Diamondbacks owner made Dodgers fans switch gear or move seats

The Arizona Diamondbacks forced some Los Angeles Dodgers fans sitting in premium seats behind the plate at Chase Field on Friday night choose between removing their Dodgers gear or switching seats, according to a story from Deadspin.

Deadspin notes that early in Friday’s game, which the Diamondbacks won 3-0, there were a handful of fans in Dodgers gear sitting behind home plate. The Dodgers gear was no longer visible later in the game. That’s because Arizona owner Ken Kendrick gave the fans the option of switching gear or moving seats.

“Due to the high visibility of the home plate box, we ask opposing team’s fans when they purchase those seats to refrain from wearing that team’s colors,” the D-backs said in a note to Deadspin. “During last night’s game, when Ken Kendrick noticed the fans there, he offered them another suite if they preferred to remain in their Dodger gear. When they chose to stay, he bought them all D-backs gear and a round of drinks and requested that they abide by our policy and they obliged.”

So, what are the D-backs telling us here? We’ll take your money, and we’ll let rival fans into the park, but you’re not going to make us look bad on TV.

The screenshot at the top of this post is from the first inning. The after picture below is from the eighth:

You can see that one of the fans is wearing Arizona gear. What the D-backs did here isn’t the least bit surprising. Teams want to sell tickets, but they’re also image-conscious. They know it looks bad if opposing fans are in prominent spots at the home ballpark. We even saw the Sacramento Kings do something similar two weeks ago with the Lakers in town.