Welcome to the West Bay bitch

2007 has, so far, been the year of non-traditional combatants -- and this has nothing to do with the war in Iraq.

It started with that ridiculous, Internet sensation of a video showing a Disney World Tigger "hitting" a 14-year old boy in the face.

Although, when we actually go to videotape, it's more of an awkward, medium speed thrust of a furry, fist-less paw than the punch some are making it out to be. I'd also be willing to bet everything I have on the 14-year old starting it by engaging in the time honored tradition of mascot-baiting.

It does need to be pointed out this isn't Winnie the Pooh's bouncy sidekick's first brush with the law. Two years ago, he was charged with groping a female Disney guest. Tigger was acquitted on grounds his costume was too bulky for such lasciviousness.

Over in Colorado the punches were real and to the groin, as a high school basketball coach -- under the cover of his athletic director wife -- instituted a team wide disciplinary policy of jabs to the balls. Eventually the coach and his wife were fired, and he now faces 39 counts of child abuse and sexual assault.

We've also learned, in '07, that soccer players would come off less foolishly if their sport's no-hands policy extended to fighting.

But the most viscous, unlikely fight of the year happened in its earliest moments and involved Yale University's award winning male cappella singing group and graduates of one of San Fransisco's most prestigious private high schools.

The "Baker's Dozen" were in San Fransisco as part of their winter tour and were invited to a New Year's party in an upscale neighborhood. When the singers arrived they got into it with the other college age males, who were home for the holidays.

The group's high-pitched singing and matching costumes were taken by the San Franciscans, of all people, as proof of their homosexuality and the Yalies were met with anti-gay slurs. They fought back verbally.

Later that night, as the Baker's Dozen left the party, they were jumped by a gang of suburban toughs led by the son of a prominent Bay Area physician.

Three members of the singing group were hospitalized after what police described as a "street brawl."

None of their injuries were life-threatening but they did prompt the father -- who also happens to be a prominent physician -- of one of the injured Barker's Dozen to tell the San Fransisco Chronicle "The kids are scared shitless of coming back to San Francisco."

I imagine it's been a long time since those particular words have been used in the same sentence.