While it is clear that the Kansas City Royals torque people off a lot more than we at first surmised -- I mean, when you see Jeremy Affeldt, don't you just want to ball up your fist and ...

But we digress. This isn't about the Royals' felony-inspiring pheromones, or even the high incidence of straight-up whack jobs at Comiskey Park.

	And let that be a lesson to you ...

No, we are going to solve the problem of ballpark violence, and in keeping with Baseball's Renaissance (copyright Allen G. Selig, proprietor) and the requirements of marketing, we have the answer.

A guest first base coach at the All-Star Game. And a guest umpire, too.

Me, I'm thinking the Klitschko brothers. But I'm open to other options. Shayne Corson, the currently out-of-work Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer. John Lynch, the heavy-hitting free safety of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Charles Oakley and Ron Artest. The possibilities are endless.

So is the potential for carnage, as far as that goes.

But unlike all the other talking heads who reared with outrage at Tuesday's attack of umpire Laz Diaz by a member of the pacifist studies department at Northwestern, I'm thinking more inclusively here.

We don't need to curtail the civil rights of another defendant. We just need to make it a more sporting proposition for everyone involved.

And what's more sporting than a marketing opportunity?

You may not have noticed, but the White Sox aren't drawing all that well these days. In other words, Jerry Reinsdorf is in no position to start turning away customers, even clinically stupid, pathologically drunken or preternaturally violent ones. In the church of baseball, all are welcome. Just bring money.

It is the central tenet of Baseball's Renaissance.

So it is here as well. Bring us your tired, your stressed, your publicity starved, your meth freaks yearning to be taken beneath the stands and worked over by a security guard. Let 'em all in. No questions asked.

And then you bring out the stars of the show, whether the star in question is Bill Romanowski or Laila Ali, Georges Laraque or Kyle Turley. You could even bring out great heroes of Chicago sport -- Dick Butkus and Bob Probert, Oakley and Doug Plank, Jeremy Roenick and Mike Singletary.

You line the stars up, point the potential felons in their direction and explain the rules of engagement.

"You want to drink your body weight in Fist In The Groin Private Reserve? Great. You want to brag to your friends that you can kick any ass in the stadium? Let a thousand flowers bloom. You want to hurdle the railing and take your best shot? You go, Girl.

"But those are the people you have to beat, OK? They'll be waiting for you. They're not going to be paying much attention to the game, frankly, because they know you're out there. And they want you to know that they know.

"Now there's no prize money here. We're not getting any sponsors, or putting it on TV. There will be no advertising benefit whatsoever, and we won't be involving the police until we actually have to arrest you. It's just you, your courage, your liver, and an athlete who can screw off your head, scoop out the contents and use your skull as a terrarium.

"The line forms to the right. We'll need you to sign some release forms. Oh, and can we auction off your effects at Fan Appreciation Day?"

This may seem a bit fundamentalist for some. It certainly isn't in keeping with baseball's more pastoral aspects.

It is, however, a very Chicago idea, as espoused years ago by its leading journalistic light, Mike Royko, who once said (and I paraphrase here) "Your right to annoy me ends at the end of his fist."

Chicago is not a town for negotiators, especially negotiators in a sports arena. It is likely finding considerable embarrassment as a result of a second attack in less than eight months.

But Chicago is also a resilient town, and a creative one. Chicago is most of all a hardball town, and hardball behavior receives a hardball response.

This is it. The proportionate answer to a potentially dangerous fad among an apparently growing segment of our population -- the ethically underburdened.

Anything less will make baseball seem excessively sissified. Anything more would neither be fair nor particularly exculpatory in a court of law.

And we know. We ran the Roger Clemens Beanball Dunking Booth idea by the people in Legal, and they were a little skittish.

But only a little. There is a growing sentiment that Junior Seau may want a new training regimen before training camp.

Ray Ratto is a columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle and a regular contributor to ESPN.com