"He Flipped Us And Got What He Deserved": A Royal Mugging In Chicago

"He Flipped Us And Got What He Deserved"
A Royal Mugging in Chicago

by Jeff Kallman

Flipping the bird to the Ebbets Field boo birds got Casey Stengel a standing ovation in 1919. Flipping the bird to a pair of lithe, wired Comiskey Park birds (so they say was done), for whom booing might have been their least vile emissions, got Tom Gamboa a mugging Thursday night.

It probably helped Stengel that his was a very literal flip; it surely hurt Gamboa that his two assailants were probably too thick to appreciate it, if he had thought about trying it Casey's way.

Stengel with the Pittsburgh Pirates was getting it but good from the Brooklyn bellowers who had rooted for him in Dodger flannels just a season arlier. With a little help from old an old Dodger buddy, pitcher Leon Cadore, Casey started the next day's game with a little surprise under his cap for his erstwhile fans. Just in case.

He came up for his first at-bat of the day and the Flatbush flayers let him have it. Borne of an awkward courtliness knitted within his roughtumble puckishness, Stengel let his bat fall from his hands, faced the crowd, and bowed elegantly enough as he tipped his cap.

Out flew a sparrow that Cadore had caught and given to Stengel for the occasion. Ebbets Field rocked with screaming laughter.

Gamboa spent most of Thursday night's game on the first base coaching line for the Kansas City Royals. When not counseling the occasional Royals baserunner, he spent the game hearing an uninterrupted barrage of venomously obscene abuse from a group of shirtless, tattooed fellows.

Come the top of the ninth, the 54-year-old coach did or did not give them the usual flip of the bird. Gamboa says nay; the tattooed thugs say otherwise. What no one disputes is that Gamboa's attention was trained entirely between home plate and the pitcher's mound, watching Royals right fielder Michael Tucker bunt back to Chicago White Sox pitcher Mike Porzio for the inning's first out, Gamboa's hands on hips and eyes fixed firmly.

The World Trade Center attacks were less sneaky than two of the shirtless tattoo sewermouths hopping the rail, sprinting toward the coaching line, and blindsiding Gamboa. With the first base umpire and, more tellingly, White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko - in fact, just about the entire White Sox team - standing their positions and doing nothing.

The thugs had barely brought Gamboa down when they were swarmed themselves by the entire Royals roster, pouring out of their dugout, giving a deserved enough pummeling to what turned out a father-and-son thug team, 34-year-old William Ligue, Jr. and his 15-year-old son. The Royals actually got to their coach's rescue, loosened him from his assailants, and loosened a pocket knife from one of the pair's belt loops, faster than the guards and gendarmes who finally hustled the Ligues off the field and off to the local cage.

It was enough that Gamboa never saw his muggers coming, but you cannot help but hope he never noticed Konerko and the White Sox standing doing nothing as the attackers struck and beyond. Sportsmanship be damned; if you can't beat 'em (the Royals held on to win the game, 2-1), let 'em get beaten up.

Just what Chicago needs. Let the whole country think one of your teams lacks the common decency to keep a defenceless 54-year-old coach from getting beaten into mulch by a younger, wired, and wiry father-and-son thug team without an unfried brain in their heads.

If you think they were just your usual run of sewermouthed swine of the kind that periodically punctuates the normal pack of boo birds, be advised that one law enforcement source reported to the Associated Press that the elder Ligue telephoned a relative by cell phone, around the seventh inning, asking if she were watching the game. She wasn't; she couldn't find the channel.

"Well," Ligue replied, according to the law enforcement source, "just watch the news."

The Comiskey Park crowd was better than the White Sox deserved. They gave Gamboa a standing O as he was led off the field with cuts and a bruised cheek.

"It's like I was playing a football game," Gamboa would say of the attack later, "and I was the only player they forgot to issue equipment to."

