[MikeDubreuil]

This seems pretty simple to me: at sports games there are spectators and there are players. The plays are expected to engage other plays and never interact with spectators.

That's not to say that fans aren't accidentally hurt. Hockey is an excellent example, as a spectator in a hockey arena you enter knowing you could be hit with a puck. In fact, at a professional game you are usually told by the announcer about that possibility and your ticket usually indicates that as well.

This isn't the splash zone at a Sea World shumu show...I doubt any ticket or announcer, even at a WWE wrestling event, would say "fans, if you're seated within the first 10 rows you could become part of the action." The action? An athletic player barrels through the crowd with fists swinging hoping to land a punch to the face of any innocent person who's in front if him."

I hope that the NBA bans Artest and Jackson for going into the stands and fighting spectators. I feel the NBA should also push the state's prosecutor to aggressively prosecute Artest and Jackson- they are thugs and deserve jail time.

I bet you won't see this happen again if Artest and Jackson dump their salaries to fans at the same time they're prison buddies.

EDIT: Everyone seems to be making a big deal about the fans throwing stuff. I don't think they should do this, but please consider that nothing that the area provides can actually hurt someone. For instance, those beer bottles? At every large crowd event I have gone to in the past couple years the beer bottles are made out of plactic. Getting hit with one is the equivelant of getting hit with a plastic Coke bottle.