Play Ball

Baseball season starts tomorrow and so a foul ball synchronicity from a few days ago is in order here. On March 31, during a spring training game in Tampa against the Yankees, Minnesota Twin lead-off hitter Denard Span hit a line-drive foul into the stands striking a fan in the chest who was wearing a Denard Span jersey. That’s a synchronicity in itself. But who was wearing his jersey? His mother!

In preparing this post on the day of that incident, I looked up Span in Wikipedia, and found this surprising comment. “He bats and throws left-handed and is known for his exceptional speed and his ability to hit relatives with line-drive foul balls.” What? Was that there before he hit his mother? My guess is that some quirky, quick-witted trickster had just added that last bit to the Wiki entry.Or maybe he has a very large extended family that likes going to his games.

There’s more. I first learned of Span’s feat from Keith Olbermann who mentioned it in his Oddball segment that same day. Olbermann noted that his mother had also been hit by a foul ball at a Yankee game by then Yankee second baseman (and former Twin) Chuck Knoblauch. We wrote a post about it on May 17. K.O. also mentioned that Bob Feller threw a pitch in Chicago on Mother’s Day in 1939 that was fouled off and hit his mother. He went on to mention another player from the ’30s who hit his mother with a foul ball, then hit her again with another foul as she was being carried off. I went to the show’s script to get the player’s name, but the story was removed. So maybe that last one never happened.

Finally, oddly enough, earlier that same day, I had bought a ticket on-line for a Minnesota-Tampa game in Minneapolis on July 3. Why did I do that? Because I will be visiting my mother that week. However, I don’t think I’ll take her to the ballpark! – R