Resourceful Cardinals fan catches foul ball with her purse
Through the years, fans have used lots of things to catch foul balls at baseball games. Some have used gloves, of course, but we’ve seen catches made with hats, cups of beer, bowls of nachos, and one New York Mets fan nearly used his own baby to catch a foul ball. To snag that baseball (and possibly avoid getting beaned with it), fans will use whatever they have on hand.
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Which is why it’s amazing that we haven’t seen more foul ball catches made with purses. They’re the perfect receptacle for a flying baseball, as this amazingly resourceful St. Louis Cardinals fan found out Sunday.
The Cardinals were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Yadier Molina was batting in the seventh inning, facing Pirates reliever Juan Nicasio. On the 0-1 pitch, Molina fouled the ball back toward the first base side, behind the home team dugout. You can see the ball fall into the crowd, and then a woman stands up and holds her purse aloft while laughing in complete disbelief.
The camera starts to zoom in on her, and you’re pretty sure she caught the ball. But it isn’t until she reached into her purse and, like Mary Poppins, pulled out the baseball that you know for sure.
To see the exact moment of the catch, this looping Instagram video is particularly helpful.
No glove? Nothing wrong with a little improvising.
A post shared by MLB ⚾ (@mlb) on Jun 25, 2017 at 8:30pm PDT
As the ball came careening toward her, the woman stood up and held her open purse high above her head to catch it, and when it landed in her bag she fell back into her seat. It was a daring and resourceful catch.
The fan’s companion was so utterly thrilled by the feat that he couldn’t stop giving her hugs. The fans around her gave her a well-deserved round of applause. ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcaster Jessica Mendoza was so amazed by the whole thing (and rightly so) that she stopped Tom Verducci mid-sentence to point it out. And then all three announcers got to bask in the awesomeness of that catch.
Will this start a trend of purse catches across MLB? We’ll just have to wait and see. But there’s one thing you can’t deny: catching a foul ball in a purse is definitely easier and less messy than doing it with a cup full of beer.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
