Baseball tends to make a big deal about throwing out the first pitch of the Major League season. They get the president to throw it and all the non-sports media pays attention to baseball for the last time until the playoffs. For them, all that matters about baseball has already happened until the World Series starts getting close.
But first pitches are also neat ways teams can give fans a treat by having a celebrity throw it out, or they can use it to honor someone for doing something worthy of being honored.
Take pediatric cancer survivor Jordan Leandre. He got to throw it out to honor the Jimmy Fund, a nonprofit that supports Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. It raises money to help both children and adults battling cancer.
Leandre took the mound for what is about as low-stress a pitch as you’ll ever see during a Major League game, then this happened.
Greatest first pitch ever
FIRE IT IN THERE pic.twitter.com/Ks9zjix3Kf
— Kevin O'Connor (@KevinOConnorNBA) August 16, 2017
Yeah, what can you say about a throw like that?
Boston.com reported the identity of the poor man who got the Jimmy Fund pitch right in the…well…Jimmy.
Soon after the pitch, Red Sox beat reporter Chris Mason for CNHI Sports Boston identified the ultimate recipient of the pitch as his photographer, Tony Capobianco.
Both parties joked a bit about the mishap on Twitter, with Leandre commenting that he wished the Red Sox had left him in the game to pitch, saying he was just getting warmed up.
It’s good to see no hard feelings over this, which was clearly an accident but also one of the funny things that can happen. Let’s be honest, if someone getting hit in the naughty bits wasn’t funny, America’s Funniest Home Videos wouldn’t have ever made it past the pilot episode.
It’s even better when no one is seriously injured because there’s no need to feel bad about it.
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