Phillies weigh in on Taser incident

At least a couple of Phillies players believe Steve Consalvi got what he deserved Monday night when a Philadelphia police officer used a Taser on the teenager after he ran onto the field at Citizens Bank Park.

"If he was on the street running from a cop, doesn't the cop have the right to Tase you because you're fleeing from the cops?" centerfielder Shane Victorino said.

No Phillies player had a better view of the incident, which drew national media attention and debate about whether using a Taser to subdue the 17-year-old Consalvi was excessive.

Victorino said he never had any fear that Consalvi might try to harm him, even though there have been violent incidents at sporting events in the recent past.

"It never crossed my mind," Victorino said. "You could tell he was not out there to hurt somebody. Maybe the Taser was excessive, but I look at it as: Why are you going to treat the situation different because he's in a baseball stadium rather than a street?"

Nelson Figueroa, who was warming up to pitch the eighth inning when Consalvi entered the playing field, said violent situations from the past entered his mind, such as the 1993 stabbing of tennis player Monica Seles and the 2002 beating of Kansas City coach Tom Gamboa in Chicago's Comiskey Park.

"You hope he doesn't try to run up to the players," Figueroa said. "You don't know if this guy has got a weapon, or he's on drugs or alcohol. . . . You don't know his mind-set. He's not a happy fan because we're losing, and partly it's my fault. I'm a little more worried than anybody else, so I commend the guy for taking him down with the Taser."

Figueroa was joking about the last part, but both he and Victorino were serious when talking about how wrong it is for fans to run onto the field.

"I've seen guys go out there and juke for 10 minutes and run around and juke five, six security guards," Victorino said. "We're out there to play baseball. I just want somebody to learn from this. Maybe next time someone will think twice because they don't want to get Tased."

Victorino had a beer poured on his head last season at Chicago's Wrigley Field and said that incident was worse than this one.

"That was way worse," he said. "I mean, you're actually hitting me with an object. If he did that to me in a club or a restaurant I'd be [ticked]."

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel spoke volumes without saying much at all when asked about the Taser incident.

"The bottom line is you're not supposed to run on the field," Manuel said. "You've got to do something about that."

Asked if he thought the use of a Taser was excessive, Manuel smiled.

"You don't want to know," he said. "You don't want to know what I would do. It wouldn't be good."