'Hit his computer?' Reliving the misery, comedy of a Sandoval foul ball

This story was excerpted from Mark Sheldon’s Reds Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

DENVER -- You never know when a foul ball will find you.

I was reminded of that exactly 10 years ago on Monday. A foul ball found me in the press box at Great American Ball Park, and the outcome proved to be a robust combination of misery and comedy.

It's a moment that also gets to live forever because of the Giants' television broadcast team. And a decade later, it's still pretty funny.

That night, the Reds were leading San Francisco by five runs in the top of the eighth inning when Pablo Sandoval fouled back a fastball from reliever J.J. Hoover.

Back then, the GABP press box was behind home plate and above the backstop. I was putting the finishing touches on the first version of my game story when I saw a ball coming my way. It had some zip to it and my instinct was to simply roll my chair out of the way.

One problem. I forgot to close the laptop.

I was unharmed. But the ball hit the computer so hard, it slammed the machine shut. Before I reopened it, I braced myself with a sense of dread. Sure enough, I found a broken screen, and a large wave of stress set in. My laptop was effectively gone and the game was almost over. All of my completed work that had yet to be filed to our MLB.com producers was definitely gone.

As I went through the stages of grief and my colleagues gathered at the site of the wreckage, one of the Giants' TV cameras caught the whole thing. Amid a slow game that San Francisco was losing, broadcasters Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow let the moment marinate with the perfect touches of humor and sympathy.

"Hit his computer? Not happy," Kuiper said. "I'll tell ya what that'll do, it will ruin someone's night."

The half-inning ended quickly after that, but Kuiper and Krukow revisited my plight during the bottom of the eighth inning with a full replay. It included when I hung my head in dismay at the sight of a ruined computer.

"You want to see what a hangdog looks like? Look at the reaction of this gentleman when he sees his computer is broken," Krukow said. "That's a hangdog.

"That's not funny. That's his lifeline right there."

In the moments that followed, MLB.com reporter Manny Randhawa -- our intern at the time -- handed me the ball. It's the only foul ball from a game I've ever kept for myself. Manny was also kind enough to lend me his laptop so I could rewrite a story really quickly and then write my full version after we did our clubhouse interviews.

A new laptop was sent to me a couple of days later and I was back in business.

Fortunately, my sense of humor was not damaged by the incident. By the next day, I realized that a lot of people saw the moment, and it became fodder for comic relief.

SportsCenter made it the No. 1 highlight on its "Not Top 10" list. On his own ESPN show, Keith Olbermann named me the "Worst Person in the Sports World." I think some other outlets picked it up and local TV news reporters also talked to me about it.

In the years since, I still occasionally get asked about it with a chuckle. Sometimes in tours of the press box, I would be at work early when the guide was telling the groups about the incident while not always knowing I was the reporter who was involved.

I've definitely learned my lesson and now I instinctively close my laptop whenever a foul ball is on approach. In 2020, the GABP press box was relocated to a spot down the left-field line, but a ball almost found me there, too.

A couple of years ago, the Cubs' Patrick Wisdom pulled a scorching liner foul into that press box. My chair tipped over with me on it as I dodged sharply. Of course, that was more comic fodder for my colleagues seeing me on the floor.

At least both me and my laptop were safe and sound.