Looks like that lucky fan is going to leave the ballpark with a souvenir: a broken collarbone.
The St. Louis Cardinals and the Cincinnati Reds were facing off yesterday when Paul Goldschmidt, the first baseman for the Cards, hit a moonshot off of opposing pitcher Graham Ashcraft.
The game was in the top of the third inning when the home run ball was sent into the outfield stands. The beautiful swing of the bat to produce the bomb that made it a 4 to 1 ball game at the time was a sight to see. Too bad the guy in the green shirt in the seats just beyond the outfield wall never even bothered to look up at the field.
I would give the fan the benefit of the doubt if the homer were in the very first inning, with people still probably trying to find their way to their seats. However, the top of the third inning is a good ways into the game, so I’m not exactly sure what went wrong with what should have been an easy catch for the fan.
The ball is blasted into opposite field, and it appears that the man in the green shirt is assuming the ball is going to fall to his right when we first see him in the video. It appears that he never bothered to look up to see if might’ve been heading right towards him (specifically his shoulder), and that lack of awareness ended up costing him.
With seemingly no one in the section being able to tell where the ball was going to land, and I’m guessing no one yelled to warn the man either, the solo home run ball rockets right into the man’s left shoulder, immediately making him keel over in pain.
First off, I hope the guy is okay. Taking a baseball like that has to hurt, and if I were him, I would be trying to weasel my way into some free tickets or at least one of those mini helmets full of ice cream that they serve at baseball stadiums.
Secondly, it is so damn funny that the guy got hit in the shoulder, but it’s even more hilarious that no one seems to care at all.
Watch the video a couple of times. Maybe minus the woman sitting just to the right of him, everyone is just scrambling to try and find the ball rather than making sure that one of our elders is okay after taking a flying spherical rock to the clavicle.
A pretty good example of the world nowadays: no one cares about anyone else besides themselves. We’re a pretty greedy group revolving around the Sun, aren’t we?
Not even the official MLB account had the decency to merely mention the man who took a direct hit. All they said in the caption of the video instead is:
“Two homers for Goldy on a Tuesday…and it’s only the 3rd inning!”
I’m not saying that they should have dedicated the entire post to the man in the green shirt, but at least recognize that he got hit by the ball, am I right?
I’m sure the guy wouldn’t have minded to have a little time in the limelight. The MLB account could have easily captioned the video:
“Goldschmidt hits his second homer of the day right off that dumb guy in the stands wearing a green shirt! Who wears a green shirt to a game between two teams that don’t have green anywhere in their color schemes?”
Probably wouldn’t have been great for the green shirt guy to have to deal with both physical and emotional pain if they did go that route.
However, he would have at least been recognized, which would be worth more than nothing.
