(14:27):
That was sixty three. Then you come back to eighty
when Magic Johnson's team won. Go up seventeen years and
a whole bunch of things had changed since that time.
I mentioned the sixty seven Red Sox mainly because the
city was you know this is they have a piece
on right now on your sports channel. It's called The
(14:48):
Impossible Dream Year sixty seven. You should really watch it.
I mean everybody in this town should watch it. Remember
this team are not won during the Ted Williams era.
Basically he was in the forty six World Series and
only hit like one. Twenty five Cardinals beat him, didn't
And from then up to sixty seven basically nothing. And
then Yas takes this town on this magical ride. I
(15:11):
mean one of the Triple Crown great pitcher, I mean,
great great hitter, Jim Lonboard, pitched his butt off coming
down the stretch they went on the last day. The
fans were on the field, but I didn't see that
kind of violence. Now, there was a lot of you know,
I saw a lot of craziness out there. Then I
spin up to when I become a reporter and I
(15:32):
start covering some of these events, and I was there.
I was there when Chris Shamblers hit the home run
in Yankee Stadium that won, that won the World the
won the Pennant America Lick Pennant against Kansas City and
Richard Chase was my cinematographer at WBZ at the time,
and I remember Richard when when Chris Shamblers hit the ball,
(15:54):
we both looked. I looked at Richard. We got to
get on the field, We got to get out there.
He says, take the microphone. I'm going to hold you
to my back. But going out in the middle of this, Morgan,
it was like the most chaotic scene I have ever
seen in my life up to that point. Now, I
remember when fifth get the home run the year before,
(16:15):
in seventy five. I was there a filmy bar. Yes,
I mean they played they played the Hallelujah Chorus or whatever.
That night. People were going nuts. But the Red Sox
didn't wind up winning. The Yankees won to get into
the World Series in seventy six, did wound up getting
swept by Cincinnati because Cincinnati beating the Red Sox in
seventy five and came back and swept the Yankees. And said,
(16:37):
but this night, Chris Shambles is home run. I remember
the damage that was done to that field. Now Shambles
is trying to run around the basis. This is a
true story, Morgan. Chris Shamers can tell you this to
this day because I was there. Richard Chase and I
right out on the field was shooting. Richard Chase is
(16:57):
sixty six, so he's shooting down to the crowd. I'm
owning the microphone for sound, for natural sounds, because they're
doing films, and people were ripping up grass off the
field and stuffing it in their mouths, in their pockets
and there, you know, in their paths whatever. And I'm
looking at all these people going nuts. Now I know
(17:18):
the Yankees had not one since it sends start. Let
me see, when was the last time. I'm in the
series sixty four and they lost to the Cardinals and
twelve years of gone by. Young were used to losing
back to winning back in the thirty forties and fifties
just about every other year whatever. So I'm watching shambles
run around the basis. By the time he got the
(17:40):
second he was mobed, Morgan. I mean, it was like
a sea of humanity just fucked this man up. And
he was pushing and shoving. They were ripping his jersey off.
I saw scratches on him where people had torn his skin.
He got to third base, Morgan, We got the third base,
(18:00):
and he was smart. Chase and I were Richard Chase
and Ire on the mound. By this time, he ran
into the dugout, down the steps and into the locker room,
up the tunnel into the Yankees' locker room. Now the
Yankees are on the first base side. This is the
thirsd base dugout. He ran into the visitor's dugout just
to get away from the cloud. Now by this time,
(18:22):
everything is a madhouse, Morgan. It's just getting more and
more intense. It's just getting wild, right, So we start
backing up into the Yankees dugout, and I'm standing there
and I see this little black man sitting on the
Yankees bench, and I knew who he was. And the
(18:46):
cops started swinging billy clubs, knocking people down, blood slime
all over the place, and they went after this man.
Dance says, you're listening to this. I saw this with
my own two eyes. Richard Chase saw this with his
own two eyes. And they started approaching this little man,
(19:07):
and I ran over and dove in the middle of it.
I said, don't touch him. This is Willie Randolph's father,
Willy randalls the second basement for the Yankees, right Willie Randolph.
Willy Randolph came out of the dugout and just his
shirt in his tants. I mean it's a T shirt
and pants, grabbed me and his father and started pulling
his father comfortably to beat his father into the ground.
