Oh, fiddle dee dee. Amazing ball girl catch is neither...

 

Biobabbler was made a fool of, kinda.

This wonderful, evocative painting, "Stańczyk" by Jan Matejko, is alternately titled "Stańczyk during a Ball at the Court of Queen Bona after the Loss of Smolensk."*

I leaped before I looked.

On Facebook, I JUST posted a link to an article on how to check quotes & other Internet content for veracity. You know, pre-promulgation.

I figure this is especially important as I facebook and blog and tweet. Should get things straight.

So, bb checks out the article, and the first site they mention to check is snopes.com. So, I go. And I see the little twitter bird. "Oh, that'd be a good idea. Keep up with the latest sham-tastic thing." Good blogger.

Yeah, well, so the VERY 1st tweet I see is this:

"Video purportedly shows a ball girl making an amazing catch at a minor league baseball game. http://bit.ly/mStOq9"

Uh, "purportedly?"

Ruh roh....

Yup, FAKE! That video was a DRAFT commercial that did not get released, the "ball girl" is a professional stunt woman, and there were wires and big dudes off screen pulling on them involved.

Well, Crappity Mc.Crap-Crap.

NOT an amazing leap by some super athletic little ball girl.

However, after some mourning that it's not an amazing exhibition of Girl Power, I come to realize what it means.

Apparently leaps like this remain the purview
of ungulates and other wildlife,
not humans.

These incredible feats do happen.**
They can be witnessed.

Bighorn sheep at Grand Canyon NP (photo Marcin Wichary)

The amazing athletes just won't be wearing tennis shoes.

bb

*Allegedly, this painting implies that this jester, Stańczyk, a real person, btw, is the only attendee at a royal ball who is adversely affected by news that the Russians had wrested control of Smolensk from Lithuania (1514). According to Wiki, he "was the most famous court jester in Polish history. He was employed by three Polish kings: Alexander, Sigismund the Old and Sigismund Augustus." He is "remembered as a man of great intelligence and a political philosopher gifted with formidable insight into Poland's current and future situation. He used his job to criticize and warn his contemporaries by the use of satire." Brings to mind a certain modern day satirist.

** See 2nd hand account, from bb friend within the 1st ball girl post.