WHEN a 28-year-old landscape gardener named Matt Starr took his seat at the ballpark to watch his local team last Sunday, he was just an ordinary supporter. By the time Starr walked out, he was a hate figure about to become notorious throughout the United States.
With the Texas Rangers losing at home to the St Louis Cardinals, a ball was mis-hit into the crowd and Starr charged after it. Nick O’Brien, a small child, was standing up as Starr dived across a row of seats to grab the ball. His leg struck the boy, who was jostled and pinned to the seats as Starr plucked the ball from the floor, then held it up in triumph. The infant was unhurt.
Fans at Ameriquest Field booed and chanted “Give him the ball!” but Starr refused, even when interviewed on television during the game. The child’s mother, Edie, said she slapped Starr with a cardboard fan and called him “a jerk”. She told Good Morning America, a national television show: “I couldn’t believe someone would do that to a four-year-old boy. I said, ‘you trampled a four-year-old boy to get this ball’ and he said, ‘Oh, well’.”
The two clubs gave the child autographed bats and baseballs. Starr has now agreed to write a letter of apology to the family and buy them tickets to future games.