MLB ball boys and ball girls are expected to be able to make a fairly routine play on ground balls hit foul. If the fielding isn’t perfect, one can usually expect the effort to at least be good enough to keep the ball from going all over the place.
Unfortunately for the Tampa Bay Rays’ ball boy, things did not go according to plan Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles.
Faced with a routine ground ball right at him, the ball boy set up in a fielding stance and put his glove down. Unfortunately, the glove wasn’t down enough, as he pulled a Bill Buckner by letting the ball go right through his legs.
Pour one out for the Rays’ ballboy pic.twitter.com/69fN1dU1mi
— Ben Palmer (@benjpalmer) July 16, 2022
The look on his face really tells the whole story.
Thanks to Tropicana Field’s unusual on-field bullpens, the Rays’ relievers were left directly in the line of fire. They did not look too happy to have to avoid the grounder that wound up coming at them, and at least one of them seemed to be jeering a bit.
When we see a mistake like this from a ball boy, it’s usually accidentally fielding a ball in fair territory. This one was pretty harmless, all things considered, but really funny.
