Shohei Ohtani saved from line drive to the face by Dodgers ball boy’s catch of the year

A Dodgers ball boy made the play of a lifetime on Wednesday when he made a bare-handed catch of a ball that was rocketing towards the bullpen — or perhaps more accurately, rocketing towards Shohei Ohtani’s head.

Ohtani hit the deck immediately, realizing that the errant ball was on a collision course with his face, a move that a majority of other players around him did as well. On this day the bat boy became a bat man, casually plucking it out of thin air and protecting the Dodgers’ $700M investment.

“Protecting the most important player in baseball” is right up there in the pantheon of amazing things a bat boy could achieve. If the team didn’t give this dude a bonus of a lifetime then what are we even doing here? It’s not outside the realm of possibility to think that if that ball actually made contact with Ohtani he would have missed signifiant time, but now we don’t need to worry about that.

Not all heroes wear capes.