Ferrer "Baby-Gate": LEAVE HIM ALONE

I personally am annoyed that I even feel the need that I have to compose a blog about how David Ferrer DID NOT HIT A TENNIS BALL AT A BABY. To recap for those who have not heard about the incident, Ferrer was having a tough day at the office yesterday in his match against Mardy Fish. His tummy was not feeling well, he was not playing well, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated. Cue the idiot in the crowd who brought their baby to the match. The baby started to cry during Ferrer’s serve, because that’s what babies do, THEY CRY. Ferrer’s concentration was disrupted, he lost the point, and he was annoyed and lobbed a ball into the crowd in the general direction of the baby. Check out the video below to see exactly what happened for yourself:

A small incident in an otherwise one-sided match, right? Oh, but then the mainstream media picked this up and ran with it. Apparently there is not anything important going on in the world newswise. Should we run a story on wars, civil unrest, nuclear disasters, or the economy? Nah! Let’s take the video of the guy hitting a ball in the crowd and make him out to be a villainous asshole. “Live at Five, Tennis Player tries to hit crying baby in the crowd with a ball. Despicable!”

How did I know the story truly got out of hand? I live in Boston and the sports story that my local news went with this morning was not Red Sox opening day, but Ferrer baby-gate. For those of you unfamiliar with Boston let me explain that ALL OTHER NEWS pales before the Red Sox. All this city cares about are the flipping Red Sox, ESPECIALLY on opening day. All the news will talk about from now until November is “Big Papi” this and “Tim Wakefield” that. It gets so out of hand that I’m forced to watch the local news on mute until the weather report comes on. But even the friggin’ Red Sox got bumped for footage of Ferrer hitting a baby. Seriously?!?!?!

I’m sorry, but 1) Ferrer DID NOT HIT THE BABY. He lobbed the ball in the general direction of the guy with the baby but did not even hit the ball into the crowd that hard. He was not AIMING at the baby. Stop framing the story to make him look like a horrible person. If I was in his position, I would be royally pissed off too.

2) WHO BRINGS A BABY TO A TENNIS MATCH??? ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S DANGEROUSLY HOT & HUMID OUTSIDE!!! If you have a baby and want to watch tennis you either get a babysitter or you stay home. Not wanting an infant crimping your style or keeping you away from tennis matches was perhaps something you should have thought about BEFORE you procreated. A person who brings a baby to a tennis match is the same sort of asshole who will let their kids run around and scream in public places and not even try to control them, nay, they’ll ignore them completely while they shop or eat out or whatever activity they want to do that is not kid friendly. These people are the scum of the earth and deserve to be publicly shamed accordingly.

So lay off Ferrer, people. Was it a mistake to hit the ball into the crowd? Sure, but really, can you blame him? Stop shitting on a person who is otherwise known to be a really good guy. I mean, come on, it’s not like it was a notorious asshole who did it (*cough* Soderling *cough*). It was Ferru! How can you hate on a sweet guy like this?