(19:30):
They thought it had stolen Willy Randall's glove. Willie Randall
had tossed it to his father in the midst of
the celebration. These stories that I remember for the rest
of my life. But I remember the chaos that caused
the cops to come down into the dugout and get
ready to hit this older gentleman. Miss Randall's one the
nicest people in the world. Willie Randolman could still tell
you the story to this day. So he said, you
(19:52):
know you helped save my father. I said no, I
just happened to be there. But I kne who your
father was, which was much more important because they were
beating up everybody with your chase had a camera, so
they weren't going to hit him. Plus he was sixty six.
Jimmy Mius was Jimmy MIAs said, the cord wrapped around
him like a little baby. I was at taxed to
his back, so they weren't going to hit me because
I got the microphone in my hand. But they were
(20:14):
going after this little old guy, and he just said,
and Willie ran off and grabbed him from the from
the lower seats and pulled him into the dugout wallast
was going on. But this is the kind of stuff
I'm telling about. When stuff like this happens, things get
out of control, and they get out of control fast,
and before you know it, somebody's laying on the ground,
either seriously injured or in the case of the young
(20:36):
lady at the at the at the Red Sox celebration dead.
I mean, that takes everything away from any type of celebration.
I think I'm pretty sure their parents settled some kind
of lawsuit. It's not gonna bring their child back. Five
million dollars tens. That's not going to bring your loved
one back. And all this person did was went to
(20:58):
the game and to celebrate when they want, that's all.
And they were in Saint Louis when they won, so
I think this was going on during that time everybody
went to Famiway Park or whatever. I'm just saying, this
is so crazy, Morgan, and it's just too hard to
try to break down to people to make them understand. One,
(21:21):
I don't drink them, so maybe that pushes me to
a different level. I've never been a drinker. I won't
become a drinker now because I'm diabetics and there's no
way I'm going to put alcohol in my body. But
I would tell anyone who drinks, if you really want
to go to these things, you really want to appreciate
what this moment is about, go sober, drink afterwards, Go
(21:43):
home and drink afterwards. You don't have to drink before
you get there. Yeah, but no, you don't have to
drink before you get there. Drink while you're there, and
then drink as the cloud is dispersing. And then I
also know, I also know from clear experience that alcohol
looses loosens inhibitions in certain people, sometimes the wrong things,
(22:04):
a lot of times the wrong things. But I'm saying, Morgan, Morgan.
But when you're a victim of it, it's different. I mean,
I know, I've heard the N words flattered when people
get drunk or whatever, and I say to myself, they
would never say that if they were sober, They would
never act like that if they were sober. But now
they're in a free flow situation. We can say anything
(22:27):
we want, we can do anything we want. No life
doesn't work like that. I looked at the Dodgers parade
this year. Well I looked at the Dodgers parade this year,
and they had so much security on that parade route.
It was incredible. And go back to the days when
they used to go back to the Giants winning the
Super Bowl, the Yankees winning during those years, Jeter's years,
(22:53):
and the two Super Bowls, even Lauren Taylor Super Bowl.
That parade down to Canyatar Heroes is one of the
most dynamic things you'd ever want to see. I'm telling you,
if you don't have to be a New York fan
to understand the magnitude of how they get two to
three million people in that one confined area and cops
(23:14):
are all over the place. I really ever heard any
real bad things. I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are,
but they do a pretty damn good job of doing
that one. And when the WNBA women won this year,
when the Liberty won, their parade was pretty pretty tame
too considering. And I think they had two million at
(23:35):
that parade because that's the first time the Liberty they
ever won a Titland the twenty eight years of the WNBA. Yeah,
it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Let me take my break here and when we come back,
we have a call from Popkinton who wants to join us.
So time and temperature on night side eleven thirty one,
twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
On night side on w B Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Dan is off tonight. He's off until the first of January.
That's a week from today, next Wednesday. My name Morgan
White Junior. I'll be here through all the night sides
between now and then. I've got Jimmy myern S here
it with me and we're going to take a phone
call from Hopkinton. Bob, I thank you for holding for
(24:25):
fifteen minutes. Welcome.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
Oh you're no problem, no problem. Okay, Well, thank you
very much for taking my call. And I wish you
Morgan and you, guess Jim a very merry Christmas, Happy
Honkah and happy Cornsa from Hopkins in Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Thank you, thank you and your family, well.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Thank you, and I you know, some of the topics
you were talking about reminded me of a couple of
things myself. I grew up in Boston, and of course
the horrific bombing at the Peloponi, which starts here and absent.
