First off, this seems like a ridiculous waste of perfectly good beer. Second, I can understand why this may get a little difficult. Third, I don’t think people need to get completely smashed before going into a stadium where they will continue to drink. Fourth, I think this guy is setting himself up to be outright tortured by making his appeal in local newspapers and on local radio shows. Fifth, I have no idea how you would ever be able to control or stop tailgating.

Tailgating is a tradition I never particularly took part in. For me the idea of setting up a barbecue just behind whatever car I happened to arrive at the game in and searing some meat or another never seemed like that much fun. First you have tote all of that food. Then you have to set it all up. More than likely the only food you could cook would be food I can’t eat. Plus eating a meal sitting on frail lawn chairs over blacktop just never seemed like ideal barbecue-eating conditions to me.

Then again, I am willing to admit that maybe I have missed something. Personally, for me, barbecuing should be done in someone’s backyard. I like doing that. Preferably with someone else doing the cooking besides me. I honestly don’t know if I could barbecue something to save my life. If forced to live on an island and cook my food over an open flame I would likely die of some kind of food poisoning from eating undercooked seagulls.

So, I never quite saw the allure of tailgating. I have been to enough sporting events to see people who seem to truly thrive on the thing. It is a tradition amongst White Sox fans to show up into one of the gated parking lots and set up the grills. People also play a game involving tossing bean bags into ramp-like devices with holes in them called “Bags.” It is also known by other names but the most-traditional name used by the Sox fans is “Bags.”

The place that seems to be the most-famous for tailgating is Green Bay. Of course, you are going to be hard-pressed to find more fanatical fans than Packer Fans. People keep their season tickets to the Packers for their entire lives and then will them to children when they die. Of all of the television markets in the NFL the Green Bay market is one of the smallest and yet it is one I don’t think the NFL has ever considered getting rid of. You can’t get rid of people that passionate about it. I think they’d form a rebellion. Or their own football league.

I went to a couple of Northwestern Wildcat football games a few years back. I saw a lot of tailgating there. The strange thing about Northwestern is that the parking twists and turns throughout the campus and extends into the parking lots for the various dormitories and fraternity houses. So if you park far enough away and have to walk you get to walk past row after row of people all with grills and food and beer. Some of them even have these portable sunscreen things that they set up to provide shade. It’s almost sophisticated in a Northwestern sort of way.

Again, I never partook of any of this. I like sitting at the table my friend has set up on his back porch underneath an umbrella and talking and drinking while the meat slowly cooks in the grill.

So, really, I don’t understand the purpose of tailgating. I don’t see how this helps the team win. I really don’t think a person who tailgates has any more or less team spirit than those of us who choose to stay at home and keep our clothes on during cold weather. Those guys who stand bare-chested in the middle of winter spelling out the word B-E-A-R-S I don’t think really are more of a Bears fan than anyone else. I just think they’re nuts or drunk or both.

I do feel for this vendor, however. The guy is just a working-class guy who has what he probably thought was a pretty sweet job and people are making him miserable. I know what it’s like to be miserable at your job. Doing a job you love and being heckled can’t be any fun. Calling a guy who sells programs a Nazi is not only rude but it doesn’t make any sense. Were the Nazis rampant program sellers? I was not aware of this particular arm of the Third Reich.

I heard this gentleman on a popular morning radio show this week trying to give his reasons why he wishes people would treat him better. As you might imagine the phone callers who called the show were less than forgiving. We aren’t the type who take kindly to whiners here in Chicago. His attempts to appeal to them by saying he doesn’t go into their offices and shout and mock them when they are on the phone with a client pretty much fell on deaf ears. Personally I think it would be pretty funny if he did make the rounds at various offices and do exactly that. Maybe he could chuck a beer can or two.

Still, the guy is just trying to earn a living. He’s just selling programs. He’s just trying to earn a little bit of money doing something he enjoys doing. I think it would behoove the people of Chicago to give him a bit of a break. A guy shouldn’t be forced out of his or her job because the public wants to mercilessly heckle him out of the job.

I can’t imagine what will be waiting for him at the next Bears game, however. A lot of people read about him in the Sun-Times. A lot of people listen to that radio show. He gave out his name and the gate location where he normally works. They might have to have a cordon of security guards around him at the next game.

• Bryan W. Alaspa’s new novel "Dust" is now available online at his Web site www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.

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