Lou Piniella recalled a day as a Yankees player when he was heckled incessantly by a particularly belligerent fan.
Finally, Piniella took a couple of steps toward him, just to make sure the fan could hear him.
"We're missing one of our players," he said. "You better go check your wife."
In the seldom-discussed statistical category of touch
that riposte beat the heck out of throwing a plastic chair.
And it represents the best solution to the age-old problem of the First Amendment's awkward application upon the sporting greensward.
Wit. Not furniture. Obviously, some circumstances don't allow for genial conversation. But there are other ways.
In the 1995 American League Division Series between the Yankees and Mariners, Yankee Stadium's right field Bleacher Creatures began throwing coins at Ken Griffey Jr. and Jay Buhner.
Rather than confront, or call the cops, Griffey and Buhner waited for lulls in the game, then reached down and picked up the coins, stuffing them in the folds of their gloves.
The amusing sight of millionaires scrounging coins disarmed many of the Creatures. Buhner later reported an added benefit: When the apparently inevitable riot broke out, he could run for the subway with proper change.
Deflection and distraction: Is that what a parent learns in dealing with a petulant child?
That's how 42-year-old toddlers such as Craig Bueno should be handled. He admitted heckling the Texas Rangers bullpen pitchers Monday in Oakland.
You may have heard that the episode went patio when reliever Frank Francisco picked up a cheap folding chair and threw it at Bueno but missed the strike zone and wild-pitched it off the nose of Bueno's wife, Jennifer.
A couple of things are worth knowing about the incident.
The Coliseum tends to be a halfway house for many of the East Bay's miscreants, deadbeats and desperadoes. Just last year during a game, some kid threw a large firecracker from the second deck apparently just to see whom he could injure in the first deck. If you enjoyed the Ba-Da-Bing crowd in "The Sopranos," you'll like the Coliseum.
The other thing is that Bueno is a fire battalion chief who defended his actions by saying, "It's an American tradition" to heckle ballplayers. I would contend that this fine tradition shouldn't be limited to ballparks.
So I am putting in a request to the sports editor to travel to Oakland for the next big fire, so I can seek out Bueno and say, "Hey chub! The fire's over here, you pile of dalmation droppings! Who trained you -- Mrs. O'Leary or her cow? I've seen better hose work from blind gardeners!"
I'm sure quibblers will say one shouldn't interfere with firefighters saving lives. I would counter by suggesting that all battalion chiefs should be at least 12 years old.
None of the foregoing should be considered an excuse for the actions of Francisco, who violated a cardinal rule in sports when he assaulted a fan with an object that, if damaged, can't be returned to Home Depot.
Naturally, baseball officials are all puckered about seeing a game turn into a Mike Tyson news conference. Francisco, who was booked immediately after the game by Oakland police on charges of felony aggravated assault, will be given a suspension. There's speculation that Francisco, a key setup man, might be lost for the rest of the regular season.
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