If You Catch a Home Run Ball, Keep It

Baseball season is finally here! Even though we can’t attend games, just having it on the TV makes it feel like summer finally. While we look with fondness and romanticism at America’s game, let us also remember that baseball also can bring out some of our country’s shadier characters.

I took my son Matthew to the Cleveland Indians game against the Minnesota Twins one Saturday night several years ago. It was a great night for a game. The weather was beautiful. Indians legends Carlos Baerga and John Hart were inducted into the Indians Hall of Fame before the game. And there were Bon Jovi–themed fireworks after the game.

Twins center fielder Clete Thomas singled to center to start the game. The next batter, perennial All-Star catcher Joe Mauer, hit a deep homerun to right field.

Almost immediately you could hear the chant coming from the right field seats.

“Throw it back.”

“Throw it back.”

When most people go to a baseball game, they hope to catch a souvenir. A T-shirt. A rally towel. A batting practice ball. A foul ball. Anything.

“Throw it back.”

“Throw it back.”

To catch a home run ball hit by one of the greatest catchers in MLB history is, well, beyond most fans’ wildest expectations.

“Throw it back!”

“Throw it back!”

And so what did the fan that caught the ball do? He listened to the couple of dozen chanting knuckleheads and he threw it back.

After years of fan stupidity, of streakers and trash-throwing knuckleheads, Major League Baseball had instituted a rule that said any fan who threw anything on the field was subject to ejection. So this guy, the guy who threw back onto the field a home run ball hit by Joe Mauer in the first inning, was tossed. He did not get a refund for his ticket to the game, a marathon game that Cleveland eventually won 8-7. And also, he missed those spectacular Bon Jovi–themed fireworks.

Nordonia High School principal, Casey Wright, likes to say that it is a Jerry Springer world, and each of us is either on stage or in the audience. Generally, he tells this to students who are prodded into doing something silly by their classmates.

But it’s important to realize that adults, too, are subject to the Jerry Springer rule. Sometimes people want you to do things for their own entertainment, knowing that you alone will need to face the consequences. Indeed, the only guy thrown out of the Indians game that night was the fan who caught a home run ball hit by Joe Mauer, not the two dozen lunkheads who told him to throw it.

As we work in the field of education, we are constantly trying to remind kids that the right thing and the easy thing often are not the same thing. Sometimes you have to take a stand and do what is right, even when others are encouraging you to do wrong.

Educators at all levels need to take every opportunity they can to reinforce this principle every time they interact with students. It’s easier for some teachers than others, I suppose. English teachers have great latitude in selecting reading materials that show characters who have to make difficult decisions, and teachers can ensure student work requires some thoughtful deliberation about what the right thing is to do. These materials can range from “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” in kindergarten to any variety of novels in high school. Social studies teachers can also organically select content that shows historical figures forced to reckon with difficult decisions.

For other school employees, where perhaps the content they teach is not so clearly related to making moral choices, look to current events in your discipline area in which real people may be facing moral dilemmas. Look beyond your math and science textbooks to find examples of real-world situations in which a person was faced with a difficult decision, and tie it into your content where possible.

Nor do you need to be a teacher to lead these discussions. Custodians, paraprofessionals, cafeteria workers: talk to kids. Build relationships with them. Get to know them. Then, when you see some moral quandary in the news, you have a natural way to talk to students with whom you have built those relationships. When Jimmy is coming through the cafeteria line, it may sound something like this, “Hi, Jimmy. I like your Indians shirt. Did you see the guy who threw the home run ball back the other night? He got ejected. What a foolish thing to do. Cheeseburger or chicken nuggets?” That example is certainly contrived, but we school employees need to remember that a huge part of what we do is fostering the character development of our students, whether our job be to mop floors, cook meals, or teach physics.

If I was that guy who caught the Joe Mauer home run ball, I am hoping I would have been sensible enough to put the ball immediately in my pocket. The hecklers would have stopped after a few seconds, and I would have gone home with a great souvenir and an Indians win. Instead, the guy who threw it back probably felt like quite the fool for being played by a bunch of anonymous baseball fans. I’m not sure of the profession of the gentleman who threw the ball back that night, but I’m hoping he is not an educator. We need to give our kids the best role models we can at all times.

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My first book, If the Dance Floor Is Empty, Change the Song is now available for purchase. What can a deejay teach us about the classroom? What does a superintendent do besides decide when to close school for snow? What makes someone a great teacher or a great principal? In this collection of essays, Dr. Joe Clark answers these questions by offering a model for compassionate, principled, and student-centered school leadership. In the process, If the Dance Floor Is Empty, Change the Song offers leaders a handbook for placing kindness, community, and diversity at the heart of successful education. 

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