Perhaps you’ve all heard about the grown man who swiped a homerun ball from the hands of an 11-year-old girl at Progressive Field earlier this week?
Well, it happened — and it was caught on the Tampa Bay Rays’ broadcast.
After stealing the ball, the man then looked directly into the camera and ate three small children on live television.
Just kidding! (But you’d think he did by the blowback he’s received).
To be clear, that man, now identified as Max Quinn, was not exactly teaching an Emily Post etiquette clinic at that moment.
He refused to give the prized homerun ball up to the girl, even after her brother asked him. Then a Rays reporter valiantly came out to deliver baseballs to the siblings. Innings later, Quinn realized what had transpired and returned the one in question to the family.
The girl’s mother, Nikki DeVore, wrote a Facebook post expressing gratitude that the situation, which went viral, was rectified. Justice was served and best of all, her daughter Evelyn was so happy.
But on the internet, no one is happy until there’s a human sacrifice.
People piled on Quinn. They found his Ohio store, Uncover Vintage, and bombarded it with bad reviews on google. He was threatened and harassed.
On Wednesday, beaten down, he appeared on the local news for a public penance session — something we don’t even demand from actual criminals.
He called snatching the ball a “heat-of-the-moment thing” adding he didn’t initially realize he’d taken it from a kid.
“I’m so utterly sorry for everything that’s transpired,” Quinn told WJW. “I made a bad decision; a lot of bad decisions. I’m paying for it online,” he said.
Little Evelyn, showing how big her heart is, made a sweet video accepting his apology. She said she hoped everyone else would too.
Sure, he was a rude fool in the moment. But it was very good of him to show his face on television and take accountability for his poor ballpark behavior.
But it was also so excessive, medieval flagellants would have been jealous. He looked like a man facing a firing squad, able to overturn his death sentence if only he apologized hard enough.
Thanks to ubiquitous cameras and social media replay, any human slip-up can result in bloodthirsty social-media executioners hunting you down and ruining your life. Unless you are as elusive as Phillies Karen (another angry child-ball-snatcher) who has remained a fugitive from social justice for more than seven months now.
Yes, she was a total jerk, but you have to marvel at her skillfully dodging ever being unmasked. No one in her life ratted her out.
With each game, the internet is primed like gladiators, ready to tear the next offender limb from limb. The action in the stands is sometimes scrutinized more than the actual play on the field.
Even getting into a minor disagreement with a partner can inspire forensic dissection, as we saw of a couple at a Pacers-Nets game for seemingly arguing with one another.
And as evidenced in those small clips, things aren’t always as they appear. That couple, Grace and Michael, weren’t quarreling. They were simply having a spirited conversation about the future of liberal arts college education.
These moments provide fun online fodder for jokes and debates about appropriate behavior. But it crosses into dangerous territory when we want these people’s lives picked apart and ruined.
Especially since many of the people at home casually calling for the gutting of another human’s livelihood is probably just as guilty of being a jackass that day. Only it wasn’t caught on camera and circulated around the internet. But if that’s how we want to handle interactions in our society, their day will certainly come.
There is an absurdity element of it all. If “Seinfeld” were still around, there’s no doubt that an episode would revolve around Kramer or Costanza getting wrapped up in a similar ball snatching snafu that would result in some sort of cancellation.
Of course, in “Seinfeld” the consequences rarely followed into the next episode.
I’m very much for making kids’ days awesome, especially at the ballpark. Who isn’t a sucker for a viral video of a kid catching a ball or stranger handing one over to a young fan. The joy is contagious.
But what happens if they don’t get the ball back and some drunk slob walks away with it?
That too, is a tough — but even more valuable — life lesson for a kid: People can be a-holes.
