Reds runner 'silly,' but security no laughing matter

Sure, what happened in the eighth inning of the Reds game Wednesday night was kind of funny.

It’s not every night a fan dashes across the field while shooting a selfie on his phone, shouts “What’s up?” to Billy Hamilton, climbs over the outfield wall just ahead of security guards and makes a clean getaway out of the stadium.

Baseball fans, especially those who’ve been sampling the beer vending machines for eight innings, appreciate a good diversion as much as anyone.

But no one was laughing in Major League Baseball’s executive offices, where ramping up security has been a priority for the past several years. To them, what happened Wednesday at Great American Ball Park is both a warning and a chance to learn some lessons.

“It’s something we take seriously,” said MLB spokesman Mike Teevan. “It’s a distraction, it’s a safety concern and it’s a criminal matter.”

Baseball’s worry goes beyond the disruption of the game. What if the renegade fan hadn’t been a goofball who smiled and laughed and tweeted about his escapades? What if he’d had a gun, or a knife, instead?

Those are the kind of questions that keep baseball executives and security consultants up at night.

They certainly did Wednesday night, when team security and Major League Baseball officials started studying footage of the incident to figure out what went wrong and how they can stop it from happening again.

Teevan said they’ll do a thorough review and, depending on what they find, may make recommendations to tweak stadium security policies for the Reds and other teams.

The fan, who is not in custody and whose name has not been released, presented some unusual challenges for security. Unlike most fans who run on the field during a game, this one didn’t just stumble around until he was corralled by security. He had a plan.

His selfie video shows him methodically making his way down the steps toward the field, hopping the fence and sprinting toward center field. He quickly scaled the 10-foot fence, dashed down the concourse and out of the stadium.

In a call after the game to WCPO-TV, the fan said he plotted the stunt and his getaway.

His escape may be short-lived, however. Thanks to social media, police believe it won’t be long until they track him down.

The fan tweeted about the stunt several times before it actually happened, urging friends to “stay tuned.” And when it was over, he posted his selfie video and did the interview with WCPO.

“This kind of thing helps,” Cincinnati Police Sgt. Greg Lewton said of all that self-promotion. “It’s just like when a guy goes and robs a bank and posts it on his Facebook. This is silliness.”

He said he expects a misdemeanor warrant to be issued in two or three days. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said the most likely charge is trespassing.

The charge is minor and typically carries no jail time, but security experts say no one should laugh off the stunt.

The terrorist threat is real and sports venues are big targets, as the nation learned after the Boston Marathon bombing. And the threat from unhinged individuals is real, too, as the world saw in 1993 when a man leapt from the stands and stabbed Monica Seles during a tennis match.

“Anytime anyone approaches a court or a playing field, it could be very dangerous,” said Lou Marciani, director of the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Marciani and his staff work with Major League Baseball, college teams and high schools to assess risk and draw up security plans. After watching footage from the Reds game, he said the incident would have been difficult, but not impossible, to stop.

He said more security personnel or ushers closer to the field might have helped catch the fan before he made his mad dash.

“Unbelievable,” Marciani said while watching the video. “This kid is an idiot.”

He was, however, an idiot with a game plan: He knew where he was going and how he would get out. And Marciani said baseball and the Reds might learn how to close some holes in their security from the experience.

He said the incident also illustrates the importance of the front-line security measures baseball and other sports leagues have put in place in the past several years, including metal detectors and bag searches at the gates.

If those measures work, Marciani said, it’s far less likely the fan who runs on the field will be able to do serious harm to anyone.

“I think we’ve come a long way in improving security,” he said.

Reporter Tom Groeschen contributed