My SAFE story.
Haven't posted here in a long time but I came by just to see what the word on the board was about our Cards, I saw this thread and had to chime in.
I haven't shared this with my Cards fan friends because honestly it's pretty embarrassing but I see I'm not the only one.
I got kicked out of the first game this season (Seattle).
Anyone who knows me knows that I've had season tickets forever with my Dad and we're about as laid back as you can get. I dont get drunk at the games, I dont get in fights, I dont even really enjoy talking smack to other fans, I just go to watch the games and root for my Cardinals.
The shortest version of the story I can muster is this. My Dad is 63 years old and cant do stairs so we sit in the handicapped section. At the Seattle game there were a bunch of drunk Seattle fans standing behind the HC section, there are no seats behind the HC section, it's just the concourse, you're not allowed to stand behind the HC section, there is a white line you are required to be behind, they were not. They were all sloppy drunk and were being real jerks and telling me to sit down cuz I was blocking their view. I told them they weren't even supposed to be standing there but they kept at it. Several other people in the HC section were telling them to go away but they didn't. So I walked over to a SAFE guy, told him what was going on, he came over and asked them to chill out and they immediately started razzing me for "telling on them." Then they started throwing popcorn at us. So a pair of cops were walking by so I got them to come over, SAFE came over, they heard both sides and determined that the bottom line was that I needed to sit down. I kept pointing out that they weren't supposed to be there and the SAFE guy would just inturrupt me and say "We're talking about you."
I was completely baffled and my fellow Cards fans all started barking at the SAFE guy defending me. He then told me that I had gotten everyone all riled up and I needed to leave. Keep in mind that the whole time this is going on the drunk Seattle fans are still there laughing and taunting me and the other Cards fans the whole time.
So they escorted me out. It was insane, humiliating and wrong. I didn't do anything wrong, you can ask anyone. I'm not the kind of guy that gets kicked out of ANYWHERE.
So I emailed the Cardinals, got the canned response that SAFE was just doing their job but I was welcome to come back but I always need to do what the SAFE people tell me to do.
So I'm done. I sold the rest of the season and next year I'll use the money I would spend on tickets to take my kids on vacation.