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Almost everywhere he goes, former New York Mets manager Terry Collins is reminded of a moment that brings him some measure of shame. A night when he lost his cool — screaming at Tom Hallion following the ejection of his starting pitcher, who sought retribution for a wrong that was committed months prior. A night when an umpire’s ass was in the jackpot.

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“That f–ker’s haunted me for five years,” Collins said recently, reflecting on an incident that became a viral sensation and has taken on a life of its own.

It was five years ago that the unfiltered audio of Collins’ 2016 argument with Hallion was leaked to the world. The dispute had roots in the 2015 NLDS, when the Dodgers’ Chase Utley broke the leg of Mets shortstop Rubén Tejada on a hard slide into second base. That’s why Noah Syndergaard threw at Utley in a game the following season, tossing a heater behind him to send a message and protect his teammate. Syndergaard’s immediate ejection triggered the fireworks.

During heated arguments, all fans see is head bobbing and flying spittle. The dialogue is often muted, just as it was Friday night during Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. Dusty Baker, the typically mild-mannered Houston Astros manager, lost his mind when reliever Bryan Abreu was ejected for plunking Adolis Garcia, who earlier in the game had heartily celebrated a home run. The benches cleared and Baker was also ejected.

We may never know precisely what the manager said as he argued that Abreu’s pitch was not intentional. But thanks to Collins, we have a much better idea of how he felt.

The clip of Collins’ foul-mouthed, unvarnished argument with Hallion gave baseball fans a window into the dynamics of how umpires and managers interact. It provided insight on how teams attempt to correct violations of the sport’s unwritten rules. And it showed a level of humanity and personality — all while inspiring Hallion’s unforgettable turn of phrase: “Our ass is in the jackpot.”

“I was just trying to let Terry vent his frustration,” Hallion said recently. “And I’ve got enough respect for Terry to do and say whatever he wanted to say. But I also wanted him to know that we’re doing our job. And in that situation, we have to throw Syndergaard out or our ass is in the jackpot.”

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“We were trying to retaliate,” Collins said, recalling his belief that the Mets should have been granted leeway to settle a score. “And years ago, nothing would have been made of it. But today, it’s an issue.”

The manager’s ejection was relatively mundane by baseball standards until the leaked audio made it infamous two years later. MLB had a deal with Fox where any unused material from the mic’d up umpires would be deleted after the game, Hallion said. Clearly, someone had saved this audio for themselves and eventually shared it. The source of the leak has never been revealed.

Hallion had just finished working home plate in Seattle and was asking the rest of his crew where they should go to dinner. That’s when fellow umps Adam Hamari and Dan Bellino told him he needed to check his phone. The video became a thing, with millions watching it.

“I play it and I’m thinking, ‘Holy s—, where did this come from?’” Hallion said.

The incident resonated for many reasons. But perhaps chief among them was unique terminology. A few days after the leak, Hallion found himself working a game in Los Angeles. Clayton Kershaw and Utley — the man at the center of the drama — chided the veteran ump. Utley asked Hallion a question that has lingered for years: What were the origins of the term “ass is in the jackpot”?

The phrase has roots in Saugerties, N.Y., where Hallion grew up. He would go after school to play baseball at a local field from 4 p.m. until it got dark. The only problem was that his mom would start making dinner around 5 p.m. As a result, his siblings would often ride their bikes to the field and yell to him that his “ass was in the jackpot” because their mom was angry that he wasn’t home.

“I never really used it anywhere in my baseball career, except for my argument with Terry Collins,” said Hallion, who retired from umpiring after the 2022 season. “It’s taken on a life of its own. Even when I was working, people would call me over and say, ‘Mr. Hallion, our ass is in the jackpot!’”

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It happens to Collins repeatedly when he’s stopped on the streets of New York. After he retired, he went to a Mets spring training game and saw a fan wearing a shirt commemorating the moment. Even the day of this interview, a worker on his golf course jokingly quoted him saying “just give us a shot,” a quote taken from Collins’ argument with Hallion.

Collins is the only manager in the last two decades to take the Mets to the World Series, yet he is seemingly more associated with a May game that has an irrelevant final score. He said he’s able to appreciate its popularity a little more nowadays. But at the time, he was genuinely upset.

“When the moment happened, it wasn’t funny,” Collins said.

Though he still hates that his granddaughters have heard him curse and lose his temper, Collins in a way comes through well in the video despite the frenetic, vitriolic anger. It’s because he was so clearly protecting his players, just as Baker would do seven years later. Both managers were just defending their guys.

Even as Collins talks about it now, it’s clear his blood starts to boil thinking about it again.

“To have him throw Noah out of the game was certainly against all of the unwritten codes that I had grown up with in Major League Baseball,” Collins said.

Technically, it was Hamari who ejected Collins, though it was crew chief Hallion who dealt with the manager’s rage. The two remain great friends, and that friendship comes through in that video, as Hallion raced all over the field quelling the manager’s emotions as sweat beaded on his brow.

To this day, Collins doesn’t think he should have been ejected and Hallion believes it was justified. But both can look back at their tête-à-tête and appreciate what it showed people about the game and their personal character.

“That is exactly who I am,” Collins said. “And what I’ve always stood for. This particular thing, it’s been great, I’ve had a lot of laughs. But the point is, I’m going to back up my player for what he did. And I certainly don’t regret it today.”

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“There’s no button you push as an umpire where it says, ‘Press B and you’ll be able to handle this,’” Hallion said. “There’s nothing in the rule book that says how you do it. But I just did what was natural for me. Even today, if we had to do it all over again, I’d do it the same way.”

Though the Astros rallied for three runs in the ninth to get within one win of the World Series, Baker’s probably not at that point in his coping process.

“I haven’t been that mad in a long time,” Baker said after the win. “And I don’t usually get mad about nothing.”

But there might be a lesson for Baker to take from Collins, a lesson in believing with your entire being that you’re right but finding it in your heart to forgive.

Collins and Hallion didn’t just give a sense at what these heated arguments sound like. They provided a tutorial on how to move on.

“You actually heard an actual argument-conversation between a manager and an umpire,” Hallion said. “What do you say in a movie? A love story. It turns out great, and everybody is happy. They get married, and they lived happily ever after. That’s kind of how the video went.”

(Top photo of Terry Collins and Tom Hallion: Elsa / Getty Images)

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