he was sooo disappointed yikes
It’s such a weird call because there’s energy for the pick and the throw to second, and then he just deflates on the second out. He should’ve let the analyst call it - Ronnie was probably pumped lol.
And tbf, you’re not a “face of baseball” when 50% of baseball fans wouldn’t know who you were if you were alone in a room with them. Great player =! “face of the game”.
That was embarrassing. And I generally stan for Costas.
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I think more than 50% of serious baseball fans would recognize Witt. He has the family pedigree and he looks fairly distinctive.
Costas made the call at the tail end of a point he was making about Stanton being hobbled, so the DP played into his point (though he did say it wasn’t Stanton’s fault, which was, I guess, a nod to Witt’s fine-but-not-earth-shattering play).
Witt being ‘a face of baseball’ is LOL. He’s a face–but not even THE face–of his team.
I meant to bring this up after the Profar catch, but it made me think about how I have, on multiple occasions, consciously thought about how I would try to act as a fan in those situations.
Which would be, best I could, to legally faceguard/block the opposing fielder along the plane of the fence so that they could not reach the ball. I’m sure I’ll never find myself in that situation, but I’ve always wondered why we essentially never see fans consciously do that, versus mindlessly go for the ball and get beat out by the fielder. If the fans in the front row simply block the path of Profar’s arm, or push it back, it’s a home run. The part that would be tricky is trying to avoid being injured by the baseball since you’re making no attempt to catch it.
Sure, but the total let down in his voice belies that he was rooting pretty hard for Stanton in that spot.
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I think you just stick your hands up out of self-protective instinct. I think it would be really hard to look down to see where Profar’s glove is when a ball could potentially hit you in the face.
That’s interesting to me, because I think of him as a St. Louis guy and IIRC you hate all things St. Louis.
I really liked his talk show way back in the day. He was really good at getting celebrities and public figures to tell their best stories.
Also this story from Joe Posnanski about Costas critiquing his writing when he was first starting out:
tl;dr - Pos wrote a really sappy column about an old-timers game Costas was at. When he asked Costas what he thought, Costas told him the truth. Pos was crushed, but eventually wrote Costas a letter saying (paraphrasing) “You don’t know me, I’m going to go on to be a great writer, you’ll see.” Costas called Pos to tell him the letter was so eloquent and well-thought-out that he knew Pos would go on to be a great sportswriter (which he has, one of the best).
The whole story is worth reading.
Seems like Costas is a good guy who cares deep down. He’s just kind of an ass.
No doubt it’s hard in the moment. It’s instinctual, just like all the folks who flinch at foul balls behind the plate when they are fully protected by the netting. By darn it if I haven’t convinced myself that if I’m ever in that situation, especially in the playoffs, I’m doing everything to keep that fielder away from the ball.
And you’ll achieve meme immortality when the ball hits you in the face.
Don Sutton made fun of me on the Braves broadcast for missing a foul ball. In my defense, I was first row of the upper deck and had to lean over the rail. I didn’t want to lean too far and was more concerned with staying on the correct side of the rail than catching the ball.
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I’d like to think someone doing this would achieve meme immortality by physically preventing an opponent from catching a ball. I guess you’d have to work something out with a seatmate that if the fielder is coming right at you, one is the blocker and the other is on ball-protection duty.
Here’s true meme immortality: you go for the glove, whiff, he still catches the ball as the camera catches the glove smashing hard into your face in glorious super-slow-mo.
In the blue seats at old Riverfront one time a major league pop up came down dead on me. Everyone just mindlessly reached up bare handed. Being 6’3" I got first touch. All I got was a large red welt on the palm of my left hand from where the ball bounced dead off it. I did get to see myself on the Jumbotron shaking my hand in pain
I caught a foul ball about 10 feet off of the left field foul pole. It was headed towards my sister, but I leaned over and caught it on the fly. It stung a little.
At a different game, before the nets went up, my BIL and I stood as a line drive foul went just over our heads. I turned around to see where the ball went. A guy behind us was shaking his hand in pain, but I didn’t see the ball. As we sat down, my sister held up the ball that landed in her lap.
I got a foul ball that landed two rows above me. Everyone else was looking up, and I just looked down at the floor of the row above me, knowing the only chance I had was if the ball trickled out there. Which it did. I snagged the ball with my left hand right as another guy’s hand converged on it. He was pissed that he didn’t get it.
My only regret is not giving it to a kid. I was 19. I still have that ball but it would have meant a lot more to give it to a kid.
I’ve given other foul balls to kids, but there weren’t any kids around when I caught the one behind the foul pole.
My sister offered me the one that landed in her lap. I told her no. I don’t want a foul ball my sister caught. She gave it to our dad.