When Aaron Judge broke his first of two late-season home run droughts on the road in Toronto, there was less fanfare than most expected.
The ball didn’t land in a sea of flailing limbs in the left-field seats, nor did it set off an absolute feeding frenzy in the Bronx. Instead, it nestled solidly in the glove of Blue Jays bullpen coach and former minor-league hurler Matt Buschmann, who calmly took it behind the scenes at the Rogers Centre and walked until he saw Zack Britton in the stadium’s underbelly.
Once he knew he’d met a trustworthy foot soldier, he handed the ball over and wiped his hands clean, giving Judge and the Maris family the moment they’d long been waiting for. Miles away across the border, though, Buschmann’s wife Sara Walsh rode an emotional roller coaster before eventually settling on earnest acceptance.
Walsh, a former SportsCenter anchor and current NFL reporter, was hunkered down in Florida waiting out a hurricane when she saw her husband land the crown jewel, then sarcastically spiraled out as she realized he handed the pearl off without getting a king’s ransom in return.
Immediately, she threatened divorce, which you only do online if you’re deadly serious about it, of course. Something tells us she relented soon after, but the trolling damage had already been done.
Blue Jays coach Matt Buschmann maybe regrets giving away Yankees star Aaron Judge home run ball
A light roast, made slightly more devastating by the fact that Walsh was riding out severe weather while Buschmann was following his moral compass towards giving away tens of thousands of dollars.
While Buschmann didn’t immediately set out on the trolling war path, he did place a comeback in his hip pocket, preparing for the right moment.
On Sunday in Munich, Germany, that moment came.
Walsh, on assignment at the NFL’s rip-roaring German debut game featuring the Buccaneers and Seahawks, ended up securing Tom Brady for the postgame interview, making Buschmann — now the one left alone and contemplating — quite nervous.
Good news for Buschmann? Based on the timestamp, he was also in Bavaria with his wife, either watching the game from the stands or waiting in the hotel.
Bad news for Buschmann? Either he got a pretty solid last laugh, or this has become the joke that will never die, and the home run ball giveaway will dog him until the day he either retires from this great game or until he snags Vladdy Jr.’s 63rd one of these years.
Ultimately, Judge crossing the 61st home run mark by a single dinger might’ve saved Buschmann even more embarrassment, but it didn’t save him from Touchdown Tom. Nothing ever does.
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