ON THE TREAT Street side there's a mural of dancing tomatoes, onions, hot peppers ... salsa ingredients, looking round and happy. Arms and legs. On the 25th Street side there are tacos, burritos, pupusas, etc., also dancing, also seeming happy and focused, if somewhat naked next to the color-coated salsa dancers around the corner.

In the middle of the intersection, Treat and 25th, there's a man on his back, vaguely, dreamily kicking at the man with the knife. I've already placed my order: a regular carnitas burrito ($3.50). It's going to be good, I know because I've had it before. It's my new neighborhood burrito dive: Salsa Taquería. I've had their carnitas, their carne asada, and their chicken, burritos and tacos. All good, and ridiculously big, even by our standards.

This time I'm with my old pal Satchel Paige the Pitcher, the tallest man in Thailand, back visiting and playing baseball with me, like old times.

Final Score: 9-6.

They don't have burritos in Thailand, so we thought we'd celebrate the big W with an even bigger B. Our friend Plus-5, who'd played some short and some third for us, said he'd meet us there.

It was going to be like Dairy Queen in Little League, only instead of ice cream there'd be grilled-tortilla big-meat belly bombs. And instead of moms and dads and kids overlappingly reliving the shrill, unforgettable glories and tragedies of a 25-24 pitchers' duel, there'd be the relative simplicity of a knife fight with only one knife in it.

One knife and a cell phone.

Nobody gets hurt.

Or maybe everyone gets hurt, just a little. I can only speak for myself: I'm fine. The burrito was good, like I said. But for a second there, in the middle of the street, it was ... I don't know, something bothered me about me, which is all I can speak for. The rest of it is obvious.

Obviously, the fight had started in another time and place, and probably at some point involved language, but this part of it was strictly picture-book: guy walks into a taquería. Another guy, inside the place, grabs a knife from the counter and chases him out to the street, slashing wildly. Backpedaling, not wanting to turn his back on the knife, the other guy stumbles and falls in the middle of the intersection. Gets a couple kicks in.

Meanwhile, Satchel Paige the Pitcher and me have followed the fight out to the street. We're walking. He's walking. I'm walking and stopping. Watching the chased guy's hands, thinking a million things and nothing at all and, gun, because he keeps going into his pocket – for a cell phone, it turns out.

If there are three things I'm afraid of it's guns and knives and cell phones. I'm afraid of 9,997 other things too, but these three are on my mind, which is stopping me and walking me at the same time. And that's what bothers me. That Satchel Paige the Pitcher was five steps ahead of me, almost there already. The cell phone guy was up, dodging and backing his way toward the opposite curb, trying to use his phone one-handedly, like a gun or remote control. Satch was about a step from overtaking them. I was standing there. I don't know, I just wanted to make a connection, get his attention, say his name.

"Satchel Paige the Pitcher," I said.

Which takes a while to say, so while I said it two little women, also from the restaurant, managed to pull the guy with the knife away from the fight. Probably for the best, since they seemed to be connected somehow to one or both of the fighters. And that was it, plus or minus cops and confusion, a lot of unasked questions, and an arrest. While we were eating, a couple tables over, there was a big rehash. Which is where the language barrier comes in.

But my big barrier was fear. I hated that, over my burrito. That the Pitcher, with a two-month-old daughter back in Thailand, had had the balls to step into a knife fight while I, with my three chickens just around the corner, had enough fear in me to stop both of us in our tracks.

Today, over yet another Salsa taco ($1.50), I'm filled with admiration for everyone. We all played our parts perfectly: guy with the knife, guy with the cell phone, guy with the balls, guy with fears, even the guy in the moving truck with the hammer ... incomplete idiots, is how I would lovingly describe us. My admiration for the women, one of whom I'm pretty sure was mom to one of the fighters, goes without saying.

But most of all I admire Plus-5, who pulled up by car to the same scene we were witnessing on foot, took out a cell phone of his own, and, like the most perfect imaginable citizen – I'm serious – dialed 411.

Salsa Taquería. 1198 Treat (at 25th St.), S.F. (415) 206-9384. Daily, 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.

Email Dan Leone