Which is the point. Adults know that’s bullshit, and are mature enough to see someone else eat candy (or hold a ball) without getting upset. Children don’t have that maturity.
Defending “finders keepers” is about as mature as a kid crying about being made to share his toys with his little brother. I’m picturing the Foul Ball Owner stamping his size 11 foot saying “But it’s MY ball!” Yes, it’s your ball, but it is kind and generous and decent and mature to not be selfish and possessive of a toy that you don’t really need, aren’t really going to play with, and that someone else desperately wants to have.
In terms of legality, I cannot legally force you to give up your hard earned ball (ref. F vs K) However it is also true that you cannot legally force me to stop thinking you’re a huge douche for keeping it. So, we’re even.
Certainly arguable that it was “earned” in at least a certain sense. Say for example I save my money. Take myself and my (no longer an adorable toddle/now a mildly surly teenager) down to a hockey game. It’d be a fair chunk of change. Heck of a drive. Maybe a once a year thing. In that sense, “earned” would be potentially correct. I would’ve worked hard to get those tickets. Made plans. Took time off from work. Just because you clearly have massive blinders on doesn’t make an argument funny.
How do you know? Gentleman in question was at the game with his fiance. Might be a nice memory that’ll sit on a desk or bookshelf with the elderly couple walking past and sighing as they remember the fond memory. Meanwhile the ball would just as likely be found under the front seat by mom or dad after the drive home and would mean more to either of them than it ever would to the kid who would readily toss it aside for another bite of a hot dog.
The significance of memories and objects are entirely up to the individual. Making assumptions on them to suit your own view is a poor argument. Also you’re sounding like a bit of an ass. You should relax. It’s just a baseball.
No, they don’t have that maturity. Doesn’t mean you have to cater to it. I know my parents would have told me, “hey, maybe you’ll get one next time. You can’t always get what you want.”
Foul balls are fair game. Now, if it had been specifically tossed at the kid, and someone grabbed it away, they’d be a douche of the highest calibur. But in this case, they have every right to it. Why should they kid be allowed to stamp HIS foot and throw a tantrum just because he feels entitled to something?
Seriously. In fact, if my kid started crying and freaking out, and someone offered him the ball, I’d say, “No, that’s okay. We’re trying to teach him that he doesn’t get what he wants just by throwing a fit.”
Yes, if the couple gives the kid a ball, that’s a really nice thing to do, of course. But if they keep it, that doesn’t make them jackasses – the kid has no right to the ball, just because they’re kids.
From the video, it seems pretty clear that the ballplayer wasn’t throwing the ball to the kid, so it’s fair game. The guy who caught it can keep it and the kid throwing the tantrum seems like a little shit. I likely would have given the ball to the kid, but I’m the paragon of virtue and purity.
Bill Clinton: Thank you, Lisa, for teaching kids everywhere a valuable lesson: “If things don’t go your way just keep complaining until your dreams come true.” Marge Simpson: That’s a pretty lousy lesson. Bill Clinton: Hey, I’m a pretty lousy President.
If I were a baseball fan, and* if* I ever attended a MLB game, and if I ever caught a ball that came came into the stands, I think I’d definitely want to whip it just as hard as I could at the obnoxious shouty drunk’s head a few seats back who has been annoying me through the whole game. YMMV.
The ball goes to the kid. End of story. Dude broke an unwritten rule.
Have been to hundred of games, both hockey and baseball, major league and minor league. (Go Chiefs/Crunch!) The player is ALWAYS looking to give it to a kid or, short of a kid, a good looking girl. If the player isn’t specifically looking at the crowd when tossing in the ball or puck, it’s an assumed thing that the player knows. It goes to a kid.
Kids get them because it is supposed to mean something to them. It’s a memory. For adults, it is perceived, fairly or unfairly, as an opportunity to score some quick cash from a memorabilia shop or EBay. Many players will not even sign autographs for adults for that very reason. So in lot ballparks and rinks, you will see adults paying kids a little bit of cash to get cards autographed on the sly.
Were it me, if I didn’t have a kid with me, I would give (and have given) it to a kid sitting near me.
That being said, I don’t understand the vitriol towards the guy. I think I read that it was his first attended game. So I’m chalking it up to a colossally unaware rube jumping on the hip new winning Texas Rangers bandwagon that is getting exceedingly full.
I don’t really get why people get so worked up over this sort of thing. If the guy had taken it when it was clearly for the kid, sure, but no one really has any right to it. I don’t think it necessarily follows that giving something like that to someone else nearby, kid or not, makes someone any more or less of a douche.
I’ve been to many professional sporting events, but never gotten a ball or anything. I have, however, been to probably a hundred or more concerts and I have dozens of keepsakes from those shows, probably 8 drumsticks, at least a dozen picks, a couple dozen set lists, and some other more bizarre things like a bridge from a guitar they smashed on stage and parts of their costumes (masks, blow-up weapons, glowsticks, etc), I have a rose that I caught and later dried. Sure, a given band will probably give out half a dozen picks or more over 20-30 shows, so it won’t impress anyone else in the same way it won’t impress anyone that you caught a foul ball from some no-name player’s foul in the third inning, but that’s not the point. I can look at almost every single one of those items and recall a specific and vivid memory of not just getting that item but about the show as a whole too. On a few occassions, I’ve gotten multiple items from the same band (caught both drum sticks, or multiple picks or whatever) and I’ve given the extras away, and on a few occassions I got something from a band I didn’t really care about but someone else clearly loved, so I gave it to them.
Either way, my point is who are we to criticize someone for giving or not giving up an item? Maybe that guy had been a loyal fan for years and finally catching the ball would be a memory he would cherish for the rest of his life or maybe he was just drunk gloating about it and would forget it the next day. Maybe the kid that gets it would remember it as one of his earliest fond memories of a day at the ballpark with his father or maybe he would just forget about it the next day and not have any lasting memory of it at all.
So, I say, unless the guy was a prick about it, leave it up to the person who catches the ball to weigh how much it means to him against how much it will mean to the kid next to him and let him act accordingly.
That’s my take on it as well. I’ve been going to games since the mid-70’s and I’ve seen lots of people give foul balls to kids, and lots of people hold on to them for kids at home or for themselves. There’s no rule, IMO.
So much as there is a rule, if the ball is tossed into the stands by a player, that’s usually supposed to go to a kid, IME. Caught foul balls, home runs, etc., are fair game for anyone who gets it. I don’t recall any adult getting berated for keeping a foul ball.
This we can all agree on. Tosses into the stands are meant for kids. But if there are no kids where the ball is tossed (especially when players just do that “turn quick and throw it high” move), it’s fair game.
If it is meant for a kid then toss it or give it to a kid, don’t just toss into the stands in the general vicinity of a kid and hope that folks abide by some unwritten, mostly unobserved rule.