No big deal. It happened at the old Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, which was as close to being a garbage dump as any ballpark should be. Seagulls regularly congregated on the field, to the extent it was a league wide joke.

During pre-game warm-ups Winfield tossed a ball at one a croaked it, removing one flying rat from circulation.

Some debate ensued as to whether he meant to whack the gull, and a flurry of calls went out from the PETA clones for jail time for the heinous crime.

Didn't seem to bother the birds. They kept coming back to the games.

Mr. May had a rough career with the Yanks. That incident was blown out of proportion. In Winfield's biography, he wasn't trying to kill the seagull. He just tossed the pill and with one bounce, SPLAT! It was just an accident. But again, Canadian rules are much different there than in America.

This was in the old Toronto stadium, a very wierd place to play and the seagulls used to be everywhere. Many outfielders would talk and joke about pegging one down, and wouldn't it be funny, etc. I don't know what led up to it but the seagull had to be 40-50 yards away and Winfield reared back and let one fly. And down went the seagull, in a heap. Unfortunately, there were several witnesses nearby, and when the inevitable laughter started, the press caught hold of the controversy and fanned it up into an international incident. The tree-huggers wanted to press charges. Ah, baseball.