Miami ? Laz Diaz isn’t used to this. People are greeting him with hugs. Fans have been cheering him.

“It’s very weird,” he said.

Weird because on the best of days, nobody notices him. Anything less than a perfect day, and people treat him like a Dixie Chick at a Bush fund-raiser.

Diaz is an umpire. Not just an umpire, but the umpire. The one who was attacked last week in Chicago.

Attacked may be too strong a word. The assailant was so drunk, he might have run onto the field to kiss Diaz.

Eric Dybas has become the poster boy for making fans take Breathalyzer tests. And Diaz has been treated almost like a POW returning safely home.

Oddly enough, he did return there this week. Diaz worked the Florida-Milwaukee series at Pro Player Stadium. He has done more interviews in the past week than most umpires do in a career. People want to know all about Laz Diaz and how he feels about fans running amok.

Diaz is 40, one of two Cuban-American umpires in the majors. The Miami native moved to Kissimmee, Fla. four years ago. Yes, that broad-shouldered guy in the checkout line ahead of you could have been somebody suddenly famous.

Diaz doesn’t want to be famous. And as a former Marine, he sure doesn’t consider himself a hero.

“I was just doing my job,” he said. “And, suddenly, this came up.”

“This” was Dybas, who actually went down. Diaz was tracking a fly ball down the right-field line and figured Kansas City first baseman Mike Sweeney was right behind him.

He felt somebody run into him, spun around and noticed the guy wasn’t wearing a Kansas City uniform.

“I didn’t know if he had something in his hand, if he had a weapon,” Diaz said. “I just tried to get him off me.”

Diaz pinned Dybas, and Kansas City’s cavalry swooped in. The Royals remembered last year, when first-base coach Tom Gamboa was attacked by two alcohol-altered loons in Chicago.

“They still had a bad taste in their mouth,” Diaz said. “They were ticked.”

Dybas is lucky security got there, or he might not have lived to say he’s sorry. He has been apologizing and says his actions were the result of downing at least a dozen beers at the Cubs and White Sox games that day.

Question: What person needs to drink two six-packs to enjoy a game? Obviously one with a major-league bladder and a rosin bag for a brain.

Banning beer sales wouldn’t solve all protection problems, but it sure would help. Last week’s attack has energized the prohibition lobby, but the reality is that most fans drink responsibly, and sports never is going to shut off the zillion-dollar taps.

The most satisfying solution would be to let the Royals take care of the fence-jumpers, but the ACLU would protest. For now, most Dybases get off with a fine.