I had forgotten all about that. Without a doubt, one of the ugliest incidents in the history of professional sports, up there with Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield or Juan Marichal clubbing John Roseboro with a baseball bat.

The name Ron Artest has been associated with this incident more than any other player. But watching this video, Ben Wallace was really the instigator. Someone in the video said that a fan had thrown both a beer and a bottle at Artest. If so, hard for me to blame him for reacting the way he did.

I had forgotten all about that. Without a doubt, one of the ugliest incidents in the history of professional sports, up there with Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield or Juan Marichal clubbing John Roseboro with a baseball bat.

The name Ron Artest has been associated with this incident more than any other player. But watching this video, Ben Wallace was really the instigator. Someone in the video said that a fan had thrown both a beer and a bottle at Artest. If so, hard for me to blame him for reacting the way he did.

Hey Rob..check your PM's.

Ron was a talented player, as long as he kept his head in the game. He could put up very good numbers. Pacers had a decent team at that time. That was Reggies last season. After that they went into the cellar for awhile with those players and tied up with BAD contracts.
Ron was a talented player, as long as he kept his head in the game. He could put up very good numbers. Pacers had a decent team at that time. That was Reggies last season. After that they went into the cellar for awhile with those players and tied up with BAD contracts.

[Edited on 11/20/2014 by jszfunk]

Yeah, Ben Wallace started the on court incident, but things like that happen from time to time in the NBA.

Stephen Jackson was the real instigator from that point forward. Had he remained calm as everyone else was calming down likely nothing more happens. He kept the emotions stirred up and no matter what was said or thrown, Artest shouldn't have gone into the crowd.

Weird that Rasheed Wallace was the guy keeping peace.

Back then I had an online blog (yes, I was on the cutting edge of technology in 2004). Here's what I had to say about that incident at the time:

"The other night a big fight broke out at the NBA game between the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers. I’m sure you’ve seen it a hundred times. The TV stations won’t stop showing it because there is no hockey to fill the sports time slot. Around here it is referred to as ‘Malice at the Palace’. Apparently the crowd was being a bit too supportive of their Pistons, to the point that Ron Artest felt compelled to lead his Pacers teammates into the stands to battle the Detroit fans. Being loyal supporters the fans fought back. Many people across the nation are saying the Detroit fans were unruly, but here in Detroit we just say there was a good crowd that night. Detroit is a tough place."

I never dreamed we'd still be talking about it ten years later. Detroit has been through a lot since then, but it's still a tough place.

Artest is a Nut Case. And I wholeheartedly believe that you NEVER EVER go into the crowd. When I worked in the hospitality business in high school and college, I had people throw beer and pop at me. I didn't attack them.

I remember that game well. I still lived in Michigan at the time and for some reason, I watched the game on TV as the NBA bores the hell out of me. It was ugly. I have been to The Palace many times but never seen anything like that.

I don't recall the fallout, but I am pretty sure a few folks in the stands were charged criminally and a few others were given lifetime bans from entering The Palace. Not sure how Artest and that one other Pacer didn't face criminal charges as well.

The one part of that I found kind of funny was Lindsey Hunter trying to keep the big guys out of the fracas. 😉

And as a fan , you dont go on the court. 😉

No.
This is how you go into the stands:

"Kaptain managed to break free of O’Reilly but was corralled several rows up by McNab and Milbury, who pinned him across a seat.

“I grabbed his shoe, took a little tug on it, and then sort of double pumped,” Milbury said. “I don’t know if I hesitated for a minute because I thought I’d be vilified for the next 30 years, but I gave him a cuff across the leg, and then I did what I thought was probably the most egregious thing of all: I threw his shoe on the ice.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/sports/hockey/23brawl.html?pagewanted=all
I recall being at Nassau when the Islanders were fighting the Bruins and fans started throwning shoes at the Bruins. There were a dozen or so shoes all over the ice.
Back then the Rangers lived and practiced in Long Beach. Busloads of Long Beach Ranger fans would start drinking locally at Chaunceys and then target I slander fans up in the blue seats. The game would stop and players would be watching the fights break out up in the stands. Cheers would erupt as groups of Islander fan reinforcements would counter attack from below.
Those were the daze...

