A young man in a Dodgers jersey caught a foul ball in Atlanta, looked into a stranger's phone camera, and told millions of people he was absolutely not giving it to the little kid. The internet has been trying him for crimes against childhood ever since. A Georgetown philosophy professor has now weighed in, and her verdict is not the one the mob wanted.
The Foul Ball Heard Round the Internet
Here's the setup. Tuesday night, Dodgers versus Braves, in Atlanta, playoff baseball. A guy in a Dodgers jersey snags a foul ball out of the air in the stands. Good for him. That's the entire point of sitting in the stands with your hands out.
Then someone nearby, phone raised, started barking instructions. "Give it to the kid! Give it to the kid!" And yes, there was a kid. A small boy, maybe preschool age, a few rows back, wearing a Braves jersey, as one does in Atlanta.
The man looked straight into the camera and delivered the line that launched a thousand quote tweets: "I'm sorry, I can't! I'm not giving it to the kid! I feel bad, but I'm not giving it to the kid!" As NPR's Scott Simon laid out in a weekend essay, millions of people have now watched it.
Everyone Gets Yelled At, Even the Toddler
The comment sections did what comment sections do. Some commenters denounced the man for keeping the ball. Fine. That's the expected take, and we'll get to it.
But here's the part that should make you put your phone down and stare at a wall for a minute. Some other commenters inveighed against the little boy for looking disappointed. Let that sink in. Grown adults, with jobs and mortgages, took time out of their one precious life to criticize a preschooler for having a facial expression about not getting a baseball.
The kid is maybe four. His entire emotional range consists of joy, rage, and needing a snack. And somewhere in America a person with a verified checkmark is typing a paragraph about his character.
What Would You Actually Do?
Simon asks the question everyone should ask before reaching for the pitchfork: what would you do if a baseball dropped into your hands at a playoff game? Keep it, or hand it to the nearest child?
Be honest. Not the version of you that exists in a comment section. The one with adrenaline pumping and a ball you just caught with your actual hands, in front of thousands of people, during the postseason. That guy's brain is not running a cost-benefit analysis on the Kantian imperative.
Simon, a father, figures he'd hand it over. He also knows how that story ends. Within a few days, the ball so tenderly bequeathed is rolling around under a bed, surrounded by lost socks and forgotten Labubus. Every parent reading this just nodded slowly.
The Ohtani Problem
Then there's the money angle, which makes the whole sanctimonious exercise even funnier. A foul ball off a random bat is a nice souvenir. A home run struck by Shohei Ohtani? Simon points out that ball could be as much of an investment as a Picasso.
So picture the scene. You catch a potential five-figure artifact, and a stranger with a phone demands you gift it to a stranger's toddler on the spot, on camera, for the approval of the internet. The guy in Atlanta didn't catch a home run, but the principle holds. Nobody has a binding moral obligation to surrender property they caught fair and square because a bystander started chanting at them.
And nobody asked the guy to be a symbol. He caught a ball. The internet turned him into a referendum.
A Georgetown Philosopher Settles It
NPR went and found an actual expert, which is more than most of the people yelling about this bothered to do. Nancy Sherman, a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, delivered a line that deserves to be embroidered on pillows: "Manners are not morals."
Sherman said she was mostly alarmed by the public shaming of both the man and the boy. Neither had any idea their instinctive, personal reactions would soon be turned into some kind of moral exercise for the digital age. They were just two people at a ballgame having feelings in real time.
As for the man's much-maligned line, Sherman had this to say: "I think that's a healthy, honest response." He said he felt bad. He said he wasn't giving it up. He didn't lie, he didn't gloat, and he didn't pretend. Honestly, that's more self-awareness than most senators manage in a year.
The Dingo Take
Nobody was harmed here. A man kept a ball he caught, a small boy was briefly sad, and a stadium full of adults survived the experience.
What's grotesque is the machinery around it. Someone in the next row decided the moment wasn't real unless it was filmed, then decided the footage came with a mandatory outcome, then narrated the outcome like a drill sergeant. Millions watched. Strangers rendered verdicts on a guy's soul and a toddler's face. We have built an economy where private, split-second, deeply human choices are raw material for strangers' outrage, and then we act surprised when everyone gets meaner.
The philosopher had it right. Manners are not morals. If you want to give a kid a baseball, be the person who gives a kid a baseball, quietly, without a camera. If you don't, that's between you and your conscience, not 40 million people who have never once been asked to hand over something they love. And if you still think the guy owes the world a ball, go find a rookie card in your own closet and mail it to a toddler. Report back.
Comments