People doing good · Sports

The kid got the ball

Bob CollinsBob Collins Jul 23, 2018
3

An update from Chicago, via the Chicago Tribune, settles the story of the guy at a game at Wrigley Field yesterday who appeared to take the ball from a kid in the first row.

Major League Baseball posted the video, urging people “not to be this guy.”

New story. Be this guy. He gives kids baseballs.

“Here’s what it was,” Chuck Mycoff, seated nearby, told the Trib. “In the first inning, somebody fouled a ball off the screen over the Cardinals dugout. The guy jumped up. I tried to catch it, too. He jumps up. It hits his hand and bounces right into where the tarp and the wall are, right in front of these people, where the kid is. So he calls to the dad: ‘Hey! Hey, grab that ball real quick for your boy!’ So the guy grabs it and gets ball for the boy.”

“It fell down under the seat, was down between my legs,” Mycoff said. “The guy picked it up and the 12 seconds of video looks like he just callously gave it to his wife and ignored the kid. What it doesn’t show is the (grandmother) had already said is: ‘He’s already got a ball. If we get any more, we’ll give them to somebody else.’ And the guy turned and handed it to his wife, who then in turn handed to a kid next to her that she didn’t know. They didn’t keep it.”

Three innings later, he got another ball.

“So he gave two balls to the kids next to them that they didn’t know, helped the kid in front of us get a ball and he’s being made out to be a villain,” Mycoff said. “He did the right thing. He gave the kids baseballs.”

The family of the boy issued a statement through the Cubs.

“The country watched yesterday as a baseball thrown to our son was picked up by another fan. What they didn’t see is that our son already had a foul ball and what they didn’t know is that our son had already decided that if he got another ball that he would toss it to the little boy behind him.”

“There were many foul balls in that section that day and they were happily shared with many deserving fans. The fans in his section left the game giddy with excitement from a great game, most of all our son who had one of the best day of his life.”