Earl Weaver

Come on, I tell him.

"No," Weaver says, "but in the heat of battle, when you think something is taken away from you, I had to go out there and holler at them. I knew it wasn't going to do much. That one with Haller was embarrassing. We both acted like five-year-olds. 'My dad can beat up your dad' kind of thing. It's terrible."

The Haller argument, which happened the year after Baltimore blew a three-games-to-one lead to Pittsburgh in the '79 World Series, lives on in YouTube posterity because Haller was wired for sound for a local newsmagazine show. Haller is the same umpire who said of Weaver in 2007, "When the bastard dies, they'll have to hire pallbearers."

Another umpire, Ron Luciano, once said he didn't care who won the AL East, so long as it wasn't Weaver and the Orioles. The league kept Luciano off Baltimore games for a year because of that comment. When the ban expired, Luciano threw Weaver out the first chance he got, ejecting him before Weaver even cleared the top step of the dugout to argue a strike call. Weaver protested the game and had the grounds for his protest announced over the stadium loudspeakers: "Umpire integrity."

Suddenly Weaver yells out in the direction of the Fort Lauderdale field, as if he were back in the dugout. "Oh, he's off the bag!" Weaver says as second baseman Skip Schumaker of the Cardinals turns a double play against the Orioles without coming close to the base when he catches the ball. "Talk about cheating! See, I would have been out arguing on that play."

The subject of cheating brings the conversation to another subject. The Steroid Era, I ask him, does it embarrass you?

"Oh, I don't know." The man who would do just about anything to win a ball game pauses for a moment, letting honesty bubble to the surface. "Not really," he says quietly. "You're always looking for an edge. And guys, that's their living. And if a growth hormone helps you be better physically and able to do more things physically ... but it just shatters the records."

Weaver: [To little-used reliever Dave Leonhard before Game 6 of the 1971 World Series] How do you feel, Leonhard?

Leonhard: I feel good. But you never ask me [to pitch].

Weaver: I want you to be ready. Be ready to warm up around the eighth inning.