Fan who got ball says it was No. 66
Posted: Sunday September 20, 1998 11:16 PM
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The fan who was ruled to have interfered with the ball, Michael Chapes, was arrested and assessed a fine of $518 for trespassing AP |
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Did Mark McGwire
hit No. 66? About the only one in County Stadium who didn't think so Sunday
was umpire Bob Davidson.
"After further review, it looked like it was a home run," McGwire said
after what could have been a real big day was tainted by controversy.
McGwire already had hit his 65th homer when Davidson's ruling took away
what would have been another in St. Louis' 11-6 win at Milwaukee.
The fan who ended with the ball on the dispute drive said there was no
doubt. Johnny Luna, 18, of New York, is part of a group of five that has
been shuttling between Chicago and Milwaukee since Thursday in hopes of
snagging a home-run ball from either Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.
He couldn't believe it when Davidson called fan interference, ruling a
fan reached over the railing and touched the ball on McGwire's fifth-inning
drive.
But Davidson stood by his call.
"The ball got out there in about a half-a-second," Davidson said. "I got
out there as fast as I could and I saw it.
"When I saw it, the fan was leaning over and the ball hit him below the
yellow line, so that's why I called it a ground-rule double."
Both Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty and manager Tony La Russa
said it took them only one viewing of the replay, an aid that was not
available to Davidson, a 16-year umpiring veteran, to be certain.
"Once, that's all you need," La Russa said.
Several others in the Cardinals clubhouse said the same thing.
"Obviously, after seeing the replay you can come to a better
conclusion," second baseman Delino
DeShields said. "Right then and there it looked kind of weird, but we
all thought the ball got out and came to find it did."
Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon was livid.
"It was a stupid call," Shannon said. "If you're going to make a call
like that, don't you think you'd want to be 1,000th percent sure? You're
talking about history here."
Allen Riesbeck, 45, of Dubuque, Iowa, who is disabled, was sitting in a
motorized cart waiting for the ball behind the second of two rails spaced
about four feet apart in the bleachers. Using his T-shirt as a makeshift
glove, he said he leaned over the rail nearest him and attempted to cradle
the ball, but lost control of it after some jostling.
Riesbeck said it should have been a home run because he didn't lean over
the rail with the yellow line. So did Luna, who was there to grab the ball
after it was knocked loose.
"It's disappointing," Luna said. "I thought it was a home-run ball."
Another fan in the left-field bleachers agreed with Luna.
"It was over by a good foot," said Dave Ernst, 30, of Dousman, Wis. "The
guy made it look bad. It rolled up his arm and he missed it."
Gerald Digilio, a 40-year-old bridge painter, drove his two sons, Luna
and another friend from New York and the four were strategically deployed
in the bleachers when Luna came up with the quasi-prize. He was hoping to
sell the ball and split the proceeds between the four.
"We didn't come down here to give anything to McGwire," Digilio said.
"He never came to Astoria to give us anything. We came to catch the ball
and sell it for the highest price."
The group hasn't seen much of the action, concentrating on being in
position in the left-field stands for McGwire's and Sosa's at-bats.
"I haven't watched an inning of baseball since we've been here," Digilio
said. "Until they're up, we're doing everything else."
Digilio cut short interviews when he heard McGwire was about to come to
the plate in the seventh.
"Is Mark McGwire up again?" Digilio said. "Then we've got work to do."
The fan who was ruled to have interfered with the ball, Michael Chapes
of Waterford, Wisconsin, was arrested by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's
department and assessed a civil fine of $518 for trespassing. He said he
gloved the ball and then it was snatched away.
Chapes, who's 5-foot-7, said he's not tall enough to reach over both
rails.
"Maybe Mark McGwire can sign my citation," said Chapes, a high school
physical education teacher.
The source of controversy is a yellow pipe that was installed about 18
inches above the outfield wall padding after the 1982 World Series, when a
fan reached down and snatched a ball from Ben Oglivie's grasp.
The unusual configuration has been the source of several disputes since,
mostly because there's a chain-link fence between the padding and the
yellow rail, making it difficult for umpires to tell for certain whether a
ball clears the rail, hits right in front of it and bounces over or even if
a fan reaches over.
The controversy developed shortly after a news conference for the man
who caught No. 65 in the first inning. Charles Dombrowski, 21, of Wisconsin
Rapids, came up with the ball.
Dombrowski, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, said he
wanted to give the ball to McGwire. First, he called his parents for
advice.
"They told me I could do whatever I wanted, but they thought it would be
the right thing to do," Dombrowski said.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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