Did Gamboa really flip the fans the bird? "The only thing that's really got me upset even more than the incident itself is the charge that there was something going on between us," said Gamboa, who made some media rounds Friday morning. "I have never in my professional career ever responded to fans. At no time, no matter how bad it got, have I ever made a hand gesture or verbally done anything to the fans."

The Ligue vermin offered no excuse for their assault other than that Gamboa "flipped us and got what he deserved." As if taking nine innings worth of such abuse as might have been deemed obscene in a porn film (various reports indicated those surrounding the Ligue party heard precisely such abuse) was supposed to be just part of the job. As if even an apparently mild-mannered, good-humoured fellow like Gamboa was just supposed to shut up and take it.

Those baseball fans are rare enough (thank God) who assume their ticket to the ballpark confers a licence to abuse eons beyond mere booing, razzing, or sarcastic catcalling. They ought to be grateful that more players or other field uniform personnel haven't fed them with knuckle sandwiches for their hunger.

But suppose a less mild-mannered man than Gamboa decided it was time enough to teach the Ligue swine a lesson in manners before their hop-sprint-mug. He would not get away with, "Well, they were givin' me the potty mouth inning in and inning out, and I gave 'em what they deserved."

Think I talk beyond my competence? Meet Cesar Cedeno. In 1973 he got himself into an off-the-field scrape that ended up with someone getting shot and Cedeno getting convicted for involuntary manslaughter. (I am not entirely sure of this, but memory instructs that Cedeno's gun was used in the shooting and it was not clear that Cedeno was the actual, but a law in the state where the crime occurred deemed one's ownership of the weapon involved was as good as the owner himself pulling the trigger.)

That fact didn't stop a few particularly merciless Astro fans from slamming Cedeno relentlessly, game in and game out, for at least a few weeks, including one sleazebucket firing Murderer! N-gg-r Murderer! as if repeating a tape loop...in 1981. Eight years after the incident in question.

Lesser men than Cedeno have snapped under that kind of continuing assault a lot sooner than Cedeno finally did. At last, during a September 1981 game the Astros were losing (3-2, to the Atlanta Braves), Cedeno charged into the stands to pound the living hell out of the mouth that bored into him without letup.

Cedeno was hit for a $5,000 fine but no suspension. The National League sometimes has the more enlightened view than the American League. If you think that's a stretch, then fast forward a decade and shake hands (if you dare) with Albert Belle.

Yes. That Albert Belle. Well, he wasn't even Albert yet; in 1991, he was still going by his childhood nickname, Joey, a diminutive of his actual middle name, Jojuan. Coming up with an outsize talent, a disconcerting but not yet intimidating insularity, and an alcohol problem from which he was already trying recovery, Belle was struggling enough with the recovery without a Cleveland Indian fan named Jeff Pillar getting hold of him.

Pillar slammed Belle incessantly with drinking taunt after drinking taunt, even with Belle's alcohol struggle public enough knowledge. Then Pillar hit Belle with, "Hey, Joey, keg party at my place after the game, c'mon over," and Belle had finally had as much as he could stand, firing a baseball full strength into Pillar's chest.

Just as most Comiskey Park fans cheered Gamboa when he got up from his assault and walked off the field Thursday night, a majority of Jacobs Field fans cheered Belle after he drilled Pillar. Then-American League president Bobby Brown suspended Belle for a week and ordered him to pay a week's salary to a charity of his choice.

Belle reverted to his first name after the incident and turned his back on just about everyone, except the pitcher he was about to face or the fences in front of which he played the outfield gamely if not virtuosically. Without once condoning the jerk he became (not to mention the relapsed drinker - he was arrested for DUI in his native Arizona last week), could you really blame Belle for thinking of fans from then on as one step removed from terrorists, after the Pillar incident and a punishment which really didn't fit the crime?

Speaking of crime, the Ligue louses are not exactly alien to criminal charges like the aggravated battery charge they face in the Gamboa attack. Police reporting indicated the elder Ligue's history includes charges for domestic battery.

