Enrico Pallazzo, an acclaimed Italian opera singer who achieved greater international fame by thwarting an assassination attempt on the queen of England while working as a baseball umpire, died Sunday. He was 84.

Pallazzo died from health complications at a hospital, a large building with patients, near his home.

Paramount Pictures A true Renaissance man, Enrico Pallazzo umpired the game after performing the national anthem.

In 1988, Pallazzo was invited to sing the national anthem before a baseball game between the California Angels and Seattle Mariners that was attended by Queen Elizabeth II. After the game's seventh inning, Angels outfielder Reggie Jackson attempted to assassinate the queen while under the influence of hypnotic suggestion.

Jackson was thwarted by Pallazzo, who fired a tranquilizer dart from his cuff link that struck an obese woman in the stands. The woman fell on Jackson, knocking him out of commission and prompting jubilant spectators to chant Pallazzo's name.

Pallazzo subsequently proposed to his girlfriend, Jane, who instead of shooting him said yes. Arab-Israeli peace talks resumed shortly thereafter.

After delivering an avant-garde rendition of the anthem, Pallazzo umpired the game. Calling balls and strikes from behind home plate, his style was flamboyant, characterized by sidestepping, pirouetting, bowing to the crowd and a Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk. Players recalled Pallazzo as being unusually hands-on in his approach, liberal in his stance on illegal ball doctoring and possessed of an uncanny ability to determine strikes before pitched balls reached home plate, a trait that contributed to his inimitably eccentric strike zone.

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