Well, if I’d have been on the jury, neither Brocail nor Francisco would have had anything to worry about. My only advice for Francisco would be to work on his aim.

A comment about a stillborn baby?  That’s just sick.  Francisco’s wrong for throwing the chair, but that was at least done in the heat of the moment, without thinking.  What kind of sick SOB mocks a man about the death of his child?

This was a couple of years ago. No question the fan incited the Brocail reaction, but it was not Brocail who hurled the metal chair. And it was not the offending fan who was struck and injured by the metal chair.

Near as I can see from a cursory glimpse around the Internets, the “fan made beyond-the-pale remark” claim has yet to be backed up with an actual quote.

Every time players have encroached upon the stands, it seems it’s because a fan has done (fill in thing that no one would tolerate, obviously). The Dodgers poured into the Wrigley stands en masse to throttle random Cub fans after one supposedly punched Chad Kreuter (in reality, said fan merely stole Kreuter’s cap).

I’m not calling Brocail a liar, just saying that you’d think I could find some better information if this was corroborated.

That and I DID find other stories of Brocail getting into it with fans. Here’s one:

http://toole.blogspot.com/2004/09/you-might-have-already-seen-story.html