[sebastian0622]

It also contains one of the funniest baseball anecdotes you'll ever hear.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/app...510210385/1003

While visiting St. Louis last month, Don Denkinger received two things he never saw coming. The first was a new watch. The second was a standing ovation.

He was speaking at a 20th anniversary dinner for the Cardinals' 1985 World Series team, a benefit for the Whitey Herzog Youth Foundation. Bob Costas was the emcee, Denkinger the guest of honor. The longtime Major League Baseball umpire and Waterloo resident says nobody told him he had to address the crowd — some 600 guests — until he showed up. So he winged it.

He thanked Herzog and Costas and the foundation for inviting him. He dusted off some old jokes, his favorite anecdotes from 31 years of service to baseball. He recounted a time he was behind home plate while Jack Clark, then with the New York Yankees, was batting.

At one point, Clark turned and asked, "Where was that pitch at?"

"Jack," Denkinger teased, "don't you know you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition?"

Clark asked for a timeout and stepped out of the box.

"OK," the first baseman replied, "where was that pitch at, (expletive)?"

"That knocked them out," Denkinger, 69, says with a soft chuckle. "I left 'em falling out of their chairs. It was wonderful. It was . . ."

Cathartic?

A pause.

"No," he finally sighs. "Not really. It was really only my second trip to St. Louis. It's not that I don't want to go to St. Louis; I just don't have a reason to go to St. Louis. It's a great place, a great town. Great people. The Cardinals just have this big following."

A following with whom, 20 years down the road, Denkinger is slowly, finally, making peace.

On Oct. 26, 1985, at Royals Stadium, the St. Louis Cardinals led Game 6 of the World Series, 1-0, in the bottom of the ninth. Denkinger was working along the first-base line. Kansas City's Jorge Orta slapped a grounder between first and second. Clark, then playing first base for the Cardinals, fielded it but was slow getting it out of the glove. Pitcher Todd Worrell ran to cover the bag.

The throw was a little wide and a tad high. Denkinger had set himself in a bad position — he overran the play — and wasn't sure that Worrell's foot was touching first base.

He called Orta safe. Replays showed that not only was Worrell's foot on the bag, but the throw beat Orta by a full step.

The Cardinals pretty much imploded from there. Kansas City won in improbable fashion, 2-1; The next night, the Royals crushed St. Louis, 11-0, to take the championship, and furious Cardinals fans made Denkinger the scapegoat.

A St. Louis disc jockey gave his home number and address over the air. Callers threatened to come to Waterloo and burn down the house. Letters threatened far worse.

When Denkinger arrived home after the Series, he found police cars stationed on both ends of his street.

"I think some of the (threats) were from people involved in the gambling side," Denkinger says now. "Somebody thinks they've got a sure thing and the money's in and then it backfires, they've got to have somebody to blame it on.

"I didn't tell him to spend his money foolishly. I didn't tell him to spend his money on the Cardinals."

Time heals. The passion and pain give way to perspective. It wasn't Denkinger's fault that Vince Coleman was hurt. Or that Clark couldn't handle Steve Balboni's popup. Or that Cardinals catcher Darrell Porter got his signs crossed.

Still, Denkinger screwed up, no question. He admits it. He's never run from it. Ever.

When he agreed to sign autographs at a card show in St. Louis last October — his first appearance in the city since the '85 Series — he told himself: No matter what they ask for, no matter what they request, I will do it with a smile.

And he did. Even when a man dressed in Cardinal red walked up to Denkinger's table and asked if he would write:

To Dave,

I blew it.

- Don Denkinger

"I didn't back off one step," Denkinger says. "I was getting paid to do this. Whatever made them feel good. I know I missed that play. Life goes on."

Denkinger, who retired in 1998, still splits his time between Waterloo and his winter home in Arizona. He still golfs like crazy, even though drives come a little shorter off the tee. He hasn't changed. We have. ESPN Classic recently featured Denkinger as the subject of its "The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame . . ." series, in which long-standing fan assertions or myths are refuted. A feature on his place in baseball lore is scheduled to run tonight on HBO Sports' "Costas Now."

"My wife asks me, 'When is it going to stop?' " Denkinger says. "I said, 'I guess when I stop picking up the phone and talking to people about it.' They just keep throwing it up to you. It's something you just can't forget."

You ask Denkinger why he hung on to all those angry letters over the years. He says he thought, at one time, about writing a book. Now he's not so sure.

Some wounds are better left closed.

"There's really no animosity here toward him anymore," assures Al Hrabosky, the Cardinals' former pitcher, television analyst and St. Louis sports icon. "Don's probably harder on himself than most of the fans."

But not all. An instant after the Herzog Foundation presented him with that gift watch, Denkinger flipped open the box. That's when he noticed something different about the face. The numbers were inscribed in Braille.