Saturday it was funny.
In the early innings Sunday, it was even funnier.
But by late Sunday afternoon, Jon Zeringue was fed up.
Despite not seeing his picture blown up — which included a mustache of President Bush’s favorite person, Sadaam Hussein — and stapled to a stick, Zeringue was sick of the Georgia hecklers.
“It was cute,” center fielder J.C. Holt joked of the Zeringue picture.
While others thought it was a cute joke, it was not something Zeringue continued to enjoy.
He had enough of being called Lemon “Zeringue” Pie, “Zeringue”-a-tang, Saddam “Zeringue”, among other, more obscene comments. Holt said he heard them giving Zeringue the business about turning down a large payday with a major league team in the Summer of 2001.
So when Zeringue made a diving catch to possibly save a run and end an inning, he gently tossed the ball in the middle of hecklers, who also sported a megaphone. His toss resembled a defective Iraqi cruise missile.
“It [landed] right in the middle of them,” Zeringue said. “[The umpire] kinda gave me a warning. He’s like ‘You can’t be doing that . . . I hear what they’re telling you, I don’t blame you for doing it.’ ”
“It was fun, I’m not going to lie,” he said of the experience.
The same hecklers called his parents and said they were reporters for the New Orleans Times Picayune, Zeringue said.
His parents chose not to be interviewed for the phony story. However, the same hecklers did get juicy dirt on Tigers outfielder Ryan Patterson from Patterson’s parents and used it to their advantage.
“Patterson’s parents told them something about a childhood memory,” Holt said with a smile. “About when he cried because he didn’t make the T-ball team or something. It’s pretty funny.”
Just when Zeringue thought it was over, the hecklers had gotten a hold of his e-mail address and sent him an e-mail.
When I saw Zeringue’s likeness on a Jumbo Sports telecast among a bunch of hecklers with a megaphone (the hecklers look like they had a little bit too much magic grass), I about fell out of my chair.
Not only would I have to deal with the outstanding play-by-play and color analysis from the Jumbo Network (just a hint of sarcasm here), I would have to deal with Zeringue looking like the man of the hour in Iraq.
To Zeringue’s credit, he sported a big smile Wednesday when talking about an experience he has rarely encountered before. After all, you have to give credit to a heckler that researched that long and far.
Perhaps Zeringue got the last laugh in this whole twisted tale, though. He hit a bomb last night against UNO that was unofficially estimated at 450 feet.
“That was the farthest ball I’ve ever hit,” Zeringue said. “I’ve just started seeing the ball.”
Maybe next time Zeringue will be sure to hit one in the direction of his favorite friends — the Georgia hecklers.