Young Rangers fan proudly finds foul ball, then throws it back

When you’re a kid, one of the first things you learn to do with a ball is to throw it. From the time you’re a toddler scooting around on the floor, grown-ups give you a ball and tell you to throw it back to them. But no one ever tells kids that they’re not supposed to do that at a baseball game.

That’s what happened to a young Texas Rangers fan on Sunday when the Rangers played the Los Angeles Angels. In the bottom of the fourth inning, first baseman Mitch Moreland hit a ball toward the foul pole in right field that looked – and sounded – like it might have been out of the park. It hooked just foul, though, and landed in the front row of the upper deck where a father and daughter were sitting.

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The two of them started searching for the ball, which had bounced off the railing and landed on the floor. After a few seconds, the young girl comes up with it, holding the ball above her head triumphantly. It’s a great moment! And then, just milliseconds after she holds up the ball in triumph, her arm starts to move forward. Her father can’t do anything to stop what happens next. His daughter, acting on years of teaching, throws the ball back.

That young Rangers fan and her father join many other parents and children who have gone through the same thing at baseball games. At a Phillies game in 2009, an adorable toddler threw back a foul ball that her father gave her to play with. In 2014, a young fan threw back a Derek Jeter foul ball, though her father did get it back in the end.

That adorable Rangers fan didn’t get her ball back, but she did get an autographed ball to make up for it, which isn’t a bad trade-off.

It’s hard to blame any kid who throws back a foul ball, especially at a game where they see baseballs being thrown constantly. It’s what they were taught to do!

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