Buy one ticket, get the license to misbehave free. Or so a few chuckleheads at Monday's Islanders game believed, as if the price of admission authorized them to answer tough calls against the home team by hurling bottles and other debris onto the ice.

This sort of two-fer seems to be available at virtually every modern-day athletic arena, and anyone who doubts that should be spending time among the hoi polloi in such venues as Fenway Park during this weekend's Yankees-Red Sox series.

In an atmosphere theoretically meant for a good time to be had by all, surrounded by cheer and excitement, innocent citizens increasingly are subjected to a seething cauldron of vitriol and contempt. And just because Yankees fans have flip-flopped in their judgment of Alex Rodriguez, suddenly all lovey-dovey, that doesn't mean certain Bronx patrons won't soon find anti-social ways to air other grievances.

Ugly language. Public drunkenness. Physical confrontation. "In the fans' minds," Huntington-based sports psychologist Richard Lustberg said of the ticket-purchasing act, "it entitles them to do pretty much anything. It's a reflection of society."

Lustberg cited a populace that feels increasingly "polarized and alienated" and is badly in need of education on "how to hold our boundaries."

The nation wrestles with how to better profile and counsel potential madmen before they can tear apart college campuses, and Lustberg was quick to note the impossibility of screening immature goofballs at the doors of frivolous sporting events.

But there is a common, easier-said-than-done search going on: If you can't count on respect and civility at the ball yard, then what?

In Framingham, Mass., computer designer Doug Cross has started the Web site "GoodFans.com," a self-proclaimed "ground-breaking organization for passionate, fun-loving sports fans . . . Our only purpose to celebrate, support and promote good fan behavior and sportsmanship."

After enduring years of adults "modeling horrible behavior for kids" in youth sports, Cross said in a telephone interview that he primarily is targeting the grass roots, parents and children, but recently arranged to have 15 colleagues wear "GoodFans" T-shirts to Fenway.

By wearing those T-shirts, instead of team colors, "good fans" could be "non-team- specific," Cross said. "You become an ambassador, right? I don't want people to feel they're expected to be fan police. I'm not saying there's a prescriptive way for fans to behave. All I'm doing is saying, 'Take a breath.'

"I honestly feel that 90 percent of fans know how they should act, but the others are not unlike the school bully who gets all the attention. To me, this is a non-confrontational thing, a way to say, 'You do your thing, but understand, I'm doing it my way.'"

In Cincinnati, the NFL's Bengals last season felt a need to provide an in-stadium telephone hotline -- call 381-JERK -- as a way to anonymously protect fans against obnoxious behavior around them. Because, said Bengals stadium director of development Bob Bedinghaus, "There is a fine line between having a good time and ruining the good time of those around you."

By Bedinghaus' calculation, if 99 percent of Cincinnati spectators comported themselves perfectly, that still would leave "600 bad fans, people who are rude or have gone over the line, and if one fan is being rude in one area of the stadium, that one can ruin the game for 20, 30 people around him. Multiply that by 600 and you get a sense of the magnitude of what it can do."

Not only do the Bengals immediately dispatch security personnel to trouble spots, but they also telephone offending fans the following week to warn that the next offense could mean revocation of their tickets.

The fact that the Bengals sell out all of their games, Bedinghaus said, "makes it easy" to implement such crackdowns, given that more ticket-buyers are waiting in the wings. But team officials are smart enough to understand a need to constantly cultivate future fans, and the best way to do that is to provide everyone an enjoyable experience.

By definition, Lustberg acknowledged, the most widely followed spectator sports provide settings to vent -- "It's how they're sold to us; football is the Roman Colosseum" -- and he argued there is room for reasonable spectator passion and disagreement.

"As kids, we used to scream at each other about Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays," he said. "It didn't mean we had to take bats to each other's head. So I don't blame the teams" for whipping up fervor with in-house noise and the encouragement to participate, whether it be wearing the team colors or rattling thundersticks.

"You know the rules and regulations," Lustberg said. "If you can't control yourself, you shouldn't go to the game."

In the meantime, we might all find more comfort in seeing a few "GoodFans" T-shirts and having a number to call along the lines of 1-800-JERK.