I watched it. He bailed over the seats and crushed the little kid who was standing next to the ball. Big doofus. I bet his girlfriend broke up with him.
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Mench sent a high foul ball toward Section 22, between home plate and the St. Louis Cardinals' third-base dugout.
"It was coming straight at us," Edie O'Brien said. "I felt this person jumping, and I felt my husband trying to grab Nick. The guy was on my legs and feet, and I was trying to push the guy off.
"The next thing we knew, the guy had the ball."
The man, who appeared to be in his 30s, was sitting a row behind the O'Briens. When he dove for the ball, he knocked Nicholas into the seats and ended up sprawled at the O'Briens' feet. The man came up with the foul ball and -- despite jeers and boos from the crowd, who wanted him to give the ball to Nicholas -- put it in his pocket.
"It was just rude," said Austin resident Mark Mann, who witnessed the commotion from a few rows back. "You should have just gave the ball to the kid and be done with it.
"My thought is, what is he going to with a foul ball? Sell it on Ebay? What are you going to put, 'This is the foul ball that I didn't give to some kid?'"
As the boos grew louder, two youths gave their baseballs to Nicholas.
During one break in the game, security guards called the O'Briens down to the first row, where St. Louis outfielder Reggie Sanders gave Nicholas a bat.
"When it first happened, I was inside (the clubhouse) and I was watching it on television," Sanders said after the Cardinals' 13-2 victory. "I saw that the guy wasn't giving the ball up, so I felt in my heart to go out and give him a bat.
"As we all know, it's all about the kids. They like to come here and have fun and sometimes, unfortunately, get involved with things like that."
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