Tarmac Blues -- Kidnap Airline CEO

I just read that the U. S. Transporation Department adopted a new two-hour rule for domestic flights delayed at the gate or on the tarmac with captive passengers and nowhere to go.

When the delay reaches two hours passengers must be offered food, water and restroom facilities, the same amenties available to inmates in most federal penitentiaries.

If three hours pass and the plane still hasn't taken off, passengers must be allowed to leave the plane.

Last summer 47 passengers were held prisoner overnight on a Continental Express plane sitting on the tarmac in Rochester, Minn. That must be the real reason passengers are not permitted to carry guns on planes -- so they cannot shoot their way to freedom. The flight crew of the Memphis Belle got more personal attention than commercial airline passengers.

I've got a different rule. If you're stuck on a plane that doesn't leave for two hours, they must get you off the plane, set up an open bar and a buffet at the gate, refund your money and fly you free on the next plane anywhere you want to go. Furthermore, at the two-hour mark U. S. Marshals should be alerted to arrest the airline CEO and members of his immediate family and lock them in an unheated, uncooled and unventilated outhouse for the duration of the delay.

Back in 1979 when I was traveling with the Indians, we had a delay on the ground after landing at O'Hare Airport in Chicago. There was no gate for us. We had to sit in the plane on a distant runway and wait for a gate to become available.

It was a hot Sunday. We had lost that afternoon in Minnesota. The Indians rarely chartered their own planes in that era. Our regularly scheduled flight out of Minneapolis was delayed. I don't know why. Passengers are never told anything. We were lucky. We weren't on the plane yet. We killed time in the airport bar. When we eventually took off, there was more drinking on a very crowded plane.

We landed in Chicago and began our long wait. To save the batteries, the pilot turned off the air conditioning. Maybe we sat out there for an hour. At one point a commotion began. Our relief pitcher Victor Cruz and backup catcher/left fielder/third baseman Ron Pruitt were fist fighting in the aisle. They tumbled up and down the aisle, bouncing off seats. There were several horrified nuns and a couple of priests -- all in full uniform -- on the flight. They were changing planes in Chicago for a flight to Rome. I'm sure they had an exciting story to relate when they got to the Vatican.

It was impossible for their teammates to pull Pruitt and Cruz apart because there was no room to move in the narrow aisle. Finally they punched themselves out and shortly afterward the plane began to move. It slowly traxied to a gate where we were able to disembark. At the bottom of the steps I asked Pruitt what was going on.

"Oh, this was nothing. We do that in the bullpen all the time," he said.

I asked Cruz for his version. He game me a big smile and rattled off some nonsense in Spanish. I have no idea what he said.

I'll guess that the pilot radioed the control tower and said something like, "Get me a gate right now because a riot has broken out on my plane."

Pruitt and Cruz were ahead of their time. They figured out how to unsnarl a traffic jam on the ground. It's easy. Lead with your chin.