The “Scratch and Sniff” animal shelter located in a small town in Iowa had been looking for a person to volunteer to care for the dogs and cats in their facility. Specifically, they wanted someone to volunteer to pick up after the dogs they walked.
A man in his forties entered the shelter to volunteer for the position. His name was Kurt Bass, who had been a minor league pitcher for a local town. The director of the animal center warmly thanked him for volunteering and asked if he could start that same day.
Meanwhile, seven police officers were chasing a violent criminal with more than a hundred robberies, murders and money laundering on his rap sheet. The man whose name was “Joe Manzini” was driving an old Ford Dart at speeds of up to 95 mph. This “Public Enemy Number 1” strayed into many unassuming places, but the police followed him. Finally, the man came out of a short road with many curves. But, Manzini decided to apply the brakes and jump to head into a forest to the left of him.
Back at the shelter, Kurt was on “poop patrol.” He was instructed that he wear latex gloves to pick things up and put them in the handy dumpsters around the area.
A boy saw the local star picking up the piles and recognized him. He asked his mother if he could meet her and she gave it to him. When she listed his “favorite player” he told her how big of a fan he was of his shooting skills. He asked him why he gave up baseball to pick up dogs, to which he replied, “I wanted to do something else with my arm.”
The boy then asked him why he couldn’t just yell things over the 12 foot fence at the back of the area. Kurt said, “Well, they didn’t tell me not to.” The boy asked if he could see him pitch again. Kurt thought about showing him when he saw a mound nearby. He told the boy, “Don’t tell anyone I did this.”
So, the former baseball player took his position and threw the stinky thing. He went flying over the fence. The boy was amazed by that; he had never seen dog poop fly.
As Joe fled the car into the woods, he saw a clearing that led to a tall fence. He thought he had tricked the police, so he was about to run to the fence, when a piece of dog poop hit him completely covering his face. He screamed and cursed as the foul-smelling substance hit him hard.
The police had seen her car with no one inside, except that the left door was open. As the cops crowded around the car, they heard someone cursing and yelling. They marched into the woods and saw Joe with excrement covering his face. The officers were shocked to see their public enemy number one yelling four-letter words that alluded to the mess on his face.
“What happened here?” the police captain asked the criminal. He told her things came out of nowhere and hit him in the face behind a 12-foot fence. An investigation was mounted into how the poop came flying over a fence. Of course, the one who threw the poop was the local minor league baseball pitcher, Kurt Bass. He now he was a local hero.
After a week, the reporters of the main national newspapers wrote about this event. Some of the titles included: “The Greatest Pitch Outside of Minor League History”, “Poo Throw Out of the Ballpark”, “It Stinks to be Public Enemy #1”. In an interview with Kurt on “Good Morning America” he was asked how he felt about his heroism. He replied, “It’s all in the wrist. Besides, in his case, it’s not how you throw but what you throw that counts.”
