Kris Bryant homers, then gives his bat to a little kid and it’s totally adorable
We didn’t really need another reason to love Chicago Cubs uber prospect Kris Bryant, the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball. His mammoth home-run power was enough to win the hearts of The Stew. But it turns out Bryant, 23, is really nice to fans too.
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Let’s look at an example from Thursday, when Bryant made the day of fan Jason Witt and his 6-year-old son. Here’s Bryant cracking a homer in the Cubs’ “B” game. It didn’t count toward his spring training-high homer count of six, but what happened next certainly counted.
Witt’s son, Griffin, had been yelling at Bryant during the game that he was Bryant’s No. 1 fan. So when Bryant broke his bat grounding out later in the game, he gave the bat to Griffin. As you can tell, the youngster was pretty excited.
Wait, there’s more: After the game, Bryant grabbed a marker and signed the bat right in front of the kid. The video is pretty great. Stick around until the end when young Griffin adorably says, “Bye, Kris Bryant.”
The proud dad later showed off the signature and it actually reads: “To my No. 1 fan.”
And Bryant reiterated as much on Twitter:
As a fan, you can’t have a much better day at the ballpark than the Witts did. Bryant has gone out of his way to be nice to fans in the past. Last November, he sent an autographed bat to a fan who was considering paying $850 for one on eBay. Bryant’s response: “You don’t need to buy it! What do you want? I’ll send it to you!”
The big question surrounding Bryant right now is whether the Cubs will start him in the big leagues on opening day. They can delay his free agency a year by keeping him in the minors for a few weeks, so that’s the more financially prudent move.
There’s no question, though, the kid has big-league class to go along with his big-league power.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
