Second Thoughts

Team pays for slugger's HR to upper deck

When Oakland A’s slugger Ryon Healy is at the plate, fans would be well-advised to be alert — and to put away their cellphones.
When Oakland A’s slugger Ryon Healy is at the plate, fans would be well-advised to be alert — and to put away their cellphones.

Oakland A's slugger Ryon Healy smashed more than a second-inning home run in Tuesday night's victory against the Seattle Mariners. He also smashed the phone of a Mariners fan who was sitting in the upper deck of Safeco Field where the ball landed.

A baseball fan should know the rules here: It's up to the fan to watch for flying items leaving the field. That includes 443-feet, upper-deck home run. It's nobody's fault but the fan's if their phone gets smashed.

But the fan in question -- a college student who identified himself as Peter Johnson -- wasn't going to let this go without at least trying to hold the A's accountable. Even though his phone was smashed, Johnson was able to fire off this tweet from his seat:

"@Athletics can you guys please buy me a new phone your 2 run shot broke mine"

The A's proved to be very nice about the smashed phone and told Johnson they'd replace the damage done by Healy's home run.

That's nice of the A's -- and a good result for Johnson. The only losers here, really, were the Mariners, who were abused by long balls in more ways than one. They lost 9-6 after two ninth-inning Oakland home runs led to a comeback victory.

Emotion check

Patrick Reed and Patrick Cantlay are on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum when it comes to golf, so it was intriguing to see them as partners in the Zurich Classic a few weeks ago.

"I tried to teach him how to slam a club or something," Reed said. "Some emotion."

Apparently, it didn't work.

"I'll never forget 12, ever," Reed said. "I think that will be in the back of my mind for my whole career. The guy hits every fairway he looks at. For him to step up on a tee and duck-hook one so far left, to literally just watch it fly, bend down, pick up his tee, hand the driver to his caddie as if he hit it 320 down the middle ... I'm sitting here like, 'What are you doing?' I swear, my driver would have been somewhere else."

Reed has played in the Walker Cup, Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and now the Zurich Classic. As for the partner who comes close to matching his emotion? He thought about it when Jordan Spieth's name came up.

"Jordan gets a little heated every once in a while," Reed said. "I just think he complains to his caddie a lot. He doesn't really get very angry at himself, he kind of complains to Michael [Greller] a lot. ... A lot of guys show emotion, it's just kind of hard to tell who kind of shows it the way I do."

Eat your Wheaties

Jordan Spieth is joining the long list of athletes to be depicted on a Wheaties cereal box.

The 2015 Masters and U.S. Open champion said Tuesday that he will be on 4 million Wheaties boxes in the fall. Spieth, of Dallas, is playing in the Byron Nelson tournament starting today in Irving, Texas.

Spieth, 23, said it is "really cool" to be on the Wheaties box because he "used to walk down the aisle of the grocery store whenever my mom used to drag me along and always want to see who was on the cover."

Spieth first emerged as a 16-year-old amateur at the Nelson in 2010, when he contended on Sunday and finished 4 under. But the Nelson isn't among his nine career PGA Tour victories.

Sports quiz

Where did Ryon Healy attend college?

Sports answer

Oregon

Sports on 05/18/2017

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