https://sports.vice.com/article/johnny-manziel-and-a-brief-history-of-athletes-beating-up-fans

November 25, 2014 | 7:38 AM
Johnny Manziel and a Brief History of Athletes Beating Up Fans
Written By:Jack Moore

Friday night, 33-year-old Chris Gonos was ready for the hug of his life. "That's Johnny Manziel," Gonos excitedly pointed out to his girlfriend before approaching Mr. Football and his entourage. Next, he got punched in the face. From the Cleveland Police Department's official report:

"At this time victim stated to the unidentified male, 'I'm the biggest Browns fan ever, I love you, I want to give you a hug.' At this time victimed [sic] stated that he took one step towards the unidentified male who he states was Johnny Manziel and was struck several times in the face by the offender."

While this is a wonderful metaphor for the experience of being a Browns fan, it must have also been a particular disappointment for Gonos. Instead of a hug with the coolest backup quarterback on earth, Gonos went home with a "swollen lip, right eye swollen, red face." The Gonos clan made its mark, though. Gonos told Cleveland Scene, "My brother saw what was going on and he ran and tackled Johnny Manziel—I guess he got the sack and the fumble. He tackled him, yeah, I'm talking about he speared him all the way to the back wall."

Despite the fracas, nobody was arrested. As Gonos put it, "I did not do anything wrong but be a fan." He's not wrong-—in fact, Gonos joins a long, storied line of fans "just being fans" and starting some shit in the process.

In New York City on May 15, 1912, Claude Lueker was just being a fan of the Highlanders when Ty Cobb's Tigers came to town. By the sixth inning, Lueker's light jabs had escalated to shouts of "half-n******," accusing Cobb, one of sport's most famous racists, of being the spawn of a white mother and a black man. Cobb charged into the stands and beat Lueker—who had recently lost most of both his hands in an industrial accident—to a pulp. As the beatdown raged, Cobb shouted at protesting fans he didn't care if Lueker didn't have any feet, he was going to pay.

During a game at the Polo Grounds in 1922, after getting ejected for throwing dirt in an umpire's eyes, Babe Ruth unsuccessfully chased a heckler through the stands before challenging any fan in the stadium to a fight from the dugout roof. His challenge went unaccepted.

In 1979, a New York Rangers fan grabbed the stick of a Boston Bruins player during a fight following a Bruins victory, and multiple Bruins players bounded into the stands after him. The fight lives on mostly for the scene of Mike Milbury catching a fan, removing his shoe, and proceeding to beat him with it.

Then there's the infamous Malice at the Palace, instigated by a fan who threw a beer at Ron Artest, which just celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Of course, alcohol is often the catalyst behind such incidents—see Ten Cent Beer Night, which saw cheap booze and on-field tension between the Indians and Rangers lead to an all-out, game-canceling brawl between fans and players in 1974, for an example of alcohol's destructive power on a larger scale.

Neither is Manziel the first pro athlete to find himself fighting with a fan outside of the stadium or arena. Perhaps it's a surprise that we don't hear more stories like Friday night's.

In 1997, Charles Barkley threw a man through a plate glass window after the man threw ice in Barkley's face (although witnesses disputed whether Barkley threw the correct man). Barkley later told a judge his only regret was that they weren't on a higher floor.

Six years later, Tim Hudson was repeatedly heckled in a San Francisco bar while signing autographs in the midst of an Oakland A's playoff series. The heckler eventually threw beer in Hudson's face, and punches were quickly thrown, although witnesses were unsure who punched first. Hudson, Barry Zito, and Hudson's brother had to be separated from a number of Red Sox fans (Oakland's playoff opponents) by the time the melee ended.

And just this year, unofficial Cubs mascot Billy Cub didn't take kindly to a fan sneaking up on him:

Stories like Hudson's aren't uncommon, although many are smoothed over or covered up before details can reach the press. The instigators in these stories were certainly less polite than Gonos, who merely wanted a hug from Johnny freakin' Football. But there is a common thread in all of it: fans, so often, feel entitled to do anything, say anything, even touch anything around an athlete. As Gonos might say, it's part of being a fan.

Perhaps these fans are right. But what they don't realize is that if they get into an athlete's personal space, the impending beating they catch is also part of "being a fan."