On Justice and Mercy - Part 1

So this past Thursday night another friend from my former employer took me to another Houston Astros baseball game. This time we had the happy privilege of sitting in the fifth row directly behind the home team's dugout. In those seats, we're quite close to the on deck circle. Otherwise known as the setting for the scene I intend to describe for your amusement below.

Yup. Something interesting happened during the game. Peripheral to the action. (Don't the interesting parts frequently occur on the margins? At the edge of your consciousness? Whence you aren't exactly expecting the highlights to spring?)

So Lance Berkman was in the on deck circle. Getting ready to go to the plate. And some other player for the Astros was up at the plate. Trying to get a hit. The guy at the plate fouls the ball back into the screen and it bounced over to Berkman. He picked it up and turned around, looking into the crowd and planning to toss it to somebody. There's a kid, probably about seven years old, sitting one row in front of us and a few seats to the left of us. Maybe twenty feet from the on deck circle. Wearing a great big baseball mitt. So Lance sees the kid. And Lance looks directly at the kid. And Lance tosses the ball nice and high and nice and soft right towards the kid. It's directly on target. And the kid reaches up his glove to catch it.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere comes this sinewy, hairy arm of a middle-aged man. The arm of the guy sitting two seats to the left of this kid. And this guy's big, tan hand uncurls with its long fingers and snatches the ball out of the air a couple feet above the kid's glove. And the guy is happy with himself. He made a great catch, it was an awesome interception. And he sits down smiling and laughing with the person he came to the game with.

And a hostile rumbling starts in the seats all around us. The natives are restless. Did that old man really just reach out and intercept that toss from Lance Berkman to this precious little boy with the buzz cut and the oversized baseball glove, we say to ourselves? Did that really happen?

Yes it did. He stole that ball from that kid.

But then the old man notices the rumbling. And he looks over and sees the kid (who I am reasonably confident he did not notice before he reached out and snared the tossed ball). And he reaches over and around the kid's father and he hands the ball to the kid. Graciously.

And we all quieted down, satisfied. With justice.

So then the guy at the plate fouls another ball back into the screen.

And Lance Berkman walked over and picked up this foul ball. And he walked back over to the edge of the stands. And he looked directly at the old man who intercepted that ball that was tossed to that kid, the same man who graciously gave that intercepted ball to that disappointed kid. And Berkman tossed the other ball right to the middle-aged man. Who caught it with two hands this time. And sat down and smiled.

Mercy.

Just what you'd expect from a guy holding a light saber in a picture published on the internet!