Looking for a bit of "echo chamber" affirmation from you guys based on something that happened to me this weekend:
I took my family up to Milwaukee to see the Pirates (who are awful, by the way) play on Saturday. I live in Chicago and it's almost easier and WAY cheaper to see games in Milwaukee rather than in Wrigley, especially if you've seen as many games in Wrigley as we have, and we had good seats in the 5th row right next to the Pirates dugout. At the end of the 8th, Ke'Bryan Hayes throws a ball 40 feet over the net and it comes down in the row in front of me, where my 3 boys aged 12, 9 and 6 are sitting. A 50ish year old man/potato sack in that row reached over, uncoordinatedly slapped the ball with his hand, and it fell right to the feet of my 12 year old, who while in a mechanical brace due to an unlucky pitching injury that required surgery, eagerly grabbed the ball and began celebrating.
We're all excited, then about 30 seconds later the dude who missed the ball points to his 17 year old son who is in the row in front of him and says "you know that's his ball, right? You stole it." For the rest of the game, him, his wife and their kid just keep staring at us like we're awful people. Completely disgusted looks. Originally I considered giving them the ball, but then I starting thinking about it and got pissed off due to a number of factors:
So tell me I'm wrong here? Possession is the law with balls at MLB games, right? With rare exceptions, like adults taking the ball away from kids when those adults don't have kids with them.
Thoughts? Am I the jerk here?
I took my family up to Milwaukee to see the Pirates (who are awful, by the way) play on Saturday. I live in Chicago and it's almost easier and WAY cheaper to see games in Milwaukee rather than in Wrigley, especially if you've seen as many games in Wrigley as we have, and we had good seats in the 5th row right next to the Pirates dugout. At the end of the 8th, Ke'Bryan Hayes throws a ball 40 feet over the net and it comes down in the row in front of me, where my 3 boys aged 12, 9 and 6 are sitting. A 50ish year old man/potato sack in that row reached over, uncoordinatedly slapped the ball with his hand, and it fell right to the feet of my 12 year old, who while in a mechanical brace due to an unlucky pitching injury that required surgery, eagerly grabbed the ball and began celebrating.
We're all excited, then about 30 seconds later the dude who missed the ball points to his 17 year old son who is in the row in front of him and says "you know that's his ball, right? You stole it." For the rest of the game, him, his wife and their kid just keep staring at us like we're awful people. Completely disgusted looks. Originally I considered giving them the ball, but then I starting thinking about it and got pissed off due to a number of factors:
- The kid's dad had a chance to catch the ball. He missed it. Not my fault he let his kid down. His kid, who was wearing a baseball glove and at least 17 years old - also missed the ball.
- Man tried to claim Hayes was throwing the ball to his kid, but there was a group of about 10 Pirates fans in the area. Not sure if Hayes, or anyone, has the kind of aim where he can single out 1 person and throw 40 feet over a net right to him. Hayes also never did the "point at the person I'm throwing to" thing that player sometimes do...but not when they are throwing over the infield net.
- Ball landed by my kid and he grabbed it. It's not like I caught it. Had I caught it without my family there, I'd give it to a kid (maybe not a 17 year old, but a kid). But a 12 year old got the ball. They were making a 12 year old feel bad for grabbing a lose ball.
- His rationale seemed to be because he touched it, it should be his. Faulty and ridiculous. Prison rules for foul/thrown balls.
- I can't emphasize enough how pissed off these people were at us. Mom looked like she was going to punch my wife when they left.
So tell me I'm wrong here? Possession is the law with balls at MLB games, right? With rare exceptions, like adults taking the ball away from kids when those adults don't have kids with them.
Thoughts? Am I the jerk here?
