The ritual started in Chicago's Wrigley Field and has occasionally made an appearance at other stadiums around the league. The visiting team hits a home run, a fan catches the ball, hesitates—because they are rare to catch— pressure from fellow fans rise, then tosses the ball back onto the field. The ritual has caught on,rather quickly, in Philadelphia within the past several years.
Last night at Citizens Bank Park, a game the Phillies were embarrassed 14-3 by San Diego, a new participant emerged in the practice. In the top half of the 5th Adrian Gonzalez homered to deep center field on the back end of back to back homers by the Padres.
Unlike the Milton Bradley homer, which landed in the seats and found its way back to the field, Gonzalez's landed in the shrub-covered area beyond the center field wall. Swallowed by a small bush.
Seconds later, with a dejected crowd looking on, the ball was projected out of the bush and back to the field. This was not a case of trickery or magic, but one pissed off shrub. The crowd roared into a frenzy and began to chant "shrub, shrub, shrub."
A shaken shrub, which lost two branches, said, "They were playing horribly and I was upset. And the Phillies pay someone else to do the pruning."
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