In sports, everyone is a winner—some people just win better than others. Unlike this Phillies fan, who on Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park allegedly jammed his fingers down his throat and vomited on an 11-year-old girl and her father.
Yeah, this is an awful story. It seems an off-duty police captain took his two daughters — one 16 years old, the other 11 — to the Phillies' game against the Nationals the other night. They were soon set upon by the kind of gentlemen who give Philadelphia sports fans their reputation as urbane and terribly cosmopolitan.
"They were yelling vulgarities, obscene language," [Michael] Vangelo said Thursday.
Vangelo and his older daughter asked the men to stop, but that seemed to just cause more trouble, he said.
"I had beer thrown on me and water and then one individual started spitting at the back of my daughter's chair and he actually spit on my 11-year-old daughter," he said.
The fans were ejected, and into the void stepped one Matthew Clemens [UPDATE: It's "Clemmens"].
"He leaned forward, he projectile vomited all over me and my daughter," Vangelo said with a look of hurt splashed across his face.
Clemens then began wailing on Vangelo after he pushed him away from the girl — hitting the off-duty officer in the head and neck, causing his ear to bleed, police said.
Surrounding fans jumped in to help subdue Clemens before he was arrested.
"He was still vomiting on the other fans that were holding him down," Vangelo said.
There are no words. Throw in a crucifix and Max von Sydow and you'd have the last act of The Exorcist, except this is a baseball game and not The Exorcist, and call me old-fashioned but I'm firmly of the belief that an 11-year-old girl should have no expectation of being ralphed upon at baseball games. Clemmens faces charges of aggravated assault and of conspiracy to reinforce tired provincial stereotypes in the first degree.
Unruly Phillies Fan Assaults, Vomits on Cop and His Family [NBCPhiladelphia.com]