Cubs Fan Catches Foul Ball While Bottle-Feeding His Son
By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jun 24, 2015 3:15PM
Bartman, meet baby-man.
Briefly recalling the iconic, infamous time Cubs fan Steve Bartman deflected a foul ball from the stands at a crucial moment during the 2003 National League Championship Series, a baby-carrying man caught a foul ball during Tuesday night's Cubs game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In video replays of the catch, the man can be seen balancing the bottle-feeding baby on his hip with his left arm while reaching into the air for the foul ball with his right, catching it with a relative ease.
The man is 29-year-old Keith Hartley, according to the Chicago Tribune, and the baby is his 7-month-old son Isaac.
At least baby man caught the ball, commentators are saying, and it didn't cost either side the game. The Cubs won 1-0 against the Dodgers.
Will baby man spawn a class of memes to rival Jack White's resting pout face? Will Bartman reappear rocking a BabyBjörn and try to win over still angered Cubs fans? Only time (or Photoshop) will tell:
Jen Chung/Chicagoist
Hartley, who could be the hero the Chicago Cubs need, told the Tribune the catch he made without even a glove was no big deal; "I’m just trying to protect [Isaac] first," he said.
Typically if a foul ball came his way, Hartley's friends sitting in front of him would stand up and make a kind of shield around the baby. But this time: "This one was a little easier, a pop fly. Just kind of a reaction. It just came to me."
Hartley, to his credit, was apologetic about ruining Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez's catch.
"[Adrian Gonzalez] didn't say anything. I think I turned around too quickly for him to interact with me," Hartley told ESPN. "Hopefully he's not too angry. He is on my fantasy team. I want to keep him happy."
We also learned this week that Cubs fans are smarter than some Chicagoans might think. According to a study by Grammarly and the Wall Street Journal of fan comments on sports teams' websites, Cubs and White Sox fans were in the top five for fewest number of grammatical errors. As monitors of the lexicon of the Internet comments section ourselves, we can't understand why this study exists, but we're glad Chicago's coming out ahead.