You've heard of the bat flip, but Jackie Bradley Jr. just invented the ball flip

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While bat flips may divide the baseball fan populace, you can't deny that they have become nearly ubiquitous. Almost every home run now comes punctuated by the baton-like toss. With the Red Sox taking on the Blue Jays for an 11 a.m. Patriot's Day game on Monday, Jackie Bradley Jr. made sure that the fans who woke up early and/or skipped work got a brand new spectacle to go with the baseball action.
With Troy Tulowitzki batting in the top of the seventh, Bradley came racing in to make an amazing, shoestring-turned-diving catch on the ball. 

It was a play with such grace, such skill, such beauty -- Statcast™ measuring Bradley's run at 106.1 feet with a route efficiency of 97.9 percent -- that he had no choice but to flip the ball over his head in a rainbow bloop. The flip itself seemed to frighten the center fielder -- possibly because he realized the gravity of creating a brand new baseball celebration. 

As Bradley explained to MLB.com's Craig Forde after the game:  
"I just tried to flip it to [Xander Bogaerts] to get it out of my hands in case they wanted to overturn it or something."
Perhaps all new trends started from such humble beginnings. 

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