Here’s Why Bill Burr Would Refuse to Give a Foul Ball to a Stranger’s Kid

Taking a baseball away from a kid might make you a Karen, but according to Bill Burr, giving it to them could very well make them fat.

The world of professional baseball and social media at large are in uproar over a heated confrontation between Philadelphia Phillies fans over a home run ball this past weekend. In a clip from the Phillies’ 9-3 road win on Friday against the Seattle Mariners that has since gone astronomically viral, a father can be seen chasing after a home run hit by Phillies center fielder Harrison Bader and bringing the ball to his young son, who briefly celebrates with the souvenir until an irate woman dressed in Phillies gear and donning a short, bleach-blonde haircut, accosts them both. After a moment of intense argument, the father surrenders the ball to the woman, who storms back to her seat in triumph.

Thus began an internet-wide search to identify and shame the “Phillies Karen,” the intensity of which would trick you into thinking that she must have run down the boy and his father in her dented silver Cadillac Escalade after the game to warrant a reaction of this scale. Even though both the Phillies and Marlins organizations immediately compensated the boy and his dad for their trouble with generous gifts following the game, including a signed bat hand-delivered by Bader himself, Twitter warriors have spent the last few days falsely identifying various middle-aged women across the country as the infamous ball-stealer in failed attempts to deliver doxxing “justice.”

At the same time, the disproportionately murderous manhunt in which many sports fans have participated following the viral incident has inspired a small resurgence of interest in a certain 2014 Conan appearance by Burr, during which Burr argued that the only gift any kid should receive when a ball falls in their section at a MLB game is an elbow straight to the temple.

While Burr’s explanation for the rise of childhood obesity in America is about as strong as a fourth-grader’s grip on a foul ball in Fenway circa 1978, there’s something to be said about how the atmosphere of the average MLB game has changed in order to coddle the feelings and experiences of young fans. Hell, even the way the Phillies and the Mariners organizations both jumped into action to shower the aggrieved father and son in gifts following the “Phillies Karen” incident shows just how much baseball culture has turned soft on today’s kids.

In an age of participation trophies and free souvenirs, young baseball fans simply aren’t developing the rough edges and tough exterior necessary in order to grow up to be legendary rant comedians, and we’re all going to suffer those consequences in 40 years when Gen Alpha has no one to roast their own trillionaires and tech moguls who try to hijack what’s left of American society while the rest of us are left scrapping over the last sip of clean water. 

But, hey, when things get that dire, one lucky Phillies fan is going to be glad to have a baseball bat handy.