Last week, we were full of oohs and ahs after a Cirque du Soleil performer delivered one of the most ridiculously fantastic first pitches in baseball history, said the guy using hyperbole. But the fine people at San Diego’s PETCO Park can go back to the drawing board because all of the front flips and barrel rolls in the world can’t top yesterday’s first pitch at Fenway Park.
The family of U.S. Navy Petty Officer Bridget Lydon gathered on the pitcher’s mound prior to yesterday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays for a special video greeting from Lydon. But as they watched the video, Lydon stepped out from behind a giant American flag and greeted her family in person for the first time since she was deployed on the USS Ronald Reagan in 2009. Lydon returned on the Reagan recently after a quick stop in Japan to aid tsunami and earthquake victims, but her family had no clue she was homeward bound. Me and my tear ducts agree that this was a pretty damn good surprise. And while Lydon’s pitch was way off target, I’m betting that most Red Sox fans would have rather left her in, instead of letting John Lackey take the mound.
After the jump, I’ve got video of Lydon talking about the opportunity, but it’s obviously not nearly as good as the actual video of her introduction and family’s reaction, which you can view at MLB.com, since Bud Selig’s gestapo won’t let us no good bloggers have embedding privileges. Seriously, though, every team should do this every game. For the next 200,000 or so games. That would be pretty nice.
