The talk on Fernando Tatis Jr. Today is about his hitting two homers on the 22nd anniversary of his father’s two grand slams in one inning. Rightly so. But reminds me of one of my favorite, utterly obscure live-baseball moments, which involved Tatis Sr. https://twitter.com/Cut4/status/1385796428648390656

It was May 2007, I was in Vegas for work, speaking at some conference, a typical whistle stop at the time. With an open night, I decided to catch a ballgame: the triple-A Las Vegas 51s were home...

Asked at the hotel how long it would take to taxi to the park. This was not a common question fielded by the concierge at Caesar’s; he had no idea. But I had a policy of making a game in whatever town I was in when possible, so just hopped a cab to old downtown Vegas...

The 51s (yes, named for Area 51, the supposed UFO-sighting location) were hosting the New Orleans Zephyrs, then the Mets triple-A team and, yes, absurdly, a member of the Pacific Coast League...

That year Tatis Sr was trying to fight his way back to the major leagues with the Mets. He’d been a pretty heavily touted third-base prospect in the ‘90s, had a huge year with St. Louis (34 HR, 107 RBI) in 1999 (the year McGwire hit 65 HR in peak juiced-ball season)...

He never came close after that and left the game for a bit, but was enough of a talent to get several more shots.

I got to the game on May 15, 2008, maybe a half-hour before first pitch. Seven bucks for a third-row seat, almost no one there. A few-dozen people at the time. Locals realized it would still be a sweltering 95 degrees at game time. I hadn’t thought that through...

I figured I’d stay a few innings and get back to somewhere dark and air-conditioned on the Strip before too long.

A guy sitting behind me seemed to have come strictly to heckle Tatis and a couple other New Orleans players...

Tatis is due up in the first inning. The sun is beating down, the desert ballpark almost completely quiet. Except for this guy, who’s ragging Tatis relentlessly as he stands in the on-deck circle...

As Tatis steps to the plate, the heckler waits until the pitcher starts his motion, then yells at maximum volume, “Hey Tatis, DIDN’T YOU USED TO BE GOOD?!”

As the guy hits the D in GOOD, Tatis connects, crack of the bat is like a gun shot, the ball flies, no joke, maybe 475 feet over the left field wall, And then it probably rolled a half-mile through the desert....

That shut the heckler up and I was glad to hang around for most of the game.

Tatis played that entire year in triple-A, then had a good 2008 for the Mets and stayed on through ‘09, retired in 2010 when Tatis Jr was 11 years old...

Looking forward to being on the road again and catching meaningless games that sometimes give you something meaningful to remember.