You've heard of "road rage." You've heard of "office rage." You've even heard of
 drunk passengers committing "air rage." But "sports rage"?

Inspired by that infamous murder of a parent at a hockey game, a Manhattan
 Assemblyman has just introduced legislation that would make it a crime to "engage
 in fighting or in violent or tumultuous behavior" at a sporting event.

Assembly Adriano Espillat's just-introduced bill calls the new crime "sports rage in
 the presence of a minor" -- and this class B misdemeanor is punishable by up to 90
 days in the pokey.

"I hear it from my constituents," said Espillat (D-Washington Heights). "There is so
 much rage at these sporting events nowadays. And violence has an effect on
 children."

Child shrinks agree that kids can become traumatized by witnessing violent acts, and
 certainly no one wants children to see adults acting like children. But does
 Espillat's supposed ban on "tumultuous behavior" mean that yelling "Kill the
 umpire!" -- every American's God-given right -- could land you in the clink?

You can heckle all you want, Espillat said. But physically threaten an umpire or
 parent and you're looking at hard time.

"This isn't about censoring fans," Espillat explained. "I've even yelled 'Boston
 s--ks!' at Yankee Stadium. That's part of sports."

But isn't watching adults make complete fools of themselves part of sports, too?

"Parents behaving like jerks is an integral part of Little League," said Tom
 Gilbert, a Little League organizer in Greenpoint. "And kids understand this. I've
 seen parents screaming at each other, but then you look at the kids and they're
 rolling their eyes."

Gilbert suggested that Espillat's bill shouldn't send parents to jail, but to a
 psychiatrist. But child psychologist Alan Hilfer, also a Little League parent, said
 Espillat is onto something.

"Watching parents be abusive does harm kids," said Hilfer, who works at Maimonides
 Medical Center in Brooklyn. "It tells kids that this is a proper way to communicate
 or deal with anger. It mortifies kids to see adults behave badly."

Even Gilbert admitted to witnessing mortification first-hand. As an umpire, he once
 called a kid safe on a close play because the catcher had briefly dropped the ball.
 But only Gilbert and the catcher could see it.

"The catcher's manager was screaming at me with veins popping out of his head,"
 Gilbert recalled. "So I turned to the kid and said, 'Tell him what happened.' Now,
 almost always, kids will 'fess up. But this kid wouldn't. Later, I asked him, 'How
 come you didn't tell him you dropped the ball?' And the kid just said, 'I was
 afraid of him.'"

There you have it: another innocent victim of the brutal crime of sports rage.

--30--

gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net