She kind of hit us all pretty hard. And and
you know, there's a couple of things I want to
(25:06):
call me in doing that. But before I do that,
you mentioned somebody that was shot by the police with
basically a bean bag shotgun. Let's just supposed to something
like that. Ye, and her name was was Vicky snow Grove.
And you know, this is the thing that bothers me
is we don't remember these people that are innocent victims,
(25:31):
you know. And I'm glad you mentioned that that woman,
and God rest her soul. She's a young girl, very young,
very young girl.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
You know. You know, that's terrific. And I think about
I think about I think right now as you're talking,
I'm thinking about everyone who is who loses a family member.
This time of the year is probably one of the
most difficult. Well, Thanksgiving, Christmas and so forth. These holidays
(26:01):
we have more suicides, we have more situations where people
are just you know, so torn with grief from loss.
And that was the senseless loss. But go ahead, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
Well I was going to say, you know, God bless
you because that's profound. You mentioned that. Because my mother
died many many years ago and she died on Christmas Eve.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, So it's kind of sad, but you got to
look at it like, you know, for a Christian to
die on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, that's a good
day for the person to go to heaven, Heather than
maybe Easter Sunday.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I'd like to believe that. I believe that, I believe
you died in that day. You definitely should be granted
to go to Heaven. I hope so.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
But the other thing I wanted to mention too is,
you know, these these things they're hard to control because
even with a large police presence or even the National Guide,
and sometimes we have a lot of back up here
in Hopington because everybody starts from Marathon, the hundreds and
hundreds of people all at once, so we have a
lot of especially after nine to eleven, and it's hard
(27:07):
to really controlled. And sometimes, like you folks were mentioning
on the program tonight, the more psychology sometimes spreads to
the police, and the law enforcement at least got going on.
It's crazy like they were going to attract the poor
black man who is the father of a baseball player
and he's trying to beat him up, you know, and
(27:28):
and I think that, you know, it's sad to say,
you know, you hate to put axample on people celebrating,
but they might be better off to maybe not even
have these celebrations. I hate to say that, but I
think that might be.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Owned So all right, I don't I think I think
you make a very good point there. They we are
reaching a point where governmental where governments, particularly your your
state government and your city government, are really thinking about
canceling these things when they can. But it's just it
becomes too overwhelming when when you have this many people,
(28:04):
millions of people want to celebrate. The Celtics had not
won a title since Paul Pierce's team back in two
thousand and eight, so basically this was the time for
everybody to be celebrating. You know, they had lost the
Golden State in twenty twenty two, and everybody thought that
might have been the time. But my whole thing is
that what compels someone in their mind to lose that
(28:29):
sanity section of their mind in the midst of a celebration.
That's not what this was supposed to be about. And
I think that's I don't say it's a mental defect
in everybody that does this. I'm just saying that the inhibitors,
the inhibitors in your mind, they just lose. You just lose.
(28:50):
They just lose themselves. And you say we can do
anything we want to do. No, you can't.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Now you can't, Bob, thank you for the call.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
Okay and everything real quick, go ahead, okay, real quick.
Because when I was in high school, we had our
football games over at Waite Stadium and I was at
Boston Tech. We won the game against English. Now these
attitudes and mentality they spread to the young people. So
we won the game. My brother and I were walking
(29:20):
home we lived in Jamaica, plane walking down to Eagleston Square,
and five kids, five kids from English, jumped us because
they lost the game and just kind of suggest kids, Yeah,
it's a good example.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
This is what Thank you Morgan. This is what you
would do. Is we were talking about when it started.
Uh well, there was a rash of it this year
at the rivalry games, you know, Alabama and Auburn and
uh you know there were four incidents this year, four
where players trying to take flags and plant them. The
(30:01):
Michigan players trying to plant their flag in the middle
of the o at Ohio State. That was the biggest
one because it turned into a melee on the field.
