The latest addition to the Topps Now pantheon: Liz McGuire, a 40-year-old project manager from Toronto. His feat: getting drilled with a 110 mph foul ball during Friday night’s Toronto Blue Jays game and, despite a baseball-sized knot on his forehead, staying until the last pitch .
“The Jays were starting a rally,” McGuire said. “That could have been something.”
It failed. The Blue Jays lost to the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3.
𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗡: We created a custom Topps Now trading card of Liz McGuire: the fan who took a 110 mph foul ball to the head from Bo Bichette and STAYED IN THE GAME.
We produced exactly 110 copies and we are offering them all to @lizzzzzzzzzzy.
Liz, you are a champion! 👑❤️ pic.twitter.com/7B9eKyharg
– Topps (@Topps) May 20, 2024
A Blue Jays spokesperson said in a statement that the team has taken several precautions to protect fans, including netting that surrounds home plate from first to third base. Doctors, nurses and first responders work every game and immediately monitor fans when objects fly into the stands, which is what happened with McGuire.
Protective nets in professional stadiums have improved in recent years. In 2018, Major League Baseball announced that all 30 ballparks across the league would extend protective netting to at least the ends of both dugouts in the upcoming season. The move came after teams independently began widening their net following incidents in which fans were injured by foul balls. In its announcement, the league specifically mentioned an event on September 20, 2017, in which Yankees third baseman Todd Frazier threw a foul ball at 105 mph into the stands, injuring a young girl who had to be hospitalized.
In 2022, Major League Baseball agreed to require the extension of protective netting to all minor club teams by the 2025 season.
McGuire said she doesn’t blame the Blue Jays and considers herself a super fan of the team. A fly fisherman, her profile picture on the social media platform X is a trout wearing a Blue Jays hat, and she has attended about half of the 48 games the team has played this season.
On Friday, she went to the game with three friends and, late in the seventh inning, they were discussing what McGuire considered to be poor calls by an umpire.
That’s when Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette came to the plate with one out and his team was losing 4-0. During an at-bat that would end with a fly to center field, Bichette crushed a pitch, ripping the ball into the seats along the third-base line.
McGuire was looking left toward the outfield, pleading for Major League Baseball’s robot umpires to call balls and strikes, when she heard the crack of the bat and a scream, causing her to jerk her head back toward home plate just in time for the ball. to hit the right side of his forehead.
McGuire experienced a split second of darkness but never faded. Her adrenaline raging, she stood up. One of her friends told her she had been hit, and when McGuire asked if she was OK, he told her it was serious, she recalled. She felt her forehead swell and used her phone’s camera to confirm that the goose egg was already “rocking.”
Minutes later, Blue Jays doctors reached her, loaded her into a cart and took her to get ice and an over-the-counter painkiller. While she was being treated, McGuire said, she spotted the woman who had ended up with the ball that had hit her and begged her to give up the ball — to no avail. Her friends had already tried near their seat, offering her hundreds of dollars in exchange, she added. The woman refused, despite the crowd shouting: “Give him the ball!” before leaving the game early, McGuire said.
“I didn’t even get the ball,” she said. “It felt like a social pact had been broken.”
McGuire returned to her spot for the final two pitches and watched as the Rays added a little insult to her injury by beating the Blue Jays 4-3.
After the game, McGuire and her friends walked about 10 minutes to the nearest emergency room where medical staff determined she did not have a concussion and used X-rays to confirm that the The impact had not broken any bones.
But the next day, McGuire felt nauseous and tired, which landed her back in the emergency room. Using a CT scan, doctors ruled out any brain hemorrhage and diagnosed a probable concussion.
On Sunday night, she posted on Bo Bichette. I didn’t even get the ball. I even stayed until the end of the match. Can you go out with a girl?
The tweet has since racked up 15 million views.
Topps was watching, and a few hours later he responded with a question: “Topps Now Card?” The series has a reputation for being bold, including creating a card for the beekeeper who responded last month to a swarm of bees that delayed a Dodgers-Diamondbacks game in Phoenix. The caption: “Frightened bee, very frightened bee: bees are swarming in Arizona. »
On Monday, the trading card company posted two more tweets asking McGuire to send a direct message to talk about “an idea!”
She did so, and later that day they worked together to design and plan the rollout of her trading card. The card is anchored by the selfie McGuire took minutes after he was hit, a worried look on his face, a Blue Jays cap resting lightly on his head, and a goose egg that might be the size of a real swollen goose egg at the top of his right eyebrow. .
The card’s caption: “Fan carries a 110 mph foul ball like a champ.” »
Topps did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post.
The trading card company made 110 cards, a nod to how quickly Bichette hit the ball that would pin McGuire moments later. McGuire said she plans to auction a few of them, with part of the proceeds going to charity, including the concussion center at Holland Bloorview Children’s Rehabilitation Hospital, just outside from Toronto. She also plans to donate it to the Jays Care Foundation, the charitable arm of the Blue Jays. Others will go to her nieces and nephews, who she said were traumatized by what happened.
McGuire is already back on horseback. On Tuesday night, she went to a Blue Jays game in which the White Sox crushed the home team 5-0. She said she gets scared every time the bat makes contact with the ball, something she hopes will fade with time.
But she planned to attend Wednesday night’s rematch against the White Sox. She said she was thrilled to receive a baseball signed by Bichette. The Blue Jays also offered him tickets to an upcoming game and gave him access to batting practice.
McGuire said the experience exposed her to the “ups and downs of humanity.” She was baffled by the woman who insisted on keeping something McGuire felt she was entitled to. She was also stunned when she checked the comments on her X-rated post. Expecting vitriol for not paying attention, McGuire instead found people showing support and wishing her well. and recommending treatment for his injury.
But a famous trading card company immortalizing him among the sport’s best players was the best part of all.
“Topps is top notch,” she said.
washingtonpost
