LSU shortstop catches ball after it bounces off third baseman’s head (GIF)

Jun 18, 2013; Omaha, NE, USA; LSU Tigers head coach Paul Mainieri makes a pitching change during their College World Series game against the North Carolina Tar Heels at TD Ameritrade Park. Mandatory Credit: Dave Weaver-USA Today Sports
Jun 18, 2013; Omaha, NE, USA; LSU Tigers head coach Paul Mainieri makes a pitching change during their College World Series game against the North Carolina Tar Heels at TD Ameritrade Park. Mandatory Credit: Dave Weaver-USA Today Sports /
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Baseball isn’t always the most interesting sport in the world as it tends to drag on forever with tedious little aspects of the game making the experience even more long and dry. So when you get a play where where balls are bouncing off of a heads and still managing to get caught, that’s a level of excitement baseball fans rarely see.

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Fans watching the LSU Tigers in their SEC Tournament matchup against Arkansas when Christian Ibarra was attempting to field a routine pop-up but ended up making a gaffe that all who play or have played baseball are fearful of making. It’s one thing to just miss the ball on a pop-up but it’s a totally different and more embarrassing thing when he ball misses your glove and your face does the catching.

Not even Ibarra’s face could do the catching though as it bounced off his forehead and looked like it was going to fall into play. Thanks to the quick thinking of his shortstop, the ball never touched the ground and we were given probably the most exciting play we could have hoped to see form a college baseball game.

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Ibarra is extremely lucky that his shortstop was there to literally bail him out as he was in a situation that had gone from bad, to worse to potential embarrassing and game changing.

Thankfully for Ibarra, nothing bad came of his gaffe and the Tigers ended up blowing out the Razorbacks 11-1. but the soothing satisfaction of victory likely won’t be enough to heal the burn of letting himself get smacked in the face by a play you learn to make in tee-ball.