I could taste victory and all its spoils. The game ball. The pats on the back. The customary slice of postgame pizza and plastic cup of orange Hi-C. Hell, I could march right up to that concession stand, the one in the cinderblock building across the parking lot, and demand a second cup. I was about to earn it.

(And, besides, my mom was probably behind the counter.)

This was 1980-something -- the details from so long ago, as most people my age know, are getting soft around the edges -- and I was about to have my One Shining Moment of athletic glory. I was about to make Little League history, in my own mind, rounding third base with nothing between me, home plate and destiny.

To be clear: This was not just any ordinary home run. I was the first baseman for Bill Tone’s Deli, and while we weren’t exactly lighting the ballfields of Nutley on fire that year, we were seconds away from taking down mighty Gantner’s Hardware.

I was about to deliver that triumph. Me!

Oh, how sweet it would be. I hated Gantner’s Hardware. They were undefeated, trash-talking, tobacco-spitting -- again, I said the details are soft -- little jerks. They were just like the ’78 Yankees, only meaner. And they wore purple.

Anyway, this was the last game of that season, and Gantner’s was about to claim all the trophies in an era before every kid got one, and do so without a single blemish on its record. Until, that is, I stepped to the plate with two outs and two runners on base in the final inning.

I drilled a towering, uh, ground ball into right field -- which, of course, meant there was no way I’d get thrown out before the right fielder had finished picking dandelions and stopped it from rolling. I ran so hard my pants started to fall down.

One runner scored! Two runners scored! I was the tying run now, but instead of getting carried off the field as I crossed the plate, I was hit with one awful word that echoed across the diamond and pierced my pre-pubescent brain.

"OUT!"

Wait. Out? Did the umpire say … out?

Like, as in not safe?

The victory, the back slaps, the second cup of orange Hi-C, it was all vanishing. Why? How? Before I could process the reason that my moment of glory had so suddenly evaporated, I turned to that ump and did something that would be burned in my memory for the three and a half decades that followed.

I flipped him the double bird.

# # #

I’m not sure what, exactly, possessed me to search for the umpire at the wrong end of the dreaded double-bird-flipping incident of 1980-something. Maybe it was my father, dropping off an old photo album that had the Bill Tone’s Deli team photo. I was in the back row, fourth from the left, with a helmet of curly hair.

Yes, I know. It's been a while.

Or maybe it’s that I’m now a parent sitting in a fold-up chair at soccer games, hoping that my kids score a goal -- c’mon, who doesn’t? -- but also that they help the opposing players to their feet when they knock each other over.

But mostly, it was watching Elizabeth’s Elmora Troopers in the Little League World Series this month, and seeing the grace under pressure of these kids as the ESPN cameras rolled. We take that poise for granted, and night after night, they handled loss and adversity far better than many “role models” with eight-digit salaries do.

So I set out to find that ump. But how? It seemed utterly ridiculous. This is a long-forgotten game from a league that merged with a rival years ago. I was a mediocre (ahem) player who tossed his beat-up glove into a basement crate for good just a few weeks later. Who else could possibly …

"I totally remember that!!" an old friend, Michael Burke, who was also on Bill Tone's Deli told me in an email.

Uh oh.

A few others did, too. Still: The search took days. Finally, a player on that Gantner’s team saw a Facebook plea for help. Her father was a coach that year. She asked him about the play and, in a stunner, he said remembered that game, too.

"The ump was named Timmy!" she told me.

But Timmy who?

Finally, a few days later, she came up with a last name: Costa. I did a quick online search. Nothing. I leaned on all our available databases and resources. Nothing. I contemplated how that conversation would go with our crack research staff -- uh, yeah, I’m looking for this ump I flipped off in the ’80s? -- and decided they had more important journalism to do.

I was on my own, about to give up when I made one more plea on social media. Turns out, it wasn't Tim Costa that I was trying to find. It was Tim Koster. He had a listed phone number and an address, remarkably, on the same street where I grew up.

I started to dial the number, then put down the phone. I had to figure out how, exactly, to explain what happened on that field all those years ago. Because, given how crazy it sounded as I rehearsed it in my head, I'd have hung up on myself.

