Ryon Healy's upper-deck homer smashed a fan's phone, and the A's offered to replace it
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You may think that by sitting high up in the rafters at a ballpark, you wouldn't need to be on high alert for home runs. After all, the upper deck is called just that -- "upper," as in "higher and farther than the rest of the seats." But sometimes, action finds you anyway.
In the second inning of the A's 9-6 win over the Mariners on Tuesday night at Safeco Field, Ryon Healy connected on a 3-1 pitch from Chase De Jong and sent the ball high, deep and far into the Seattle evening for a two-run homer. The ball sailed into the upper deck, where it settled into the stands ... somewhere around here:
By "settled," we mean it careened right into the screen of a fan's smart phone, smashing it to bits.
Peter Johnson presented the evidence in a tweet to the A's:
To which the A's responded with a promise to buy him a replacement:
More, from the A's:
When asked to relay just what happened, Johnson explained that he wasn't exactly trying to catch it:
"It hit my pocket, I froze up when the ball came at me and it just hit my lap."
And Johnson added that no, prior to this moment he had never caught a foul ball or home run before.
Phones may have a concrete financial value, but this experience is just priceless.
Before Wednesday's A's-Mariners game at Safeco, Healy sent a special message to Johnson in response to the phone-smashing: