Young fan throws ball away -- but gets it back!

The radar guns at Oriole Park probably didn’t capture the velocity of the ball as it left the young fan’s hands. The cameras on the MASN broadcast did, however, capture his dad’s bewildered reaction and the amusing saga that followed.

In the bottom of the eighth inning on Monday night, as the Orioles were batting against Yankees right-hander Chad Green, Baltimore’s broadcast focused on a little boy proudly sporting an Orioles shirt and a large pin that read, “Today is my first Orioles game!” With his dad sitting next to him, the young fan was showing off a ball that he had received from a nearby Yankees fan to commemorate the occasion. He seemed to have designs on imitating his favorite O’s pitchers right from the get-go.

A few seconds into the shot, the fan reared back and hurled the ball onto the warning track. His dad stood up in disbelief that his son had discarded the memento in such a cavalier fashion. The O’s announcers, perhaps unlike the fan’s dad, saw this coming from a mile away.

“I’m just going to tell you from experience -- if you give a 5-year-old a baseball, they’re going to sling it somewhere. I’m just telling you,” O’s broadcaster Ben McDonald said after the ball landed on the field.

A minute later, Yankees center fielder Aaron Hicks came to the rescue. He picked up the ball on the track and tossed it back into the stands -- except it went to a completely different section than where the fan and his dad were sitting. For one tense moment, it appeared as though this young fan would leave his first Orioles game without a ball.

Luckily, the fans in the section where Hicks had tossed the ball quickly returned it to the young fan and his dad. In one swift motion, the dad held his young son up proudly to the surrounding crowd à la “The Lion King.”

“You’re never going to forget your first Orioles game, young man,” said O’s announcer Kevin Brown.

The story didn’t end there. When the top of the ninth began, the MASN broadcast panned back over to the fan and his dad. McDonald and Brown let viewers know that, not to worry, he had been gifted another ball by Kevin Cummings, the Orioles’ senior director of ballpark operations.

This time, instead of hurling it onto the warning track, the young fan ran over to the Yankees fan who had given him the original ball and offered him this newly acquired baseball. He clearly demonstrated one of the most important lessons that all kids learn in school: sharing is caring.

After that, the two newfound friends took a photo together, and the fan happily trotted back over to his dad. As far as we know, he didn’t throw any more balls onto the field for the rest of the game.

Brown capped the in-game saga by voicing what all MASN viewers were likely thinking by that point.

“That’s the most wholesome content of the night.”