Kansas City, Mo. ? Getting attacked by a shirtless father-son duo in Chicago’s Comiskey park is not what Tom Gamboa would like to be known for.

“It’s 15 minutes of fame for a no-name guy,” the first-base coach of the Kansas City Royals said Friday, his face scratched and puffy from the incident the night before that shocked major league baseball.

“It’s like I’m today’s Kato Kaelin. Ten years from now, somebody will point to me and say, ‘That’s the guy who was attacked.’ Nobody likes to be remembered for that. I’d like to be appreciated for the job I do.”

Gamboa spent more than a quarter of a century in the minor leagues before reaching the majors as third-base coach of the Chicago Cubs in 1998. He was coaching first base for the Royals on Thursday night when the two men jumped out of the stands in the ninth inning and attacked him from behind.

He was on the ground being pummeled when the Royals players surged out of their dugout and attacked his attackers, reaching the wild scene even ahead of stadium security.

Bleeding and dazed, Gamboa was being led back to the dugout a few minutes later when he heard somebody say something about a knife that was found folded at the scene.

“The first thing that flashed through my mind was when I was watching Monica Seles get stabbed (in Germany in 1993),” he said. “I thought, ‘Am I really seeing this?’ I started probing my body thinking, ‘Gee, I guess I got stabbed and I’m too numb to realize it.’ It was like I got hit by a bulldozer. I didn’t know what had happened.”

Known to friends and players as “Gambi,” he showed in interviews Friday that the violence may have dented his head, but not his sense of humor.

“It was like I was playing in a football game and I was the only one they forgot to issue equipment to,” he said.

He swore he would not be afraid to set foot on the field again.

“I look forward to going back to Chicago,” he said. “I’m the eternal optimist. If I’d have been captain on the Titanic, I’d have told people, ‘Don’t panic. We’re just stopping for ice.’

“I’ll never forget what happened last night. But I’m not going to let it affect who I am or what I am.”