What could be derived from this video, and especially the back story that followed, is that the internet is a context-free cess pool that makes it way too easy to dump on the moral fiber of complete strangers without even having a full grasp of what little we know we've seen of them. Unfortunately, if that were considered "news" at this point then it would be about as breaking as the ligaments in the elbow of Tommy John himself, so therefore the most notable part of this story is that it's victim kind of stinks at appearing sympathetic. In most cases, we'd offer a halfhearted apology to a person who was unjustly charged with being a thief of innocence in the court of public opinion, but in this case it just doesn't seem completely called for. Whether that Cubs fan had already given a ball to a kid or not, he was objectively too damn happy to happen upon one rolled to him from 5 feet away after being soft-tossed to a glove of someone who was so neglectful in his defensive awareness that he might be able to give Manny a few lessons in "being Manny". The fan in question reportedly doesn't deserve to be criticized for shamelessly beating a child in a game of Finders Keepers, but celebrating that pity prize as if he were a Mets' diehard caroling the ball that rolled through Bill Buckner's legs seems a wee bit excessive depending on how strictly you uphold social norms. I mean, he pridefully posed that thing to his significantly other like he had just snuck up behind it with a self-carved club, beat it unconscious, and dragged it back to his cave to dissect as sustenance for the upcoming sun cycle. The self-affirmative clap and the thigh pat to an impressed peer were just icing on the least humble pie you've ever encountered. I'm all for both loving the game and loving one's self, but - as social media forces us to make something out of nothing - I'm familiar with something being made out of nothing when I see it. The most recent victim of the internet's instinctual outrage was at least guilty of that, so I'm glad that someone much more modest got something even cooler out of the whole ordeal...even if, in retrospect, the lack of a shit given by that kid and his mother made it obvious that he already had a ball...
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