Police had to use pepper spray, They had to use
mace to get some type of control of that crowd,
and that crowd stormed to field so fast that the
cops they couldn't control it. So by the time they
(30:22):
started spraying, they said a couple one hundred people were
sprayed with pepper spray. Anyone out there you're listening to me,
if you ever get hit with pepper spray in your
eyes or whatever, you could lose your sight. So you know,
you better be thinking long and hard before you want
to run out there on the field.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Jimmy, I want to tell your story. I don't know
which number Super Bowl it was, but it was a
Super Bowl where the Patriots lost to the Giants.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Going to be two thousand and seven or two thousand
and eleven if I'm right, one of those things.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I think it was twenty eleven. I am in Las
Vegas with my son, Yeah, okay, now Evan was twenty
three years old. Then we got to see I was
invited to a private party at Caesar's Palace by a
(31:21):
private party. They just had one of their function rooms
cordoned off. Yeah, there was buffet food and whatnot, but
there were a couple thousand people in this room. You
all know the outcome of that game. The Giants won
the two minute warning. There were escalators up and down
(31:45):
to the main floor. So two thousand people going down
the escalator.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
And we heard everything of nasty things about Tom Brady's mother,
and you can well imagine all of the comments that
were being made. Now, Evan is twenty three, and I said, Evan,
(32:13):
I don't care what you think about this. Don't let
hold my hand until we get to the people movers outside,
because I did not know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I know, if you're in the middle, it's a frightening thought.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I'm in my fifties at that time, and here I
am holding my son's hand, who's the crown man.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Grown man.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But my parental instinct took over. I don't want anything
to happen to my son.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Me.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I don't want anything to happen to me either.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
But my son comes first, of course, And I'm just
thinking that he's a father. Now think about he's the
father of too. Yeah, there's no telling what could have
happened in the midst of all that that was going on.
I remember, more importantly, I think it was the two thousand.
I'm pretty sure it's two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Hold the story, eating hope or I know where you're going.
Hold this story. Let me get the last breakout the
way time of temperature on night Side eleven.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Twenty seven degrees.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
night Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Jimmy, I'm sorry I had to stop you, but you know,
break up them, dam But you were about to tell
me about the Patriots.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I remember that, Yeah, I remember that, and I remember
I remember the people, the shots of the people, the
Patriot fans leaving the stadium that night. And I remember
the Giants fans. They were they were beyond themselves, which
they probably should have been, because it's still geting to one
of the greatest victories in the history of the Super Bowl.
(34:03):
But I also remember that parade to the Canyon of
Heroes for the Giants that year. I mean, it was
way over the top, Morgan. It was like became it
became a little dangerous to me. And I watched it.
I was watching the whole thing from the studio, and
I said, are monitoring this? And I said, well, the
cops over there, or they here, they wherever or wherever.
(34:26):
But I remember that Pature's fans that night were so
sad in regards to not completing the perfect season or whatever.
But I spun back a couple of years before when
the Red Sox won in two thousand and four and
the Patriots won in two thousand and four. I remember
both parades. Remember well, the death of the girl obviously
was terrible, but I remember when the Patriots won that year,
(34:49):
they would think of was the second of their back
to back two thousand and four to us back to
back Super Bowl in it. During that run, I remember
that the security for that parade was so great. Now,
this is when duck boats really started to become popular
because of that time, they weren't using duck boats, but
they started using them then. And I remember seeing the
(35:10):
parades because I got to watch all this stuff. I
got to cover it. And even this year's Dodgers parade
had to cover. And I'll see the Super Bowl parade
or whatever in Michigan, their parade when they won last year.
It's just like I try to tell you, Morgan, it's
it's a phenomenon now that to me, we may have
(35:30):
outlived or we may have this, this celebration may become obsolete.
That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Okay, it just.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Might well at the risk of millions of dollars of
damage to a community and potential lives hospitalized or lost,
versus another way of doing it, where the cheering public
(36:02):
doesn't get to go to a spot an area to
say yay, our team one will.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Be That's gonna be hard, Morgan, because even if you're
headed the stadium, you still got to get the players there,
you still have to get the fans there, and you're
still going to need a heavy police presence to be
able to control that. I'm compared. I'm not comparing New
York to Boston because you can't. The New York has
(36:32):
ten million people in that metropolitan area. It's even show
up for an adventure.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
It's a different topography.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
But even if one million of those people show up,
you have an overflow crowd. Like I said in Coming
Down the Canyon of Heroes, there's never less than two thousand,
two million people there. Two million people. That's that's too
much to control. I mean, I don't know. I don't
have the answer right now. But you know, I continually
(37:01):
talk to people, say what can you do? You're cording
off the streets, you do this, you do that, you
do that, and then you're at the mercy of what
you pray are the more sane people or the people
who know how to control themselves and just cheer. I mean,
if you're gonna be up, you're being up in a building,
throw confetti down on the on the on the parade
(37:24):
or whatever. But I don't know about this one, Brodner,
And this one, this one constantly baffles me. I sit
back with this one sometimes in I say, where are
we going with this? Where are we going?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
How did the Dodgers pull it off last fall? Because
I don't know anything.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Overly, Yeah, I'm telling you they have control. I'm saying
some cities have done a better job than others. Remember,
the Dodgers won, So there is a euphoria there. You know,
there's a There is now a heavy Asian community or
(38:04):
a heavy Asian population that attends the Dodgers game. Hispanics, Asians.
