IN AN IDEAL world, sports teams would apologize to fans after a bad outing and offer free tickets to a future game. But on June 13, when the Camden Riversharks did just that, it wasn't because they'd just lost 2-0 to the Somerset Patriots at Campbell's Field.
The real disaster, one fan said, was just outside the ballpark - where country-music fans, or folks who simply showed up to party at 92.5 WXTU's free 25th anniversary show at the Susquehanna Bank Center, turned the Camden waterfront parking lots into the Wild West.
"I'm a very liberal person. I go to the Mummers Parade and Two Street. I thought it was the worst thing I ever saw in my life," said Patricia Schaffer, of Berlin Township, Camden County, who attended the ballgame with her church group.
"Men and women were peeing through cyclone fences. while kids walked right past them. One guy put his hands over his kid's ears."
Riversharks General Manager Adam Lorber said the team apology was needed, adding that crowd problems and traffic headaches often arise when games coincide with large concerts.
"I had fans that were coming to the game, and there were a lot of concertgoers throwing things, shouting obscenities, and there were large-scale fights," said Lorber, who said he received two dozen calls and e-mails from disgruntled fans.
"It hurts a lot. I would venture to say there were people at that game for the first time who won't come back."
Camden police provided security for the WXTU show, as for all events at the outdoor amphitheater, which opened in 1995 as the Blockbuster-Sony Music Entertainment Centre. Police Inspector Mike Lynch said the number of cops needed for each show is determined by the center, which reimburses the city for the shifts. (It became the Tweeter Center in 2001; Susquehanna Bank bought the naming rights last year.)
Curtis J. Voss, the center's general manager, said it was at its attendance capacity of 25,000 for most of the day June 13. But Lynch said 33,656 people showed up for the festival, leaving thousands outside.
Lynch declined to say how many officers were at the festival, citing security concerns - but at least one cop was kicked in the chest during one of 27 arrests. One of two men charged with assaulting a police officer was also charged with inciting a riot, Lynch added.
June 13 "was the exception to the rule down there," he said. "Folks come down there without a ticket and have no intention to going to the show. This isn't a place you can just party."
Tickets to the free show were given out prior to June 13. The gates opened at 11 a.m., and music lasted until 11 p.m., said Natalie Conner, vice president and market manager at WXTU.
Voss said tailgating at the annual WXTU concert and at most of the dozens of other summer concerts on the waterfront are part of the "experience."
"We've done this event for 15 years," he said. "It wasn't much different this time. We certainly don't want anyone to misbehave or do anything illegal. If people misbehave, the police are there."
Lynch said Camden officers cracked down on tailgaters at Jimmy Buffett concerts June 18 and 20. Buffett performs regularly at the Camden waterfront, as does the Dave Matthews Band, whose shows Sept. 19 and 20 are expected to be among the summer's liveliest tailgating scenes.
At the June 18 Buffett show, Lynch said, "there were people setting up tents, DJ booths and bars, and we made them take them down. They thought it was unfair, but this is something we take very seriously."
At the Buffett show two nights later, six people were arrested and two crimes were reported, compared to 11 reported crimes at the WXTU show.
Despite the all-day party in the lots during the WXTU show, Lynch said, tailgating is prohibited in the parking lots once the center's gates have opened and the show is under way.
During larger concerts in Camden, nearby Cooper University Hospital often gets between 30 and 40 patients arriving from the waterfront, said Dr. Michael Chansky, chief of emergency medicine at Cooper.
"It's mostly finding younger kids who are too drunk, sleeping on a corner or vomiting somewhere, abandoned," Chansky said. "It's a pretty wild scene down there, and I don't think the Susquehanna Center or the city can handle it. They need to limit the partying, the tailgating and the public intoxication."
In Holmdel, Monmouth County, the New Jersey State Police banned tailgating for specific shows at the PNC Arts Center, a 17,500-capacity outdoor amphitheater. But such a plan has not been discussed in Camden.
On Tuesday, tailgaters were in the lot next to Campbell's Field about two hours before the Def Leppard-Poison-Cheap Trick show at the Susquehanna Center. At least a half-dozen Camden police cruisers joined them.
Many people had set up large tents and beer-pong tables, and the majority were drinking. But the scene wasn't chaotic, and the Riversharks weren't playing.
"They probably shouldn't schedule baseball games on nights when there's concerts, especially the 'XTU," said Gloucester Township resident Kim Gore, who was tailgaiting with friends close to the river on Tuesday.
Camden Councilman Gilbert "Whip" Wilson wants to look into the feasibility of requiring a ticket to enter the parking lots.
"If you don't have a ticket, you can't hang out," he said. "That sounds like the way it should be. This is something I think the city should take a look at."
Large-scale crowds presented Camden with a new dynamic when the center opened 14 years ago in what had been an industrial wasteland. Today it is surrounded by family attractions, including the Adventure Aquarium, the Camden Children's Garden, Battleship New Jersey and Campbell's Field.
Lynch said a new police administration has a stricter stance on behavior at concerts and how it affects the waterfront scene.
"We are dealing with it aggressively," he said. "One person's good time cannot ruin someone else's experience down there."
For Schaffer, the woman who had been at the ballgame with her church group, that's exactly what happened. "I'll go back, I love baseball," she said. "If I was a parent, though, I'd probably think twice about going during a big concert."
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