Gamboa, for his part, is doing his best to make it no big deal. "It's 15 minutes of fame for a no-name guy," said Gamboa of himself, in the Friday morning wake of the attack. "It's like I'm today's Kato Kaelin. Ten years from now, somebody will point to me and say, 'That's the guy who was attacked'. Nobody likes to be remembered for that. I'd like to be appreciated for the job I do."

So did old-time umpire George Magerkurth, after a fashion. Big Mage was as legendary for his short fuse as for his huge enough (as in, 6'3") presence. He made his bones when he threw no less than New York Giants legend John McGraw out of a 1929 game. Magerkurth was going at it with (what a surprise) Brooklyn Dodger manager Leo Durocher in 1940 when he got blindsided by a hefty runt of a fan, knocking the surprised ump down and sitting over him beating him senseless.

Magerkurth seems to have had a heart as big as his temper was short, telling the judge he didn't want to see the man charged with anything. "Poor fellow just lost his head," the big ump told a judge. "I don't want to see him in jail. I've got a boy of my own."

The attacker turned out to be a professional pickpocket, among other small time criminal expertises. A few years later, he was hauled before the same judge on another petty crime charge. The judge - also a Dodger fan - remembered him from the Magerkurth incident and asked, at last, just what on earth made him attack Big Mage like that?

Oh, sure, he was P.O.ed at the Dodgers not winning the game and Big Mage making a couple of close calls against the Bums.

"But to tell you the truth, Judge," the little guy continued, "I had a partner working the stands. We was doing a little business."

Perverse as it might sound, that is more in the way of honour, somehow, than Gamboa's father-and-son muggers can claim.

You forget two small details: 1) The White Sox had a better sighting of the two thugs than the Royals' coach had.

They saw the bastards first and could have - should have - stopped them from getting anywhere near him.

It's not something that happens every day. They didn't know what they were up to at first. The Royals bench was closest, why didn't they stop them?

Unless, of course, you think a 54-year-old coach whose days as a full-time athlete are well enough behind him is better able to protect himself from a blindside attack than a 20-something full-time athlete who sees the attack coming before the intended victim does.

You're assuming that in the first fraction of a second, everyone knew exactly what was happening. That doesn't happen in these cases. When something out of the ordinary happens, it takes a few seconds to realize what is going on. The Royals bench was just 5 feet away from where these two geeks ran out onto the field, but it took them a few seconds to see what the situation was.

2) Comiskey Park, after all, is the White Sox's house, and you don't let guests in your house get their arses kicked in.

But the Royals were 20 feet away from the incident, the Sox were 150 feet from the incident. By the time the Sox could see what was happening, the Royals were on their way, because they were closer.

If you are a guest in my home and some idiot is coming over my wall aiming for tearing your head and hide off, and I happen to see said idiot before you do, it is my responsibility to protect you as a guest in my home. If I failed that responsibility, you would hardly want to be a guest in my home again and no one would blame you, either.

If you were in the kitchen grabbing us some beer and someone jumped through the window and attacked me, I would expect the other guests in the same room as I to jump in before you ran from the kitchen and jumped in all the while trying to figure out what's going on.

I'd love for you to meet some of these Sox players somewhere neutral and tell them you think they are cowards. I'd love to watch what they would do to you.

They didn't know what was going on for the first few seconds. It wasn't obvious what was happening until the two scumbags started throwing punches. Even the Royals bench didn't run out until the punches were thrown.

This may have been more true of the White Sox bench than of the Sox on the field. But don't tell me that Paul Konerko, playing first base and a mere four or five feet away from Tom Gamboa on the coaching line, couldn't have seen at once what was happening. Remember: that coach was blindsided. He was looking toward between home plate and the mound when he was hit from behind. If Konerko couldn't see what was about to happen when they were pretty obviously going after that coach, then it's a small wonder the White Sox went in the tank the way they did this season, if they've got their heads that far out of what happens on the field.

