[Jim Porter]

I was working the bases in a 15-year-old Babe Ruth championship game a couple of weeks ago.

There was this seriously obese gentleman sitting outside the fence about 300 feet down the left field line. He was flipping K's over the chain link the whole game, as if Pedro Martinez was on the hill.

Mr. Rotund's team was losing by a run in the bottom of the sixth. They had the bases loaded and two outs. The defense called for their lefty ace. Following his warm-ups, he stepped on the rubber, the ball was put into play, and F1 immediately fired a pick-off attempt over to third.

R3 had, indeed, strayed too far. The throw was as perfect as one could get, and F5 caught it in front of the base with his glove just a half-inch above the ground. R3 slid head first, reached out for the base, and grabbed the glove with the ball in it instead.

I gave a very casual out sign, since it was so obvious. At such a pivotal moment in such a big game, with such a large crowd gathered, one would expect to take some heat on a play like that. But no one said a word. Everyone could clearly see the runner was a dead duck. Everyone, that is, except Mr. Rotund down the left field line.

He started screaming and yelling, telling me I wasn't even looking at the play. He called me terrible, and awful, and he said everything he could possibly say without being ejected by the tournament authorities. The guy was hot. I think what ticks me off the most in retrospect is how no one bothered to set the idiot straight.

The game ended, and the huge man's team lost. As I walked through the parking lot to my car, that fat guy zoomed up in his mini-van and started giving me hell out of the driver's window. I ignored him as I continued to my car. He pulled around and got in front of me again, continuing to yell his fool head off.

I was surprised by my reaction. I found the whole thing funny. I started to laugh, and the guy grew more frustrated. I laughed some more, and he just got angrier. Seeing the veins popping out of his forehead, and watching his jowl jiggle as he screamed, I was busting a gut. I was laughing about as hard as I could.

Finally, seeing that I was not bothered by his badgering, he sped off. He was frustrated that he didn't make me crack, and he was probably disturbed by my maniacal laughter.

Now, I don't recommend that anyone else laugh in the face of a volatile fan. But I must admit that I did get great pleasure out of it.