# # #

See, what set off the DDBFI (dreaded double-bird-flipping incident) had nothing to do with the umpire. It started with a managerial decision. With two runners on and two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning, Gantner's Hardware decided to intentionally walk me.

This really happened in a Little League game. I am now torn between being A) the outraged father who can't believe a youth coach cared that much about winning; B) the skeptical sportswriter who must question this decision based on current sabermetric evidence; and C) the middle-aged man who just wants to point out that, in 1980-something, you didn't dare pitch to Politi with the game on the line.

Back then, though, I was a desperate kid seeing my shot at glory disappearing. I wasn't going to take that base and leave it to somebody else. In this one moment, I wasn't only a poor sport, but a bad teammate.

I let the first pitch sail outside, then the second one, and then I just stepped over the plate and smacked the third pitch into right field. The 12-year-old me had not studied the baseball rulebook, because if I had, I would have known that this was clearly a no-no under Rule 6.06(a):

A batter is out for illegal action when— (a) He hits a ball with one or both feet on the ground entirely outside the batter’s box. Comment: If a batter hits a ball fair or foul while out of the batter’s box, he shall be called out. Umpires should pay particular attention to the position of the batter’s feet if he attempts to hit the ball while he is being intentionally passed . A batter cannot jump or step out of the batter’s box and hit the ball.

Who knew?

The umpire tried to explain this to me when I arrived at home plate and met my cruel fate. It didn’t matter. The Gantner’s manager tried to offer words of encouragement, that next time he walked me, “we’ll have to throw the ball in the dirt!” That didn’t help, either. Next time? Is this going to be a THING, Gantner’s?!

The disappointment boiled over into rage. I can still see the back of the ump walking away as the middle digit on both of my hands rose and pointed in his direction. I’m sure there were gasps. I don’t remember that. I do remember the voice of my best friend’s mom breaking the silence.

"Steven! Noooooooooo!"

I decided that I couldn’t possibly explain all this when I called Tim Koster. I finally just dialed his number, and when we connected, explained who I was and that I was calling to apologize for something that happened on a baseball field three and a half decades ago. I crossed my fingers and hoped we would share a good laugh.

"I know who you are," Koster interrupted.

Again: Uh oh.

# # #

I already had done the math: Koster was older than me, but only by a few years. He would have been a teenager when he arrived at the field that day.

This is always the most outrageous part about parents who complain about officiating at recreational league games. The umpires or referees watching over your kids are, themselves, often just kids.

I envisioned, briefly, a scenario where the DDBFI had soured Koster on umpiring forever. That he found another job with less stress and less abuse. That, in this awful alternate universe, he was telling this story at his own kids’ games.

"You think that's bad? Let me tell you about this curly haired kid in 1980-something …"

But, thankfully, that never happened. Koster immediately let me off the hook. He said he knew me because I wrote a story about a summer-league team he was coaching a lifetime ago. He had no recollection of the game, the play at the plate, or -- insert the huge sigh of relief here -- the double bird.

"You don't have to apologize to me," he said. "I umpired for 25 years, doing high school softball and baseball. I'm retired from it now, thank God. I enjoyed working with the kids, but you don't enjoy people yelling and screaming at you."

Koster figures he was making $10-$15 a game back then. He was doing as many as three games a day, a workload he continued over the years that followed to supplement his income -- and help his growing family.

He works for the Nutley school system now, but his five kids are his passion. A son and a daughter wrestle, while another son plays lacrosse. It sounds like the biggest challenge in his life is getting from one game to another, which, when you’re a proud dad, is not such a terrible problem to have.

“I realized what I learned from being an umpire is this: You want your kids to be happy with what they’re doing, and you want to encourage them no matter what happens,” he said.

It might sound like common sense, but a lifetime of watching how parents behave at games left a mark. Koster has an easier time excusing a 12-year-old knucklehead like me. But the 40-year-old softball dad yelling at his daughter for dropping a ball, well, that’s something else entirely.

We talked for 30 minutes, about baseball, about his kids, about our hometown. I can finally put the DDBFI of 1980-something in the rearview mirror. But let it serve as a cautionary tale to kids and adults everywhere. If you treat an umpire disrespectfully now, it’s not only a bad look in the short term. It might bother you for years.

Also: If you’re going to smash a game-winning home run, try not to step over the damn plate in the process, okay?

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.