Photo: Otto Greule Jr. (Getty Images)
If you’re a parent holding a baby under a flyball at a baseball game, can you do us one favor? Just one. Please stop using your baby as a glove, for the love of God.
Let us explain. This past week, a baseball fan in Arizona caught a hard-hit foul ball while sitting the stands. While holding his baby. And the sad part? This isn’t the first time it’s happened lately. It’s an epidemic only America could come up with.
Before you emote any kind of impression or raise an eyebrow, there’s something important to understand. This type of catch isn’t remarkable, nor unique, in any sense. Rather, it’s about the laziest and most careless act physically possible, especially for a parent.
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The one-handed, baby-daddy baseball catch happens all the time. A quick search on YouTube proves our point: dozens of ridiculous videos of popping up of moms and dads attempting Play of the Week catches while holding their babies, ranging from infants to mature toddlers.
Phillies Fan Grabs Foul Ball While Holding His Child
Another Phillies fan from this past summer.
Cubs Fan Interferes With Dodgers Infielder Holding His Child
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Are some of these foul balls relatively harmless? Sure. But several others are frozen-rope line-drives, like leather bullets just waiting to fracture a young skull. Either way, a speeding liner or lousy pop-up is no place to put your child. It’s bad enough you’re shoving nachos down its throat because you grabbed tickets in the all-you-can-eat section.
You know what is cool? Keeping your child alive long enough to teach them what baseball is. Then they can grow up to shove nachos down their kids’ throats.
Josh Helmuth is a sports reporter in St. Louis who contributes to Mandatory.
