New York Daily News - Home - Mike Lupica: Mitigating? That's a riot

Don't let the headline fool you. Lil Mikey tries real hard to defend the latest incident where a thug marches into the paying crowd to "defend" his wife who's been screaming and slapping at people for the past hour or so. The thug, surprise, surprise, was a black athlete who should have been banned for the season but gets a slap on the wrist. The wife gets to keep going to games and terrorizing the expensive seats all she wants.

Go to an NBA game. Get lucky enough to sit in the good seats. Then have the players families make you wish you'd never left home. I was at one such spectacle a few years back, sat with a few former and current Marines. We all learned some new words. All in all, we're lucky that since most of the players wives do their best to incite a riot at each and every game, we're lucky this doesn't happen each and every day. Most men though, will move away from a screaming, swinging, crazed woman, so it is a rare occurance. You can always signal security if another fan gets out of line, but just try getting a family member tossed out of a game for threatening your life.

But 5 games? If Mr. Davis needs more time with the wife then 30 games off would have suited the situation just fine, thank you. That and the pay deduction that gets contributed to anger management classes. For the families.