While Sunday's Game 6 of the ALCS between the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros was exciting in itself, one fan's absurdly smooth bare-handed home run catch stole the show.
Rangers catcher Mitch Garver sent the first pitch of Game 2's second inning soaring over the fence in right-center field. Once it reached the bleachers, the solo home run was caught bare-handed by one extremely nonchalant fan wearing LSU Tigers gear.
One of the smoothest bare-handed catches you'll see. #ALCS pic.twitter.com/h9k03m97Af
— MLB (@MLB) October 23, 2023
A few things about this fan's incredible grab deserve unpacking: one being how he manages to keep a straight face after securing the snag. Not only did this fan keep his cool in what was probably the coolest moment of his life (surely the coolest moment of his life that occurred in front of 41,000 fans, and was broadcast on national television in front of millions more), but anybody who has ever tried to bare-hand a baseball knows that it hurts. For added context, Garver's home run was recorded as having a 102 MPH exit velocity off the bat. While the ball would have slowed down by the time it reached the fan's hand — plus the adrenaline of securing such a legendary snag probably would have numbed the pain — this super fan deserves credit for his stoicism.
Then there's the fact that he's wearing LSU gear. Everybody knows that repping a team's apparel at a game where that team isn't even playing is a power move — but why did this guy go with LSU? Perhaps it's his alma mater. More likely, however, is that this fan is wearing an Alex Bregman LSU jersey, given that Bregman — the Astros star third-baseman — attended LSU from 2013-2015 and was one of the best college shortstops of all time. In other words, this fan was probably wearing the coolest Alex Bregman jersey possible. Fitting.
While we never got to see what this fan does with the ball after his smooth snag, one would imagine that he did something super cool with it. Perhaps he gave it to some little kid; or perhaps, given that he seems to be an Alex Bregman/Astros fan, he threw the Rangers' home run back onto the field.
What's for sure is that, if there was a Cool Fan Hall of Fame, this guy would be on the first ballot.
