Sometimes, the best talent comes from the most unexpected places.
That’s a lesson Major League Baseball is learning firsthand.
And now MLB fans’ jaws hit the floor when this batboy went full Bobby Boucher in a scene straight out of The Waterboy.
True talent comes from where you would least expect
Every team in America’s big four professional sports leagues goes to great lengths to ensure they leave no stone unturned in their never-ending quest to find top talent.
Teams search far and wide to identify top prospects, doing extensive research, analysis, and even full-blown investigations into both American and foreign-born players.
As a matter of fact, even though football isn’t played by most of the globe, roughly 3% of NFL players were born outside the U.S.
But no American professional sports league puts as big of an emphasis on finding talented prospects around the world as Major League Baseball.
MLB teams employ countless scouts and player development coaches in numerous countries and regions throughout the world whose sole responsibility is to find hidden gems in the most unexpected places.
As a result, nearly 30% of current MLB players were born outside the U.S.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of those foreign-born MLB players were found in third-world South and Central American countries.
But while other teams are scouring the globe for top talent, one MLB team may have discovered that they’ve had a real-life version of Bobby Boucher from The Waterboy under their noses for some time now.
Dodgers’ batboy the next great talent?
For those unaware, The Waterboy documented the fictional story of the South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs’ 31-year-old waterboy, Bobby Boucher, who was portrayed in the film by Adam Sandler.
After coming out of nowhere to lay a thundering hit on one of the Mud Dogs players who had bullied him during practice, displaying a set of skills that would make him an ideal linebacker, South Central Louisiana State’s coach begged Boucher to join the team.
He ultimately became an All-American and led the Mud Dogs to a win in the Bourbon Bowl
And now, it looks like that story of an undiscovered, once-in-a-lifetime talent coming out of nowhere to be a star may be coming to life in MLB.
Last week, during a game against the Chicago White Sox, the Los Angeles Dodgers players were just enjoying their time in the dugout.
It was just another at bat with nothing unusual going on.
But right when practically the whole Dodgers team was not paying attention to the game, the batter cracked the ball off his bat.
And the ball rocketed towards the Dodgers’ dugout.
In a split second, the Dodgers’ bat boy used his cat-like reflexes to snatch the foul ball right out of the air.
That split-second reaction should be enough to catch the eye of Dodgers’ management.
But the rest of the story is what everyone is talking about.
If the Dodgers’ batboy hadn’t stopped that line drive, future Hall of Famer Shohei Ohtani was likely going to take that ball right to the face.
Bat boy casually saved Shohei Ohtani’s life like it was no big deal @StoolBaseball pic.twitter.com/dK2UqrV0Xf
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) June 27, 2024
And as fast as that foul ball was going, Shohei would have been seriously hurt if he would have been smacked in the skull by that ball.
If the Dodgers don’t sign their batboy to the team for his cat-like reflexes, he should at least get some kind of reward for saving their best player’s life.
