ASU Baseball: The pitch seen around the country, we reflect on Sewald’s weekend going viral

(Photo: Dominic Cotroneo/WCSN)

It has been almost a week, does Eric Byrnes know what happened yet?

The play has appeared on sports’ sites around the country and every baseball parody twitter account.

Everyone has seen Johnny Sewald do what he does best–get hit by a pitch. What happened after is what drove the world batty.

“It was crazy, you would never think a little thing like that would make it big,” the junior Sewald said. “On Sunday my phone was just blowing up—it was unbelievable. Every two seconds, a new notification on Twitter, Instagram, all this stuff.”

If you haven’t seen the play, credit Pac-12 Networks for recognizing the feat everyone watching the game witnessed. Their social media team was quick to the punch with a looping vine of the clip, a full highlight with replays, and a spot on their weekly show, Pac-12 Sports Report. There was only one man who overshadowed Sewald catching and tossing the pitch back to his foe.

“I think what made that particularly special and unique, was Eric Byrnes’ commentary of it,” Tracy Smith said, who had a clear view of the play from the top step of the dugout. “I’ve seen balls that pitchers have hit players and it didn’t hit the ground and they roll it back to him. I didn’t think at the time it was that big of a deal. But boy did it ever take off.”

Sewald just acted natural and didn’t allow it to set in until later.

“I come in the dugout and everyone was like ‘Dude, did you just catch that ball?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah, I guess I did.’ Honestly, I didn’t even realize it at the time. I caught it and flipped back to him and I just thought ‘He’s still gotta pitch so he needs a ball, so here ya go,’” Sewald said.

Deadspin, ESPN, MLB Cut 4, and every other site on Earth seemed like they picked up the headline: “Arizona State player catches ball, and tosses it back to the pitcher,” but Sewald understood the big picture of the play and wanted to be clear about his intentions.

“It was an 0-2 count, with two outs, and two guys on, obviously it wasn’t on purpose or anything like that,” the center fielder said. “I think he might have thought I was showing him up but I really wasn’t. It was kind of a freak accident that just happened.”

The plunking even found its way to former Sun Devil infielder Willie Bloomquist.

“I can’t tell you the exact words of his text,” Smith said. “But he said ‘That Sewald looked like a…'” Use your imagination, but it was a compliment. “He goes, ‘Tell him that was awesome.'”

“The coolest thing for me was seeing it on Around the Horn. They just showed a little clip and I’ve watched that show for ten years now and it was really cool to see myself on ESPN; I never thought that would happen,” Sewald said. “It was a really cool experience. It’s pretty nice to get your little 15 minutes of fame.”

Dominic Cotroneo is a Pac-12 Digital broadcaster for ASU Baseball and you can follow him on Twitter @Dom_Cotroneo

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