Atlanta Braves Batboy Uses Actual Bat In Cruel Hoax

A real, winged bat flew onto the field in the middle of last night's Phillies-Braves game. If you've seen this story by now, you probably think that the batboy scooped the bat from shortstop Paul Janish's glove and then ran, cradling it, to the Braves dugout. You may have read or incorrectly invoked the term "irony" to explain the phenomenon. Maybe you read or even thought up a Christian Bale joke. That would be unfortunate, because everything you think you saw was a lie.

When Janish opened the glove to hand the bat to the batboy, the bat flew away. After a moment of surprise, though, Janish recovered and pretended to still hand the bat to the batboy. He played along, ran an empty towel back to the Braves dugout, and scared the everloving shit out of Dan Uggla.

But, like... who does that? What batboy would bring a wild, potentially parasite-ridden, rabid animal to his home dugout? Look at that batboy. Look at his jawline. Look at his glutes. Batboy's a grown ass man. Batboy can reason. More importantly, he wants to Be There. Batboy, we suspect, would sooner crush the bat in the towel than put Uggla in danger.

Logic aside, though, this was a pretty good prank, and if you ignore the part where the bat flies out of Janish's glove, the handoff looks perfect. So you can see why Chip Caray got it completely wrong and just went with it. And how at first we did, too. Because we're all sheeple.

You're welcome, America.