04/23/24
April 14, 2014
Video: Ball Girl Saves Run in Baltimore: A Baltimore Orioles ball girl made a terrific play on a sharp drive down the line by Edwin Encarnacion of the Toronto Blue Jays Sunday. Unfortunately, it was a fair ball, resulting in a ground rule double that put runners on second and third. Toronto won 11-3.
Fixed the link (I think). MLB.Com doesn't make it easy to link to its highlight videos.
posted by rcade at 11:10 AM on April 14, 2014
She has better range than Jeter.
posted by grum@work at 12:43 PM on April 14, 2014
Oooh, did I just make such a great play.
Oooh, I am so fired.
posted by Howard_T at 03:03 PM on April 14, 2014
The O's would be twitter toast if they fired her. The team has maybe a longer standing tradition of having young women serving on the field than most other MLB teams (have to check with the SpoFi stats yoda on that), dating way back to the Oriole broom gals that used to come out between innings and sweep off the bases, and maybe the tops of the players shoes, and perhaps give the players and field coaches a moment of personal recognition back in the day.
Hugh J. probably going to remember that business with more clarity and help us out.
posted by beaverboard at 05:44 PM on April 14, 2014
Oriole broom gals
I've not been to an O's game since they moved out of Memorial Stadium, but I do indeed remember some of the antics of the broom girls. They would bring water out to the umpires between innings on the hot days, which I'm sure was not unappreciated, and I remember the occasional sweeping of the tops of the umpires' shoes. Remember, these things were done between the innings. In most parks anyone who interferes with a ball in play is met by the security guys and invited to watch the game on TV from a nearby bar. I may not be remembering this correctly, but I believe at least one ball boy/girl somewhere was relieved of his/her duties on the spot after mistakenly fielding a ball in play.
Ball kids are in a vulnerable spot, since most are stationed not too far beyond the bases. They often also have a stool that needs to be moved, thus slowing their retreat from being involved in a fielding play. I'm waiting for the day one of them is clocked by a line drive or run over by a fielder going hard for a foul pop-up. Teams would be better off using adults, training them, and using a loss of future employment as a means of keeping them in the game.
posted by Howard_T at 08:01 PM on April 14, 2014
That link doesn't have a video for me, but here is the play on youtube. It seems it was a 1-1 game at the time, though Toronto did go on to score 2 that inning.