The Toast Man Of The WV Power

At Appalachian Power Park, home of the West Virginia Power, may dwell the most unique heckler I have ever seen.  He is your average heckler in many ways; he's loud, he makes fun of all of the opposing players, he knows all of their stats.  He also knows all of the hometown players' statistics and has signs that use puns, phrases and baseball related terms to get the crowd to rally behind each player.

He is simply known as the Toast Man.  He wears a shirt that says "You are toast!"  As I stated before, he holds up signs for every home town player, and the one above is in reference to Matt Curry, the best player on the West Virginia Power, hitting a whopping .370.  His most famous taunt, however, has to be his toast.  That's right, toast: as in, bread from a toaster.  This is the most unique spin on a taunt I have ever come across by a non-mascot heckler at any sports event.

Whenever an opposing team's batter strikes out, he stands up, shouts his shirt slogan, "You are toast!" and then proceeds to throw pieces of toast to people in the crowd.  These are not ordinary toast either; they all have the West Virginia Power logo burned into them.  Did I mention that his toaster is located next to his season seat, and that it is embedded into the wall?  That means the Power are totally okay with this heckler's gimmick, and supplied the toaster space.

As far as anyone I spoke with knew, he was just an overzealous season-ticket holder who started all of this himself and may or may not have asked for the toaster with the special logo heating rod inside it.  Either way, this is a really cool thing he does, and he definitely earned my respect as the most unique and creative heckler I have ever encountered.  The next time I go to a West Virginia Power game, I will be sure to try to sit in section 108 or 109, so I can be near the Toast Man of West Virginia.

Here is a video of what he does after a strikeout: 

Yep, I caught that last piece of toast, the one in the above photo.  The Power lost 11-6, but the game was a lot more fun because of the Toast Man and all of the other great things that go on during Power games.  And really, we're talking about a piece of toast making the world a little brighter, and somehow, it does.