Man’s Quick Thinking Saves Little Boy’s Face at Baseball Game – ABC News

A baseball game nearly turned into a disaster this weekend when an errant bat almost hit a little boy in the face.

The near-miss happened Saturday when the Pittsburgh Pirates were playing the Atlanta Braves in a spring training game and a Pirates’ player lost his grip on a bat that headed toward the stands.

Christopher Horner, a photographer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, caught the moment on camera when the man sitting next to the child stretched out his arm to protect the boy’s face.

Christopher Horner/Tribune-Review

Whether it was luck or good timing, the man’s forearm appears to have been the only body part hit directly by the bat.

Pirates outfielder Danny Ortiz told the Tribune that he had no idea about what happened until after the game.

“I went home and my wife said to me, ‘You almost killed that kid!'” Ortiz told The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

“I saw the picture. It was crazy. … That guy took [a blow] for the kid. The father, or whoever he was, he protected that kid,” Ortiz said.

A photo Horner posted on Twitter of the moment directly after the incident shows that the boy looked more surprised than anything else.