For This Baseball Fan, a Day at Stadium Is Shear Delight

Charlie Ciotta has cut a deal to perform in his own field of dreams.

Ciotta spends his working hours cutting hair and much of his free time watching baseball. Now, in an unusual arrangement with the Buffalo Bisons, Ciotta is able to do both at the same time.

Ciotta has set up his chair in baseball bleachers. He charges $2.50 for a haircut in the right-field stands at Pilot Field, home of the minor league Bisons.

Add barber: Ciotta’s hair-clipping service is one of the perks the Bisons began offering this season to lure business people to the ballpark for weekday afternoon games.

Pilot Field is within walking distance of Buffalo’s downtown banking and office district. So the team is doing whatever it can to make the ballpark more like the workplace. Besides the haircuts, it offers free use of cellular phones and fax machines, and you can get a shoeshine for $2.50. Fans can even arrange to have cellular phones brought to their seats.

“We don’t want anyone not coming to a game because they say, ‘Oh, I have work to do at the office,’ ” says Mike Buczkowski, Bison assistant general manager. “They can get it all done at the ballpark.”

Last add barber: Ciotta said he sometimes thinks the crowd is cheering for him as he clips hair.

Which doesn’t say much about the state of Bison baseball.

Ciotta says his single-game record is 30 haircuts. Ciotta also sang the national anthem before a recent game.

He still has one dream unfulfilled. Ciotta hopes that some day a customer will catch a home run ball--while having his hair cut.

One-sided performance: Responding to a dare by a teammate, Baltimore Oriole pitcher Ben McDonald is taking the mound these days with one sideburn. The other has been shaved off.

Facing the Detroit Tigers on Thursday, McDonald lasted only 4 2/3 innings, giving up three runs and six hits.

Sounds as if McDonald ought to pay a visit to the right-field stands in Pilot Field.

Trivia time: Who played third base in the Chicago Cubs’ famous Tinker-to-Evers-to Chance infield in the early 1900s?

No kid-glove treatment: Texas Ranger left fielder John Cangelosi reacted angrily when a young boy reached over the railing with his glove and touched a ball that Cangelosi was trying to field in foul territory.

When the boy lost the glove on the field, Cangelosi flung it into the stands, hitting the fan. The Seattle Mariners’ Omar Vizquel was credited with a double on the play.

“I didn’t throw the glove at the kid. I threw it on the stairs,” Cangelosi said. “It was just the heat of the moment and the tempo of the game. I was busting my butt to get the ball. Parents should know better. They should tell their kids to leave the ball alone.

“What the TV isn’t going to show is that I made it up to the kid. I gave him some batting gloves and shook his hand and apologized. It made me feel better. I should not have shown my anger.”

Trivia answer: Harry Steinfeldt.

Quotebook: Heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield, when asked if he can remember the last time he got angry, “Yeah, when I was married.”