'Taurasi vs. Hecklers' takes on life of its own in cyberspace

Do you remember how your grade school teacher used to tell the class to ignore bad behavior, not laugh at it?

It wasn't always easy, was it?

I was brought back to those days at a recent Chicago Sky game when I let out a chuckle or two in the wake of some less-than-stellar behavior coming from the stands.

The wisecracking chants and devilish matching T-shirts were so unexpected, and somewhat clever, you couldn't help but laugh a little.

Some sportswriters around me were amused, too. Ditto for some fans.

On Aug. 18, the Sky was hosting the Phoenix Mercury at the UIC Pavilion and a group of about eight college-aged men standing in the upper level was relentlessly taunting star Mercury guard Diana Taurasi.

Taurasi faces three drunken driving related charges, including extreme DUI, after being pulled over in July for speeding in Phoenix.

Originally, I had included some of the impolite, albeit wacky details of the sideshow. The guys wore black T-shirts that featured ".17" on the front in big white numbers. Taurasi's blood-alcohol content was reported at .17 percent, more than twice Arizona's legal limit of .08 percent.

Throughout the game, and especially when Taurasi was at their end of the arena, the guys yelled things like "Know your limit," "Point-one seven," and "Take a taxi."

When I filed my story about the game, I was encouraged by one of my editors to tone down the descriptions a bit. So I took out the specifics about the T-shirts and the chants, and left the part about how Taurasi got the last word by scoring a game-high 27 points in a Phoenix victory.

Who knew the watered-down version, let alone any version of a regular-season WNBA game story, would cause a national stir.

Seriously.

Apparently one of those charming chanters had written a letter about the group's plans for Taurasi that was posted on ESPN.com by popular writer Bill Simmons. Simmons included it as part of a quick-hitting, tongue-in-cheek Q-and-A mailbag.

After the game, the chanter then wrote to the mailbag and said he and his buddies were mentioned in my story and a link to the Daily Herald's Web site was provided.

At the Herald, we had no idea what was about to hit us.

Our Web site was inundated by people linking to the story, to the point that Herald officials initially thought the site was under attack.

The spike in traffic set a Daily Herald record, beating the old record set during the last election. For days, the story ranked as the most-read story of the day. And it's still in the top 50.

To me, it's baffling.

Either Simmons has a die-hard following that is the size of a small country, or people truly delight in reading about the misfortunes of others, particularly well-paid athletes and celebrities.

At the time, I was simply trying to paint an interesting picture about what the scene (and a very unusual scene, I might add) was like at the game. Now, with the surreal amount of attention this has gotten, I almost feel bad that I've played a small part in perpetuating a story about sportsmanship that may have been tolerable, but certainly not very good.

I do not, however, feel all that bad for Taurasi.

Athletes and celebrities need to remember that if they're going to take the good, and they do, then they also need to accept the bad. And what Taurasi is charged with doing is really bad.

Someone could have been killed, and no one in his or her right mind could ever laugh off that kind of behavior.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com