It's not something that happens every day.

No, it isn't. Thank God. But surely athletes presumed to be heads up on the field and with fresh enough reflexes can figure out within moments that is is happening? (For that matter, in all fairness - how far up his ass did the first base umpire have his head, since umpires are presumed to have some responsibility in dispersing the occasional fan who bounds onto the field? And the first base ump was at least as ignorant as Konerko in this instance.)

They didn't know what they were up to at first. The Royals bench was closest, why didn't they stop them?

You don't really think the Royals in their dugout were closer to where their coach was being attacked than the White Sox first baseman and the first base umpire (and maybe the White Sox second baseman, too), do you?

You're assuming that in the first fraction of a second, everyone knew exactly what was happening. That doesn't happen in these cases. When something out of the ordinary happens, it takes a few seconds to realize what is going on.

It should only have taken a few seconds for at least Konerko and the first base ump at minimum, maybe the White Sox pitcher and/or second baseman, too, at least, to realise that Gamboa was being jumped blindside. You might be stunned a couple of seconds when the two idjits hop over the rail and hit the field running, but it shouldn't take you that long to figure out where they're running and what the likely target is - and they sure weren't looking for White Sox autographs if they're making a beeline to the Kansas City first base coach whom, by the way, they were insulting all night long (there were a number of people sitting in that area of the park who told various reporters they heard the abuse going on all night from that little pack). I've seen the videos of the incident on various sports reports. It wasn't that difficult to figure out where they were heading, even if you might have been a little shocked just catching them vaulting the rail at first.

At minimum, Konerko and the ump were in an even better position to stop the bastards or get them the hell off Gamboa before the Royals even needed to leave their dugout for him.

The Royals bench was just 5 feet away from where these two geeks ran out onto the field, but it took them a few seconds to see what the situation was.

The Royals bench, I repeat, wasn't quite as close as the White Sox first baseman and the first base umpire were to what was happening. I mean, come on. Konerko is a pretty strong fellow, these two miscreants weren't exactly Mr. and Master America, and Gamboa is a 54-year-old man. And Konerko is said ordinarily to be pretty quick on his feet.

If you were in the kitchen grabbing us some beer and someone jumped through the window and attacked me, I would expect the other guests in the same room as I to jump in before you ran from the kitchen and jumped in all the while trying to figure out what's going on.

Well, in my home I'd hear the racket and would probably be in like a shot to get the invader the hell out of there before I'd even finished getting the beers out. You might also expect other members of my family who aren't in the kitchen with me but who are in wherever you are when you got jumped to take the initiative (trust me - they would) against him because we are your hosts. I mean, if we'd done absolutely nothing on your behalf, in that situation, you would think far less of us - and who could blame you?

I'd love for you to meet some of these Sox players somewhere neutral and tell them you think they are cowards. I'd love to watch what they would do to you.

I didn't say they were cowards in my article, and I would not equate inaction with cowardice, necessarily. (I did hear three radio hosts Friday morning refer to the team as cowardly, not to mention one afternoon host refer likewise, though I don't recall any one singling out a particular player as such. I did, however, hear Atlanta Braves outfielder Chipper Jones enunciate an opinion practically the same as mine on the matter - and he said point blank that he'd take after such thug fans in a heartbeat if they were coming onto the field to attack a player, even a player on the opposing team. But I never heard Jones suggest the White Sox were being cowardly about the Gamboa incident, and rightly so.)

It is one thing for me to criticise inaction on the team's part and the part of at least their first baseman and maybe one or two other players who were closer to the scene of the crime than the Royals were. But inaction is provoked by all manner of stimuli, fear being only one among a rather broad number. Whatever I think was wrong with the White Sox's handling of the affair, I could not and would not say cowardice was the factor.

But think of it this way: It would have made for one hell of an image of sportsmanship to have seen even a few White Sox joining the Royals in pounding the living whey out of these two thugs, or helping to get them the hell of Gamboa. God knows with the trouble they had this season otherwise, the White Sox would not have been wounded by that sort of image enhancement.

