It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. The story:
At a Phillies game, the batter hit a home run to the center field grandstands. A gaggle of people were there attempting to catch or get the ball. A father picked the ball up off the ground, took it over to his son, and placed it in his son’s glove.
Standard feel good moment at baseball games. The sort of thing that leaves a lasting memory for a young man.
Except these aren’t normal times.
Karen took offense because the ball had touched her fingers. In her mind this made the ball hers. She came over to the family—father, son, and mother—and got in Dad’s face, screaming at him that the ball was hers. Dad argues for a moment, then takes the ball from his son to give to the lady to make her go away.
This was on the big screen and broadcast on NBC. She was instantly Internet Famous.
The team saw what happened, and a rep came over to give the kid a different home run ball and some other stuff. After the game, the family was invited to meet the players in person, where the son was able to get his home run ball signed.
Nice outcome.
How famous is she?
Well, she got booed out of the stadium. Other fans berated her. And the Internet did its thing.
She has been identified by name. My unconfirmed information is that she is a teacher. Again, unconfirmed, her Facebook feed and the school’s Facebook feeds have exploded with people expressing their displeasure with her attitude and behavior.
Maybe she will be a little less self-entitled in the future?
“Maybe she will be a little less self-entitled in the future?”
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I would guess not. People like that, to my observation, usually tend to persist being like that and continuing to self-justify even in the face of multiple “yes, you were actually the baddie” messages delivered.
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In this particular case, consider how much introspection and self-awareness needs to happen to realize that demanding the baseball from a kid was a scummy thing to do. Now figure even that modicum wasn’t there.
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I wonder if the team can fire her as a fan, e.g. bar her from future games. That might get the message across, might not; but it would prevent the (admittedly low probability) possibility of her doing this to another fan again. And more importantly it would send a message about sportsmanship and kindness to other fans.
By the way. Is there a way to include line breaks? Double carriage returns in the comment box seem to be reduced to one in the post. Oddly, when I edited the above post (to add the “.” for separation) the double spaces were there.
I agree with Mr Boris. “people” like this teacher will continue to be selfish untill the time 811 is called to map out a hole.. she will blame everyone else and never be accountable. maybe , MAYBE, if she gets fired and has to move the message will get learned…. maybe.