Throwing a home run ball back at an MLB game is one of my favorite traditions in sports because of how much it says.
People will go to great lengths to get their grubby paws on a ball at a Big League game — sometimes very controversial lengths — which is why throwing back a visiting team's long-ball sends such a message.
A message that says, "Your home run means nothing to me."
While we see this done all around the league many times a year, you don't often get to see an ex-NHLer throwing one back, but that's what we got on Friday night during a game between the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners.
Ryan Kesler played parts of 15 seasons in the National Hockey League, the bulk of which were spent with the Vancouver Canucks, with whom he appeared in the infamous 2011 Stanley Cup Final against the Boston Bruins.
Kesler, who hails from the Detroit area, last played in the NHL back in 2019, and it would appear that these days he likes to spend at least part of his post-retirement life hitting up Tigers games.
On Friday night, the Mariners were leading the Tigers 8-3 in the top of the ninth inning when Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh blasted his 38th home run of the season, which also happened to be a grand slam.
Some eagle-eyed viewers eventually noticed that the guy who caught the home run ball and chucked it back was none other than a pretty unhappy-looking Ryan Kesler.
You can understand why he didn't look too pumped, and that was because the Tigers were getting destroyed (Also, was the guy behind him wearing a Cubs shirt to a Tigers-Mariners game?).
A tough night indeed for the Tigers and their fans, but props to Ryan Kesler for being a real fan and throwing that one back.
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