Urban Thought Collective

Today I saw something on TV that made me laugh aloud.

Something amusing from the endless reel of sports highlights that I, and many other, watch every day. Sometimes we don’t even really watch them. They’re just kind of “on.” It’s background noise. This is especially the case when the TV has been on for more than 30 minutes because they start showing the same stuff over and over again. Very few things are worthy of breaking your neck to see again and again, but I think I will indeed look for this doozy the next time I’m in front of the tube.

It was the 6th inning of the baseball game. The New York Mets were making a massacre of the Los Angeles Dodgers, when the noteworthy highlight occurred. With nobody out in the top of the 6th, New York’s Ryan Church sent Scott Proctor’s pitch over the wall in right-center field for his 6th round-tripper of the year.

What’s so special about that? Well, nothing. It wasn’t a particularly towering shot. It wasn’t like he went down to get a bad pitch and by sheer will and determination, muscled it out of the yard. In fact, it had absolutely nothing to do with the pitcher or the guy at bat. This highlight was all about where the ball ended up.

A guy sitting right near the rail stood up and caught it. Big deal, right? Consider this. He caught the ball with his un-gloved left hand. Still not impressed? Try this. He had a newborn baby cradled up against his chest with his right arm.

The concentration that it must’ve taken for him to pull this off must’ve been tremendous. Any hesitation or reservation about attempting this, and he doesn’t make the catch. Even worse, any second guessing and the kid could get hurt.

This guy ought to win an “ESPY Award” for this one. Better yet, he ought to get a Miller Lite commercial saluting him as “Mister-Bare-Hand-Catch-While-Holding-An-Infant” guy. (Okay, so that one falls within the 1% of commercial products that I actually do retain.)

But then… the father in me blurted out, “His wife’s going to kill him!” He’s probably cursing “ESPN” and “YouTube” now, the way Barack Obama has been doing for the last few months. He knows it’s going to be virtually impossible for his wife not to see this clip at least once. I’m sure all of the moms out there were outraged, while dads everywhere were silently saying “Atta-boy!” as they glanced at their wives to make sure their faces didn’t show any appreciation for his unspeakable act.

Who knows? Maybe the wife was there at the game with him. Maybe it all happened so fast that he didn’t have time to hand the baby to her so that he could catch the ball. I know that I would’ve never heard the end of it. Shoot. That’s the kind of thing that might’ve had my joint custody reduced to supervised visits!

But, let’s not be so quick to condemn this man. Instead, let’s applaud his focus as well as his ambidextrous abilities. He’s probably right handed, since that’s the hand with which he was holding the baby. This was no small feat.

Just think of the teaching moment that this will afford him. Years down the line, he can use this as an example for his kid:

“You see son, you’re not always going to have what you need to get a job done. Sometimes, you’ve got to just make it happen with what you DO have at that moment. It’s like that time at the ballpark, when you were a baby…”

“You see, son, you’ve got to be able to do your best on the field, AND in the class room, all at the same time. It’s like that time at the ballpark, when you were a baby….”

Besides, these are the very moments that cement Dad’s place as the Superman figure, as in; “My dad is faster than your dad…My dad can beat up your dad…My dad’s a better baseball player than your dad, in fact, one time, when I was a baby….”

So once again, I salute you, “Mister-Bare-Hand-Catch-While-Holding-An-Infant” guy. But, you might want to disconnect the phones and your cable box when you get home, just to cover your tracks.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Souffles in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.