Hell no. I hate the airport security masquerade.
But at a baseball game? No, I’m not prepared for a metal detector and I honestly don’t want to deal with that hassle. I’m not taking my belt off for a ball game.
They’re wanding everyone at U of Colorado basketball games this year. It doesn’t really slow things down.
The last time I went to a game, I had to go through a large revolving turnstile.
The metal detectors are easier.
dale, you’re a Cubs fan, right? I think the big difference here is that really only Wrigley (and probably only Fenway as well) has really poor admittance facilities, and it’s a chore to get in. Looking at the whole MLB, it’s unfortunately become somewhat of a necessity to scan people as they come in - and at the vast majority of parks, that’s not that big of an inconvenience to fans or facility staffs.
Why? AFAIK, there have been no explosions or terrorist attacks at MLB games. If we are playing “what if” then I can’t think of any large venue where this wouldn’t become “somewhat of a necessity.” I’m not in favor of a society like that.
Time for a revolution, eh!
So they’re going to make everybody go through a metal detector because of the Boston Marathon bombing? That seems a little over-reactive to me… kind of like making everybody take their shoes off to get on a plane just because there was one guy who… oh.
Grumble grumble gotta bring in a plastic flask from now on. I have encountered all levels of metal detector sensitivity. Many don’t require your belt to be off, others get set off because you have a foil gum wrapper. Hopefully these are more of the former.
So you’re starting with Rogers Centre then, eh?
That guy used matches to attempt to light his shoes, so they banned matches. Oh wait, no they didn’t, they banned lighters for awhile.
James Holmes went into the theater I believe unarmed and without any luggage. He then propped open the exit door, gathered his weapons and reentered. So they started checking backpacks at theaters soon after (although I’ll bet that varies and certainly isn’t a global policy).
I love how you’d have to pass through a metal detector to get into Wrigley Field but not to get on the Red Line to get to Wrigley Field.
What a stupid load of bullshit.
The last couple years at least you went through a metal detector to get into Fenway - it added maybe 45 seconds to the process. (It was outside).
So the MLB folks have decided that when the next bomb goes off at a sporting event it won’t be at one of theirs. Sounds like good planning to me.
It’s really not even noticeable at the entrance to Yawkee Way. I’d be surprised if it even added 45 seconds to each person. At the crush time for entrance you might get backed up a while but if you arrive early you go right in. They also check and clear all bags.
Wouldn’t the same logic apply to concerts, public festivals, bars, grocery stores, churches, college campuses, parking garages and the like? In other words, everywhere except your own home? And home invasions are common, so let’s not count that out either.
I know its a slippery slope argument, but there is no more reason to have this type of security at MLB games than at the local mall. Or is it simply the number of people present? A thousand can be safe, but not ten thousand or fifty thousand?
Big fucking deal. I have to pass through a bomb sniffer, a metal detector, and an X-ray just to go to work. Oh, and a radiation detector when I leave.
A metal detector will add about 5 seconds to your journey, unless you have a WWF-sized belt buckle or steel-toed shoes.
Actually, there is. Professional sports games are mass concentrations of people, huge amounts of media coverage, and emotional touch points. None of those are really present at the local mall.
I don’t.
It may make sense to have those things where you work. It makes sense to have security features in some places and not in others. Just because you have a metal detector in place X does not mean you should have one in place Y.
This is going to be a gigantic pain in the ass.
And yet the fact remains that they have held thousands of Major League Baseball games every year for longer than anyone here has been alive and there have been zero terrorist attacks at MLB games, and i9n fact there have been no terrorist attacks I am aware of at ANY major professional sporting venue in North America, not at a baseball game or an NFL game or an NHL game or an NBA game. And metal detectors are famously unsuccessful at catching would-be evildoers.
This is an extremely expensive, stupid, probably-wouldn’t-work-anyway solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist.
I feel very sorry for the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing but the reaction to this event is almost comically disproportionate. A psycho killed two people, then later killed another. This happens all the time - and yet the response to this was a military-level intervention, the outright blanket suspension of civil liberties of thousands and thousands of people, and now the implementation of massive security apparatus for the purpose of making it appear that an extremely rare event will be a little bit more extremely rare. We’re talking about a multiple homicide in a city that has a very high murder rate and has double/triple murders every year. In 2012 there were FOUR multiple homicide incidents in Boston and nobody remembers those.
I went to the last Springsteen concert in Barcelona; the location is officially a “sports venue”, so drinks had to be uncapped. The same thing in the middle of a public square wouldn’t have had that restriction.
Us old geezers are just such hardened criminals, you know, but only if in a stadium.
The Boston Marathon bombings took place just down the street from Fenway Park, at a sporting event that had been held over 100 times without incident until this year. Fenway has been doing metal detectors and bag screening for a few years now. It’s a relatively un-intrusive procedure that may have a large preventative win.
The fact that no terrorist attack has occurred at any MLB game up til this point is not IMO a persuasive argument. The world is a different place and different responses are necessary.
How, exactly is the world a different place?
Because one nut (and his pressured-into it brother) killed a couple of people (and hurt a bunch more)? Why does that make the world different, from say, when someone with a bomb killed eight people in Chicago – in 1886?
How many people have been killed by bombs in the U.S. since, well, any date you want to choose, compared to how many have been killed by automatic weapons? Or for a real comparison, killed by drunk drivers?