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Baltimore Orioles ball girl makes a great play — on a fair ball
The ball girl in left field at Camden Yards broke the first rule of her industry Sunday afternoon: Don't, under any circumstances, try to field balls that are hit fair.
It's a shame, too, because the play she made in the top of the fourth inning against slugger Edwin Encarnacion might have been the best one all day in the Toronto Blue Jays 11-3 victory against the Baltimore Orioles. (OK, except for the one play that Brett Lawrie made.)
With Adam Lind on first, Encarnacion laced a line drive just over the third-base bag that umpire Paul Emmel did not hesitate to call fair. Regardless, the ball girl sprung from her stool as if launched by a giant spring and made a terrific grab like Manny Machado going to his left in the hole between third and short. (She had better being making good plays; she was wearing Mike Bordick's No. 14.)
Happy with herself at first, the woman's glee turned to apparent terror when she realized what had happened. It's unlikely that Lind would have scored from first base on the play, but there's no way to know that for sure. And it probably was going to be a double for Encarnacion, no matter what. Thankfully, sort of, the Blue Jays scored both runners in the inning anyway.
Still, you wonder if the woman started to fear for her job on the spot when Orioles manager Buck Showalter came out of the dugout. Oh, no! He's going to ask her to leave in the middle of the inning! No worries, though. Presumably, he was double-checking to make sure the ball was hit fair — after all, the ball girl wouldn't go for it unless she thought it foul.
She swore to someone on the field (an umpire?) that she'd never leave her seat again.
It's easy to see how someone sitting at the ball girl's location would have thought the ball foul; the only truly definitive replay would have been from a camera hanging from the roof of Rogers Centre Skydome — but this was outdoors at OPACY. Blimp cam? If Showalter did want to challenge the play, there's no good angle for it at an outdoor venue.
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David Brown edits Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rdbrown@yahoo-inc.com and follow him on Twitter!
