Story:
Evan Longoria saves a reporter with bare hand catch.
Other Versions
1. Watch Evan Longoria save a reporter’s life with a bare hand catch of baseball.
2. Tampa Bay Ray and Gillette Young Gun Evan Longoria makes a crazy bare hand catch right before it hits a reporter.
3. Evan Longoria’s crazy bare hand catch..
Fact Check:
The messages circulating online are associated with an interesting video that claims to show an amazing bare-hand catch of a batting practice ball by the Tampa Bay infielder Evan Longoria during an interview on the field; thereby saving the reporter’s life.
Evan Longoria’s Amazing Catch Saves a Reporter’s Life
About the Video
As shown in the video clip that looks like an on-field interview of Evan Longoria, a batting practice ball appears to be heading straight at the interviewing woman’s head, when Longoria shows amazingly fast reflexes and catches the ball with bare hand – saving the reporter’s life. Post the catch, Longoria also tells his teammates to “keep it on the field.” While many people wonder about the authenticity of this crazy bare-hand catch, the video is not new; it’s rather an old one that was posted on YouTube on 6 May 2011 by user MrSprts12. As of this writing, the channel has only this video, with a description saying:
Tampa Bay Ray and Gillette Young Gun Evan Longoria makes a crazy bare hand catch right before it hits a reporter.
Official Response
The video went viral when it was posted in 2011; raising questions whether it is real or fake. Back then, Longoria said the video was shot at McKechnie Field in Bradenton with a handheld camera in one take in about five minutes, perhaps suggesting it’s authentic. However, Michael Norton, a Gillette spokesman told PolitiFact.com, “The video was filmed while on location for a Gillette Fusion ProGlide commercial. We’ll leave the ‘is it real?’ debate up to the viewers.”
Facts
In the video, when you watch the slower version of the catch closely, you can notice that the trajectory of the ball appears a bit unrealistic. You can also watch the Gillette logo displayed on either side of Longoria’s head. Moreover, in 2011, Evan Longoria was a member of the Gillette ‘Young Guns’ 2011 advertising campaign. All this concludes to saying the event was staged as a commercial for Gillette – mostly using computer graphics. Another similar Gillette advertisement claimed to show a seemingly off-the-cuff Tennis trick shot from Roger Federer. So the video showing an amazing catch by Evan Longoria, claiming to save a reporter’s life is a hoax. Companies often come up with eye-grabbing viral videos like this to build their brand.
Hoax or Fact:
Hoax.
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