When Ken Caminiti confronted a heckler

“I don’t come to your job, screaming at you about what you do wrong. So why did you come here and do that to me?”

Ken Caminiti could be intimidating.

With the Padres advancing the NLCS for the first time in 24 years, I’m taking a look back at the 1998 team. The following text is adapted from my book Playing Through the Pain: Ken Caminiti and the Steroids Confession That Changed Baseball Forever.

Normally, Ken Caminiti could block out the distractions.

But after he faced innings of derision from a heckler at a spring training game at Peoria Stadium in 1998, he couldn’t let the fan’s insults go.

This was personal. It tapped into something deep.

After Ken was pulled from the game, he showered and changed and sat down in the stands right next to the heckler.

He didn’t say a word. For three.

Long.

Minutes.

After what felt like an eternity of silence, he turned to the now-quiet heckler.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Yeahhh, I know who you are,” the man told Ken.

“I don’t come to your job, screaming at you about what you do wrong. So why did you come here and do that to me?”

Ken recounted the story soon after it happened to his friend James Hayashi, who was at the stadium that day.

“That guy was scared shitless,” Ken told him.

Hayashi noticed Kevin Brown standing near Ken, keeping a close watch, and wanted to know why. Because Kevin Brown thought I was going to kill the guy.

This time, the ace was backing up the Gold Glove third baseman, instead of the other way around. As Ken stood, his mission of making the heckler feel two inches tall complete, nearby fans erupted in applause.

Recounting the story, Ken was “I think more proud of himself at how much he scared the crap out of the guy by not saying anything,” Hayashi said.