You Can't Kill Baseball Fans During West Coast Road Trips

We all knew baseball can keep kids out of trouble, give total strangers something to talk about, and sometimes give hope and solace to a grieving nation (see: 2001). But we didn't think baseball was capable of saving someone's life.

Wednesday night, a 36-year-old Chicago Cubs fan stayed up late to watch his team play a road game at the San Francisco Giants. Were he asleep at his normal bedtime, his torso could have stopped an errant bullet from next door.

As it turns out, his neighbor was merely moving the gun out of his nightstand, and it went off:

I just forgot the damn thing was loaded," said [Larz] Nordstrom, 82, a retired General Motors engineer who answered the door wearing only his undershorts.

Okay, even I put on pants when I field questions from the newspaper reporters, provided their daily circulation is at least 50,000.

But the Cubs fan was extremely lucky to have not been lying in his bed at that very moment. Of course, minutes later, an airplane engine from above crashed into his apartment, killing him.

Fan: Cubs Saved My Life [Sun-Times] It's Not Luck, It's Baseball [UmpBump]