Kansas City Royals rookie Bobby Witt Jr. came into the big-league club with as much hype as any prospect in recent years. But after a slow start, Witt went into Wednesday on an 11-game hitting streak in which he’s batting .342 over that span.
On top of that, the wait for his first Major League home run came to an end. The problem: Retrieving that baseball was more difficult than it should have been.
Witt put Kansas City on the board against the Cardinals with a solo home run in the second inning on Tuesday. The ball bounced back onto the field, which should have made matters simple for Witt. Cardinals outfielder Harrison Bader had other ideas.
Harrison Bader really had no idea it was Bobby Witt Jr.’s first career homer 🤣pic.twitter.com/KVA7w48mQu
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 4, 2022
Bader picked up the baseball, and instead of tossing it towards the Royals dugout for safekeeping, the dude just chucked the ball into the Kauffman Stadium fountains.
Of course, you could make the argument that Bader wasn’t aware of Witt’s home run drought. But I wouldn’t buy that because Bader fields his position based on scouting reports, and Witt’s homer drought wasn’t exactly an under-the-radar storyline in Kansas City. Plus, he could have just given the ball to a fan if he wasn’t aware of the milestone homer. Throwing it into the fountains takes intent.
So yeah, pretty rude on Bader’s part.
Thankfully, Witt was able to get the baseball and was a good sport about it being damp. Via the Kansas City Star:
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Witt said of the splashdown. “It got a little wet, but that’s cool. I can say it went in the fountains.”
Fans had plenty of thoughts on the fountain toss too.