"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

- Simon, Bible: New Testament, Luke 5:8.

Simple Simon met a sausage
During the baseball game:
Said Simple Simon to the sausage:
"Let me take my aim."
Said the sausage to Simple Simon:
"Go take a walk, you ninny!"
Said Simple Simon to the sausage:
"Indeed I have not many!"

VS.

Randall Simon, the man who was once termed a "fat monkey" by intolerant ex-teammate John Rocker, hit a 20-year-old woman who portrays the Italian Sausage in Milwaukee's Miller Park sausage races with his bat from the visitors' dugout. Judging from Simon's dimensions, one would expect him to be rather friendly with the Italian Sausage.

The force caused the woman to fall and took out the Hot Dog as well. Simon was booked for misdemeanor battery and later released. The incident was captured on video, because what's the sense of having a stupid promotion if you can't blow it up on a jumbo screen for all to see. I haven't seen the video so I'm sure if that was the desired comical effect on Simon's part or if he was unaware that he was captured on Candid Camera.

The taciturn Bernie Brewer was unavailable for comment, but made the following obscene gesture...

Simon's teammate Reggie Sanders had this to say:

Pirates outfielder Reggie Sanders said he thought the weight of the head on the sausage costume contributed to the fall.

"It maybe made it look worse than it was,'' Sanders said. "It was an unfortunate situation and, hopefully, it gets resolved.''

"It was very strange,'' he said.

Thanks Reggie: we were unclear on the degree of strangeness of the incident. The game was so strange it earned Brooks "Double Duty" Kieschnick his first victory in the 12th. By the way, Kieschnick has four homers and a .977 OPS in 44 at-bats as well. Also, in the strange department, the two teams wore 1978 uniforms, though there were no reports of any Larry Hisle-type afro wigs being adorned.

Anyway, back to Simon: Look, I had money riding on the Bratwurst too, but I would never sully the spirit of the sausage race by Tonya Harding-ing the competition. The Sausage Commissioner should look into his gambling history and bar him from the sport for life-from the sport of Sausage Racing, not baseball.

The Pirates play one more at Milwaukee today. There's no word as yet if Brewers' starter Matt Ford will retaliate for the incident Pedro-like by taking out the entire Pirates lineup. However, Simon is fortunate that he did not attack a sausage at Fenway when he played in the AL. He would have been shot on sight for such sacrilege there.

[By the way, ESPN has is running the following poll:

Of course! As a fellow Italian-American, I would choose the Italian Sausage to "have" my back. "Excuse me while I speak Italian to my friend the Sausage here."]