The T-shirt thief

Friday evening we went with a group of friends to our local AAA baseball team's (the Sky Sox) military appreciation game. Active duty (including spouse and children get free tickets). Our friend didn't get our tickets early enough in the week and we got suck with tickets for the grass - which is from third base to the outfield wall on the left field side of the field. This wasn't a bad place to be sitting. We all brought our blankets and had an area where the kids (there were 6) could play without bothering others!

If you've ever been to AAA a baseball game, you know that sometimes between innings they play these silly games with either the entire crowd or just a few select people. Well, we were doing this see-which-side-of-the-field-can-yell-the-loudest type game to get t-shirts thrown into our side of the crowd. Our side won and they began throwing t-shirts up into the crowd. One came right to us and landed right in the middle of our blankets and as the kids were all scrambling and tripping over each other to try to get to it this man from a few blankets over runs up and just swipes it right off our blanket (he even had to reach over one of the kids). At that point Jacob had been the closest to the shirt and as he was going for it this man just stole it right out from under him......... SHOCK. And all the other people around us saw what happened and you could hear them talking about how awful it was.

Michael got up, but sat back down (I think he needed to calm down a little before he confronted the guy). By this time, Jacob had started bawling, he was sobbing horribly saying things like "that man took my shirt" and "That was mine, I want it back" all while sobbing VERY loudly. Michael finally said something to the guy "hey man, he's only 4" and "that was pretty rude" and "nice lesson you're teaching to your kids sitting there with you".... UGH.

I guess his conscience (or maybe the fact that so many people saw and heard what was going on) got to him and he sent his 7/8ish year old daughter to return the shirt. I can't believe he'd send his daughter to return that, but then again, I guess people like that can't stand up and admit their mistakes. Jacob was totally happy to get the shirt and said thank you to the girl and everything!

A few minutes passed and Michael went over and shook the guys hand and said something to him - I don't know what because he was too far away, but it all turned out ok in the end. I'm sad that Jacob had to learn how people can really be in such a rough way. It broke my heart to not be able to do anything about it, but I'm glad it all worked out.