COLUMBIA, S.C. — One local teen's home run snag has gone viral after the moment was caught on video on his cell phone.
Farrell Shoemake had quite the start of the week. On Monday, the eighth grader wasn't required to go to school so he and his father and grandpa traveled from Lugoff-Elgin to downtown Columbia to watch college baseball.
Founders Park played host for the NCAA Super Regionals between Virginia and Dallas Baptist.
"I love college baseball and I love baseball, and my grandpa wanted to go, my dad wanted to go," said Shoemake. "I thought it'd be a cool experience because we've been watching the other games on TV, and we thought it'd be cool to come since it's not very often you get to come."
Shoemake plays baseball himself. He's a pitcher and plays in the outfield.
He decided he wanted to catch a home run ball while he was at game.
"I saw that guy come up and I saw he had 20 home runs, and I saw he was a right-handed hitter so I decided, you know, this guy's a right-handed hitter, he might pull it out to left field," explained Shoemake. "He must hit the ball pretty hard and pretty far. So I stood back and I recorded the whole at bat in case he got a hold of one, and he did and I kind of forgot I was recording and kind of put my phone to the ground and tried and went to catch the ball and then I remembered pointing my phone into my glove and showed I caught the ball."
Shoemake said the reason he recorded himself catching the ball is so that he would have proof for his friends to see.
"It was difficult because he hit the ball very hard, and I didn't really know it was going at the first moment," said Shoemake."Somebody gave me a thumbs up told me good job and I just went back to my seat. I mean I didn't know that they got me on camera recording it or anything like that, I just thought it was kind of cool, I was gonna go tell my dad and my grandpa that I caught a home run."
That wasn't the end of it. He got to meet the player who hit the home run, Jackson Glen.
"He was their second baseman, and he gave me an autograph and we took a picture after the game. It was awesome," said Shoemake. "He was really nice and now he's following me on Instagram and, yeah, he was really nice."
Shoemake has this advice for people on his home run snag.
"Seize your moment... I knew it was a long shot but I decided to record it, just in case."