“Awful. Embarrasing, even,” an anonymous NL scout was quoted as saying. “I understand they’re kids, but they do have gloves and there are a few dozen of them. They look like the goddamn Keystone Cops out there. I might make an instructional Little League DVD with footage of these schleprocks and call it ‘Whatever they do, you do the opposite.’ ”

The kids selected to shag outfield balls during the Home Run Derby are typically the children or relatives of Major League executives, or may have won a contest from their local Little League. Their job is to retrieve the balls hit into the outfield that didn’t clear the fence or go foul.

American League manager Joe Maddon took some time during the Derby to evaluate the group of ten-to-thirteen year olds. “Noodle arms, terrible footwork, bad reads, awful routes.  One too many one-handed catches when they actually run into one. and to be honest, one too many red heads out there”

ESPN purportedly fitted  their broadcast team with specialized contact lenses that filtered out the children in the outfield to prevent any temptation to ridicule them on a national broadcast. Joe Morgan, in particular, takes every opportunity to criticize any human being not named Joe Morgan, whom he equates to a combination of Jesus, Ghandi, and Barack Obama. “Except Jesus don’t have no plaque in the Hall of Fame,” Morgan said during a commercial break.

Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols also couldn’t ignore the comedy of errors he observed between rounds. “I mean, my stepson is retarded and I know he’d be more coordinated than those kids out there. At least he has an excuse.”

Bud Selig declined comment for this article.