Saga of a foul ball taken from kid at Cubs game comes with a dramatic twist
A drama that unfolds on Twitter isn't always what it seems.
At Sunday's game between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field, a foul ball down the right field line was picked up by one of the ball boys and tossed to a young child in the front row.
Except the kid, being pretty young, dropped the ball which then rolled under his seat. It was then an older fan picked up the ball and gave the ball back to the kid celebrated that he had gotten a foul ball.
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Cue the Twitter outrage machine.
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Plenty of fans tweeted their anger, hoping there was justice for the young fan who seemed to have had a chance at a foul ball ripped away from him.
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The Cubs heard the roar on Twitter loud and clear and made sure the little guy was rewarded with a ball signed by the Cubs' All-Star infielder Javy Baez.
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But, by Sunday night, there was a twist: while Twitter was quick to demonize the dude in the shades, it seems he wasn't that bad of a guy at all.
Sure, the optics in the video looked damning, but David Kaplan, a host on NBC Sports Chicago noted that, before the incident that sparked the outrage, the same man had helped that same kid get a foul ball.
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It was a claim backed by others who were sitting nearby, flagged by the Sporting News.
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But no good deed goes unpunished and so the debate still swirls online as to who was right, who was wrong, and what it all means. Does that make it okay he took the second ball intended for the kid? Is this a life lesson for the kid to learn?
At least we have eternity to argue in circles about it on Twitter.
Topics X/Twitter
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
