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Usher Who Took Foul Ball From Boy Was Only Joking, Say Dodgers

Imagine you're a kid — maybe 10 years old. And you're at a Dodgers game sitting in a prime spot, behind home plate, close enough to hear the grunts of the umpire as he deals verdicts on balls and strikes.

Then you hear the crack of a bat, you look up and there it is, your shot at a Major League foul ball. It lands near you, you scramble, you've got it. You're so happy, you jump to your seat, clutching a ball that barely fits in your fist.

Then an usher walks by, takes it from your hands and walks away. That's what happened to a kid during a Phillies-Dodgers game. The scene was captured during the broadcast and has gone viral on the Web:

Apparently, the cameras cut to the field and the city of Los Angeles was left thinking an usher had left the poor little kid disappointed.

Not so, the team told the Los Angeles Times. He was only kidding:

The usher took the ball as a joke and returned it to the boy just after the camera shot ended.

"It was all in good fun. Unfortunately, the video cuts away too quickly," Rawitch said. "Within seconds of him taking it away, he walked right back and gave it to him. Everyone ended up happy and smiling."

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Eyder Peralta
Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.