Awesome Dad Catches Home Run Ball While Holding Baby at Mets Game

We may not always look the part and our cheap sneakers may always have a tinge of green from mowing the lawn, but fathers can be athletes too. In fact, anthropologists argue that humankind has persevered through all of these years because otherwise normal dads tend to turn into incredibly nimble and adroit machines when they are holding their offspring. Long ago it would manifest in the form of fighting off wolves with one hand. In modern times we can still see the shadow of this evolutionary trick whenever a baseball flies in the general direction of a baby-toting dad.

Which happened last night in Flushing when Starling Marte lofted a first-inning home run into the batter's in centerfield. Alan Alcantara, seated next to the railing in right-center and holding his 1-year-old son Levi, sprung into action and snatched the souvenir out of thin air.

Hell yes. We love to see elite child security at play. You can see from the still image above that Alcantara maintained three points of contact, like a running back tasked with running out the clock in a four-minute drill.

"Instinct," he said told the Associated Press. "In the Dominican Republic, we don't all get to have gloves, so we do play baseball barehanded, so I figured I could do it. I did it many times when I was a kid, so why not?"

Between this and the dude who caught the ball while administering a bottle, Team Dad is looking pretty good this year.