FRESNO, CA - Law enforcement officials picked through the debris Thursday morning after celebrations turned violent following Fresno State's College World Series-clinching win over Georgia the previous night. Raucous fans left overturned hundreds of pieces of farm equipment and left countless heads of cattle, sheep and other livestock "startled but otherwise unharmed."
The harsh light of morning revealed tractors, harvesters and balers that had been overturned during the celebrations by out-of-control fans. Officers in helicopter patrols during the night had reported multiple incidents of fires being started in celebration, but later investigations discovered that these were merely cases of farmers performing regularly-planning burning of leaves, weeds and other agricultural rubbish.
Still, many area residents who went to sleep to the sounds of wild celebrations woke up to a tremendous shock this morning. John Mosesian is a farmer with a 1,200 acre grape vineyard in Fowler.
"I start going to bed, next thing I know, I hear all this shouting and hollering coming from down the road," Mosesian said. "I just thought it was the neighbors getting into it again, so I went to bed. I wake up in the morning, and someone's set my compost heap on fire, and my rotary tiller's been dumped on its side."
Mosesian paused to survey the damage before reflecting on the clean-up effort.
"It's a damn shame - it's going to take hours for Juan, Jose, Paco and Manuel to clean all this up, and they still have 12 hours of field work to do," he said, shaking his head. "They'll be here well past sundown."
Mosesian then drove off in his pick-up to his traditional two-hour breakfast at Lou's Diner with other hard-working farmers.
There were no confirmed reports of injuries or deaths following the incidents, although three Visalia men were arrested and charged with public intoxication and animal cruelty after tossing a pig into the air repeatedly in celebration. The pig was slaughtered as planned later in the morning and was said by observers to be "delicious."
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