For those of you who may be unaware, college baseball season is in full swing.
It may not be my favorite sport, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the ping of a metal bat ringing through my television speakers in the late spring months.
It’s all just a distraction, a pit stop, if you will, on the road back to college football, but it’s entertaining nonetheless.
On Friday afternoon, the 19th-ranked Oregon Ducks baseball team traveled to Champaign to take on the Fighting Illini, and a certain highlight from a rather innocuous conference series is making the rounds on social media.
A true freshman (who looks like he’s about 35 years old, but I digress) hit an absolute nuke that is probably still flying through restricted airspace as we speak.
Nearly 500 feet! What a bomb!
But, of course, with anything in life, there are people who will question the validity and awesomeness of something like this.
Let’s start with the positives.
Hitting a ball 496 feet is impressive no matter who does it or where it’s done.
This kid is also (allegedly) a freshman, and the only other time I remember hearing about a youngin hitting a ball this far was when Bryce Harper was launching Paul Bunyon-esque tank jobs in high school home run contests.
That guy turned out alright.
Also, why is this kid not playing football?
He looks like an NFL defensive end. I’m sure the Ducks could use an extra pass rusher this season.
Now, let’s see if we can predict what the negative Nellies on the internet are going to do to disparage this amateur space program of a home run.
“He’s using a metal bat.”
“It wasn’t actually 496, it just looks longer because there aren’t any outfield bleachers or obstructions.”
“Oh, the flags are really blowing, his ball must have caught a good breeze that carried it.”
“Balls are juiced, he never would have done that back in *insert random timeframe*.”
How’d I do? Did I nail it?
Yeah, when you’re as tragically online as I am, you can almost predict the narratives before they even pop up.
Do you remember about a decade ago when Giancarlo Stanton or Yasiel Puig would hit a 500ft home run and you’d hear all about it on Twitter?
Then you would check the highlight, see it was at Coors Field, and then immediately know 75 percent of the comments were going to be something to the effect of “do that at sea level, then we’ll talk.”
Time is a flat circle.
Enjoy college baseball season, everyone. Or at least try to before all these Debbie Downers kill the mood.
