Is this a fan failing to catch a baseball twice or a ridiculous infomercial re-enactment?
Do you know this man? I don't, but I want to buy him a beer. Or a soda. Or ... I dunno, something he likes. I wouldn't buy him a baseball, though. It's probably too sore a subject right now.
This guy was at Tuesday's Phillies-Reds game from Great American Ball Park, clad in his trusty Phillies cap, when opportunity struck twice. He had (at least) two separate chances to reel in a baseball, and he whiffed ... both times.
That's two times the frustration. Two times, coming oh-so-close to the impossible dream, catching a foul ball to take home, only to have it pulled away from you like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown as he runs up to kick it.
This sequence is basically the baseball fan equivalent to those over-the-top infomercial re-enactments that offer a Better and Easier to Use Alternative to eating/washing the dishes/doing laundry or just washing the car:
We've all been this guy at one point or another. pic.twitter.com/8ZSu8Daduu
— Adrian Garro (@adriangarro) September 4, 2019
All jokes and silly GIFs aside, let's get real for a minute. I have definitely gone through what this guy went through on Tuesday night. I whiffed on a batting practice homer and literally fell over backwards in the bleachers one time, narrowly avoiding injury in the process.
Another time, I clanked a foul ball that I was totally unprepared to catch. In both cases, I was reduced to a bumbling, stumbling shell of myself.
But I HAVE caught a foul ball at the ballpark, in a live game setting. It's happened to me two times, actually, a screaming Rey Sanchez liner and a Jay Payton foul back behind home plate in the 2006 ALCS at the Oakland Coliseum. I was using a glove both times (spare me the criticism, thanks), which was really the key to both catches.
So there's still hope for this Phillies guy. Just because he failed two times on Tuesday, it doesn't mean that'll happen next time. You just need some dumb luck, really. With dumb luck and a bit more good fortune, he'd have gone home with two baseballs.
In the end, though, at least his Phillies won the game, 6-2. The night wasn't a total loss.
Adrian Garro joined MLB.com in 2016. Throughout his travels, both Bartolo Colon and Vin Scully have placed their hands on his shoulders. Not at the same time, though. That'd be amazing.
