Don't Let Husker Fans Watch Major League Baseball

In 2000, as the majority of the state of Nebraska made the big trip to South Bend to watch Nebraska take on the Fighting Irish, many made more of a vacation out of it. The Friday before the NU/Notre Dame clash, the Astros and Cubs played a meaningless game between two fifth place teams at Wrigley Field. From a baseball standpoint, there were many highlights:

• Sammy Sosa, back when he still spoke English, hit a monster home run (and nobody questioned anything about it).
• Raul Chavez of all people hit his first Major League home run (and the only question about that was whether or not some Husker fan in the bleachers would throw the ball back on to the field, per tradition).
• Some crazed fan ran onto the field in the top of the 8th inning, sprinted to the pitchers mound, took off all of his clothes, and proceeded to flip off the entire crowd with both middle fingers before getting tackled by the Wrigley security. He must have been really livid about the Astros bringing in Joe Slusarski.

Maybe the guy just wasn't a Husker fan, because the biggest memory of that game was how Husker Nation turned the game into the first Husker Tailgate Party of the weekend. There were Big Red "N" Flags all around the stadium -- which the normal Wrigley faithful would BOO at every second.

So it didn't surprise us to learn that as Greg Maddux pitched 6 1/3 no-hit innings for the Dodgers against Dave Wells and the Padres on Friday night that one of the secondary stories would be....Husker Fans causing a riot.

Tom Shatel in this morning's Omaha World Herald was at Dodger Stadium and noticed "a lot of locals heckling and badgering Nebraskans....Three Husker fans wearing red shirts and corncob hats almost caused a riot in the left-field bleachers as they tried to find their seats." This was more of Shatel trying to make a statement of how different baseball fans are than when he saw Sandy Koufax's fourth no-hitter.

But Shatel missed the point. Fans aren't that much different, it's just that you don't wear Nebraska Football gear to a MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL game! Stop with this already. It also happens when Nebraska plays in the College World Series -- of BASEBALL. You might get a pass for this. But stop with this showing up at Major League Baseball stadiums and expecting a college football game to break out. Jesus, do you people pack any other clothes with you on these trips?

We're all for the locals "heckling and badgering" anyone who shows up wearing college football gear in their stadiums. Seriously, continue showing up in droves for the road games. Keep the reputation of being the best bunch of "traveling" fans. But keep the damn corncob hats for the football games. I can't emphasize this enough.

On second thought, get Syracuse on the schedule so we can see some of those in the Bronx. This has to happen. Can you imagine an East Coast trip where Husker Nation descends on Yankee Stadium? Please Steve Peterson, schedule that home and home with them NOW.