They probably one of the most mixed crowds that you
could ever ask for but it was a jubilant time.
I remember they hadn't won since twenty twenty, so these
people had a chance to, you know, ramp up for
this and so forth. And I'll believe me, they didn't
think they we want to beat the Yankees in five games.
(38:25):
They we did not think that, So it was more
less a shock factor. Plus there was also the aspect
that was thrown into the mix, whereas even some of
the newscasters talked about this parade is being dedicated to
the memory of Fernando Valenzuela. We would like for this
thing to be peaceful, and the people responded because remember
(38:50):
his number was on the back of the mound for
the first two games. His thirty four was at the back,
was at the back of the mound, and they when
they came back and they won it, you know, it's
in La with the number there, everybody talked about Fernando then,
and it's I don't know, you know, because I got
(39:11):
a lot of friends in La. But I watched the
whole parade. I didn't see any I didn't see too
much craziness. I saw people that were under control, I
say more than I saw Golden State's parades too. I
saw the Warriors parades. They were all pretty pretty pretty
much under control. I mean, Golden State in San Francisco
was a mellow place, so most of those people were
(39:32):
just happy. And remember once they won that first one
in two thousand and fifteen, they lost sixteen and it
won seventeen and eighteen. I mean, they were like, this
is this is the thing that we do. Plus they
hold it their meeting. I mean, the end of the
parade is out there by the water, the bay, a
part of the bay. That place is beautiful. I said
(39:55):
to myself. They got it separated, they got it open
and the police can control what's going on on the stage.
And then again once they won in twenty two, same thing.
But I don't know, I don't know. Well, we did
a lot about the Morgan.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
We in Boston. Overall, the Celtics parade was well behaved.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Overall, Yes it was, Yes, it was, and it covered
you know, a lot of congratulations. Congratulations to the fans
for that, because they really really handled this well this year.
Mayor Wu and her staff, they were on top of
this from the moment the Celtics were. They were prepared
for this long before they won. When they got into
(40:44):
the finals, they were preparing for this. They said, Okay,
this is what we're going to do. This is how
we're going to do it. You know, give her, give
her her staff their props. They deserve it.
Speaker 3 (40:56):
Well, we may have to go and do it again
this year.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
You don't know where. You know, this couple of things
that I'd like to bring up before we leave each other,
you know, thank you. Okay. I was thinking about the
ceremony for the Menino family and I thank them for
doing that. It was on your news earlier that they
continue a tradition of giving away gifts and so forth.
(41:22):
Mamanino and family, thank you. It's a blessing that you
remember Tominino in that way. And last but not least,
you know the situation in the Middle East. It hurts
my heart because I heard the newscast saying there will
be no Christmas tree in a certain places. They're forty
five thousand people dead and so forth. And yet at
(41:45):
the same time I saw this evening on the news
that they're investigating the investigation for corruption of Benjamin Ett.
Yahoo is continuing. He's the Prime minister of the country
and he and his wife were accused of stealing millions
from their people. There's got to be some justice in
this world somewhere. But as I approached these minutes, as
(42:08):
I approached the moment, the day of our Savior, and
I think about he's looking down, and I pray every
day for the world. I say, I don't know, I
don't know where this is going to wind up, but
I just pray for all of us, Morgan, because we need.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
To share me true wordson never spoken. I've got to
say thank you to you, and I'm doing the rest
job of this. Thank you to Anthony, said Marco. Thank
you to my producer Dan, thank you to Nancy, thank
you to Gray, thank you to all the night Side listeners.
Merry Christmas to all.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Thank you. Dennis Wilson by Boston
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