Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig caught the final out of Monday’s win against the New York Yankees.
After making the catch, Puig got rid of the ball the same way a lot of MLB players do at the end of an inning or game — he threw it to a fan in the stands.
Puig specifically threw it toward a group of Dodger fans in the seats at Yankee Stadium. Though Puig was trying to do something nice for the visiting fans, he actually sparked a friendly fire incident, as the ball Puig threw ended up knocking a girl’s front tooth out. She later tweeted about the incident, which picked up a lot of traction from the internet.
Just got home from the ER… But at least we won the game? @YasielPuig @Dodgers pic.twitter.com/RxwR4HiC12
— Aly G (@alyxxg) September 13, 2016
The New York Daily News was able to track down the fan, Alyssa Gerharter, with her knocked out tooth and all.
“I saw it coming at me and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t have a glove to catch this ball,'” Gerharter told the Daily News. “And I think I put my hands up in front of my face. I saw it was coming at me and registered that it was coming at me, and I felt it hit me. It wasn’t so much painful as it was shock. So I felt it hit me and I could feel immediately with my tongue there’s a hole. And I looked down at my hand and saw there’s a tooth in my hand.”
“Everybody was going after it. And I guess we all missed,” said Gerharter, who attended the game with a group of “30 or 40” Dodgers fans based in New York. “It was so fast that I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault for not catching it. In our whole group there was only one person who had a glove. So everybody was trying to catch it with their bare hands. I caught it with my face.”
Gerharter did end up going to the hospital in an ambulance following Monday’s unfortunate injury. She returned to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, where Puig was ready to apologize.
Had to make sure my friend was ok after she was hit with a ball #PuigMyTooth ⚾️💢😁 pic.twitter.com/D2PLptUX39
— Yasiel Puig (@YasielPuig) September 15, 2016
Good on him for making nice with the fan. And let this serve as a valuable reminder that when it comes to catching a baseball, the preferred order of method goes glove>hands>teeth.