I even heard another program suggest the White Sox second baseman said words to the effect that he wouldn't have moved a muscle to help that coach. Now, I don't think he actually did say such a thing, if only because I have been unable to verify it by way of the Chicago or the Kansas City press to which I have online access. If indeed he did say such a thing, he deserves nothing less than condemnation around the game. If he did not say such a thing, that radio program at minimum owes him a major apology.

But a thought occurs to me: Where, oh where, has our alleged commissioner been? I don't know about you, but I have heard not a peep out of Mr. Selig since this incident. Interesting, no?

This may have been more true of the White Sox bench than of the Sox on the field. But don't tell me that Paul Konerko, playing first base and a mere four or five feet away from Tom Gamboa on the coaching line, couldn't have seen at once what was happening.

Konerko could see that the cavalry was on the way. The ref too. They didn't jump in because there was already 25 guys on the way.

Remember: that coach was blindsided. He was looking toward between home plate and the mound when he was hit from behind. If Konerko couldn't see what was about to happen when they were pretty obviously going after that coach, then it's a small wonder the White Sox went in the tank the way they did this season, if they've got their heads that far out of what happens on the field.

Even the bench didn't stop the two idiots. Those guys ran past the bench. If everything is so obvious and everyone should have know exactly what was happenening the second the guys made their move, the bench would have caught the guys before they even made it to the coach. It's a wierd situation, it takes a few seconds to figure out what's happening.

No, it isn't. Thank God. But surely athletes presumed to be heads up on the field and with fresh enough reflexes can figure out within moments that is is happening?

Konerko figured it out in the same amount of time the bench did, but the guys came from the royals bench, so they had the jump. Konerko could see the bench immediately was going to get there.

(For that matter, in all fairness - how far up his ass did the first base umpire have his head, since umpires are presumed to have some responsibility in dispersing the occasional fan who bounds onto the field? And the first base ump was at least as ignorant as Konerko in this instance.)

Neither one was ignorant. It was a strange situation, everyone figured it out at about the same time, the bench was closest to where the guys came from so they were on the way first. The reason the bench was on their way first is because they were able to watch the guys on their way up to the coach and had a couple more seconds to digest that something wasn't right.

You don't really think the Royals in their dugout were closer to where their coach was being attacked than the White Sox first baseman and the first base umpire (and maybe the White Sox second baseman, too), do you?

The guys came from the Royals bench area. The Royals could watch as the situation unfolded, Konerko and the ref didn't become aware of the situation until a couple seconds later.

It should only have taken a few seconds for at least Konerko and the first base ump at minimum, maybe the White Sox pitcher and/or second baseman, too, at least, to realise that Gamboa was being jumped blindside.

Yes it took the same amount of time as the player and ref as it did the Royals bench. But the bench had a couple second head start because the guy came from their area and they were able to watch them run up and they were able to digest the information a little longer.

You might be stunned a couple of seconds when the two idjits hop over the rail and hit the field running, but it shouldn't take you that long to figure out where they're running and what the likely target is - and they sure weren't looking for White Sox autographs if they're making a beeline to the Kansas City first base coach whom, by the way, they were insulting all night long (there were a number of people sitting in that area of the park who told various reporters they heard the abuse going on all night from that little pack).

Exactly. That is entirely my point. Since the Royals players were able to hear these guys, when they jumped the fence, the Royals players were on their way first because they were the most aware of the situation.

I've seen the videos of the incident on various sports reports. It wasn't that difficult to figure out where they were heading, even if you might have been a little shocked just catching them vaulting the rail at first.

Exactly. And the Royals players got to the guys first because the guys were closest to them and they had a couple more seconds to digest the situation.

At minimum, Konerko and the ump were in an even better position to stop the bastards or get them the hell off Gamboa before the Royals even needed to leave their dugout for him.

