Preakness to Be Slightly Less Anarchic This Year

Language warning:
The Children Of Men meets Animal House atmosphere of the Preakness infield this year will at least be dented by race organizers changing the BYOB policy of prior years and by selling beer in 16 oz. cups instead of cans. These same cans often ended up tossed at the brave/very drunk sprinters in the Preakness's Running of the Urinals, and often connected in painful fashion with the heads and other tender body parts of runners. Their contents also found their way into the bloodstream of Preakness fans, who were arrested at the incredible rate of six people last year, which is cited by the Times like some huge or shocking number, but seems about par for a large sporting event. 126 ejections, however, is impressive.

This has prompted the creation of a Facebook group, protest from race fans, and will likely result in slightly less spectacular videos surfacing from the infield and more elaborate forms of smuggling booze. At the Derby I saw an impressive diversity of these: plastic bags of booze smuggled in bras, rubber tubing snaked around men's legs leading to IV bags full of grain alcohol, and one system involving so much camouflage the man wearing it invited me to pat him down like I was a cop. Then he gave me his phone number, winked, and smacked me on the ass. I think this is some kind of traditional greeting where he's from, or at least that's what he said it was. What was I talking about?

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.