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I guess it's just that a few idiots can really make a big show and ruin the reputation of the whole group.

Goes back to the syndrome we news folk (I've been a journalist for the better part of my adult life, though currently not formally employed as one) describe as, well, it's news when the plane crashes but no one wants to pick up the paper or turn on the television and hear that several million flights a week take off and land safe and sound (although, in the immediate weeks after 9/11, you can understand where it almost flipped over for awhile!). That kind of thing. For better or worse, the idiot brigades get the attention precisely because they are in the minority. Comparing the two Detroit World Series explosions, I'd have to say the 1968 eruption was probably more crowded and violent than the 1984 eruption, though I don't remember anyone overturning cars as was reported to have happened in '84. And, dearly though I love the Chicago Cubs' endearing mystique of the long dark hours of failure, and long-enough-time Red Sox fan though I have been, I'm almost half afraid of what would happen if the Cubs or the Red Sox should win a World Series again - or, better yet, if they should play each other in the Series and one (as must happen) wins.

Apparently, it isn't always the celebrating fans who are ready to trash the joint. When the Cubs beat the Tigers to win the 1906 World Series (yep, you can look it up - the Cubs), Cub pitching ace Three-Finger Brown would remember the club practically needing a police escort to get out of town alive. And, of course, recent memory instructs about the all-but-riot that broke out in Los Angeles after the Lakers won the first of their current three straight NBA titles. (It probably wasn't half as bad as people saw in news reports, but like you said - the idiot brigades live...)

Which reminds me of how some hemmed, hawed, and harrumphed when Shea Stadium fans exploded into bedlam on the field after the 1969 Miracle Mets nailed that Series against Baltimore. The hem-haw-harrumphers forgot that the worst those fans did was turn the playing field into the survivors of a close-air-support bombing raid (there's a famous picture of Met pitchers Tom Seaver and Gary Gentry walking across the field after the crowd was gone at last, still in their uniforms, surveying the damage) - but New York City itself went unscathed. And the ticker-tape parade bestowed upon the Mets was a crowd crunch but almost nothing more.

I have also read where Brooklyn went apesh@t following the Dodgers' only World Series triumph there (in 1955) but that the only untoward thing that happened was the shooting of a Dodger fan in a Brooklyn tavern by a visiting Yankee fan (who admitted he couldn't bear the thought of his Yankees losing even one Series to them Bums), but otherwise Brooklyn was one loud and crazy party with nothing destructive.

Recent memory instructs about the all-but-riot that broke out in Los Angeles after the Lakers won the first of their current three straight NBA titles.

How sad. I went to the parade in '88 (?) after they won the second of the back-to-back championships and it was civilized.

When the Cubs beat the Tigers to win the 1906 World Series (yep, you can look it up - the Cubs)

Well I looked it up Blues..seems you were off by a year or two. In 1906 the White Sox defeated the Cubs 4 games to 2 in the World Series. In 1907 and 1908 The Cubs won their World Series both over Detroit by 4-0 and 4-1 respectively. 6 more seasons to the century mark for no Cub World Series Championships. Red Sox fans still have about 16 or so seasons to go...should be an interesting "celebration" for both of them.