I'm a bit tired of the pine-tar saga involving Joel Peralta, Davey Johnson and Joe Maddon by now, but this is actually pretty cool. A fan named Robin Ficker -- who is apparently well-known in the DC area for his professional sports heckling prowess -- was giving Maddon the business during the Nationals-Rays series finale Thursday night.

"Check for pine tar," and "See, Maddon, it can be done without pine tar," were some of the insults, via DC Sports Bog.

He's well-known for that? That's the least creative smack I've ever seen. Anyway, I digress. Maddon's response to the "heckling" was pretty cool. He wrote "stick up for those you care about" on a baseball, rubbed some pine tar on the ball and flipped it to Ficker.

Here's the photographic evidence, with a hat-tip to DC Sports Bog:

Generally speaking, the best route with heckler is to ignore him, but if one feels he must reply, a measured response like Maddon's is a nice touch.

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