Watch: 'Spider-Man' Runs onto Court, Hits Pro Basketball Player
The best advice you can give someone who has ideas about running onto the field of play at a sporting event to cause mayhem is, “Don’t. Just don’t. No good can come of this.”
But there are those who just can’t resist the urge to dress up as Spider-Man, run onto the basketball court and mix it up with the players.
This one has to be seen to be believed:
The setting was Game 5 of the Philippine Cup finals, where the Magnolia Hotshots beat the San Miguel Beermen — one of the best potential themes for a mascot this side of Bernie Brewer in Milwaukee — 88-86 to take a 3-2 series lead Friday.
San Miguel’s June Mar Fajardo played the role of the comic book villain that the heroic webslinger targeted. Spidey crashed into Fajardo and left the Beermen’s center lying on the court before security personnel got their hands on him.
Perhaps, in his mind, the phony superhero wanted to restore peace to the arena and honor to a team once known (seriously) as the Purefoods Tender Juicy Hotdogs.
A series of corporate mergers and naming rights changes led to Magnolia currently being named for a popular brand of chicken in the Philippines, as if the team in Denver were to be owned by McDonald’s and called the Chicken McNuggets.
The game itself is part of a rematch in the Philippine Cup; San Miguel beat Magnolia in 2018 four games to one.
Indeed, the winning shot Friday, from Mark “The Flying B” Barroca, led to bedlam on the court of a much more socially acceptable kind.
THE FLYING B WINS IT FOR @M_Hotshots!#PBAonESPN5 #PBALabanKungLaban #PBAPhilCupFinals pic.twitter.com/wpVKlzzDle
— ESPN5 (@Sports5PH) May 10, 2019
The Spider-Man incident wasn’t the first time fans have tried to make a name for themselves by running onto the playing field, and some efforts have been better than others.
There’s Morganna the Kissing Bandit, who provided unsolicited smooches to many a baseball star in her heyday:
Sometimes fans run onto the field only to get absolutely leveled by security, referees or players, and they completely deserve it:
And sometimes you can’t help but love when individuals run onto the field and get the whole crowd rooting for them. It helps to be a squirrel if you’re going to fit into this category:
So a guy got 15 minutes of fame in the Philippines for doing “idiot on the field” in style, even as he committed assault on a professional athlete and possibly influenced the outcome of a championship series game. He’ll surely be banned from the arena and possibly sent to jail for his trouble, and that brings us once again to the most important lesson to be learned about fans entering the field of play:
Don’t try this at home. Or on the road.
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