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Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Fans Engage in Pathetic Pursuit of Home Run Ball
They really wanted that ball, huh?
Catching a home run ball is one of the coolest things you can do as a fan at a baseball game. I mean catching it—on the fly, standing in front of your seat, maybe even without a glove. Picking a ball up out of a crevice is decidedly less cool, but don’t tell that to these two fans in Seattle.
Brett Gardner lifted a three-run homer just over the wall to give the Yankees a 5–0 lead in the third inning over the Mariners last night. The ball scraped over the top of the wall so narrowly that it landed in a gap between the stands and the fence. That’s when a woman in Mariners gear and a guy in a Yankees jersey engaged in a protracted battle to emerge with the baseball.
The Mariners fan clearly sits in these seats often and came prepared with a mechanical claw, while the jorts guy decided to just plunge over the barrier and wedge himself into the gap.
The video above doesn’t include it but the broadcast also showed the Yankees fan excitedly texting after his victory. No doubt the man was proud to have emerged with the ball, but it’s a lot less impressive when the ball had stopped moving. Even if the ball is still rolling, that’s a pretty decent story to tell people. But “I picked up a baseball” isn’t nearly as interesting as “I corralled a baseball.”
Yelich claps back
Brewers star Christian Yelich decision to pose for ESPN’s Body Issue had one woman clutching her pearls and asking him to think about THE CHILDREN, so Yelich told her to cool her jets on Twitter.
The tweet went viral, but Yelich took it a step further with his walk-up music for last night’s game.
Soccer fans are another breed
Hardcore fans of Serbian soccer club Red Star Belgrade sparked a minor international incident by parking an actual tank outside their stadium. The tank was used during the war that broke up the former Yugoslavia and its presence was particularly upsetting to Croatians.
One group of Croats took a lighthearted approach, though. Fans of Dinamo Zagreb responded by parking a run-down tractor outside their stadium.
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Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.