But the players were already on the way. Konerko and the ref could see that.

The Royals bench, I repeat, wasn't quite as close as the White Sox first baseman and the first base umpire were to what was happening.

That's not what I said. I said the Royals bench was 5 feet away from where the guys jumped the fence, not the coach. When the guys jumped the fence, the Royals players came out after them. Konerko and the ref could see that.

I mean, come on. Konerko is a pretty strong fellow, these two miscreants weren't exactly Mr. and Master America, and Gamboa is a 54-year-old man. And Konerko is said ordinarily to be pretty quick on his feet.

Quick or big doesn't matter, the Royals players were closest to where the guys came from and therefore had a couple more seconds to digest the situation and come after the guys. They were already on their way before Konerko and the ump knew what the situation was.

Well, in my home I'd hear the racket and would probably be in like a shot to get the invader the hell out of there before I'd even finished getting the beers out.

Now you're just being argumentive.

You might also expect other members of my family who aren't in the kitchen with me but who are in wherever you are when you got jumped to take the initiative (trust me - they would) against him because we are your hosts. I mean, if we'd done absolutely nothing on your behalf, in that situation, you would think far less of us - and who could blame you?

You're just trying to argue. The ones that are closest will be the first there.

I didn't say they were cowards in my article,...

Yes you did.

...and I would not equate inaction with cowardice,...

It is.

...necessarily. (I did hear three radio hosts Friday morning refer to the team as cowardly, not to mention one afternoon host refer likewise, though I don't recall any one singling out a particular player as such.

They are as stupid as you then. Which isn't surprising for shock jocks.

I did, however, hear Atlanta Braves outfielder Chipper Jones enunciate an opinion practically the same as mine on the matter - and he said point blank that he'd take after such thug fans in a heartbeat if they were coming onto the field to attack a player, even a player on the opposing team.

Yes, every player would. But that doesn't mean that Konerko had the same opportunity to digest the situation as the Royals players. The Royals players were closest to where the guys came from and therefore had the jump on the situation.

But I never heard Jones suggest the White Sox were being cowardly about the Gamboa incident, and rightly so.)

Of couse he didn't, he's not as stupid and big-mouthed and false-accusatory as others.

It is one thing for me to criticise inaction on the team's part and the part of at least their first baseman and maybe one or two other players who were closer to the scene of the crime than the Royals were. But inaction is provoked by all manner of stimuli, fear being only one among a rather broad number. Whatever I think was wrong with the White Sox's handling of the affair, I could not and would not say cowardice was the factor.

You might as well, you've accused them of everything else under the sun.

But think of it this way: It would have made for one hell of an image of sportsmanship to have seen even a few White Sox joining the Royals in pounding the living whey out of these two thugs, or helping to get them the hell of Gamboa.

Yes it would have, but that does not change the circumstances and the circumstances were that the guys came from the area of thge Royals players and therefore the Royals players were the first to digest the situation and were the first to be on the way.

God knows with the trouble they had this season otherwise, the White Sox would not have been wounded by that sort of image enhancement.

I don't know, I don't watch the Sox. I just don't like it when some armchair fingerpointer gets on a soapbox when he hasn't even considered the circumstances of the situation.

I even heard another program suggest the White Sox second baseman said words to the effect that he wouldn't have moved a muscle to help that coach.

Prove it, you are truly a false accusor.

Now, I don't think he actually did say such a thing, if only because I have been unable to verify it by way of the Chicago or the Kansas City press to which I have online access. If indeed he did say such a thing, he deserves nothing less than condemnation around the game. If he did not say such a thing, that radio program at minimum owes him a major apology.

You deserve condemnation for false accusuing.

But a thought occurs to me: Where, oh where, has our alleged commissioner been? I don't know about you, but I have heard not a peep out of Mr. Selig since this incident. Interesting, no?

What does he have to do with it? It's up the prosecutor to throw these guys in prison.

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