Cardinals’ outfielder Tyler O’Neill destroyed a broadcast camera behind home plate with a foul ball

We’ve seen quite a few cameras destroyed by foul balls during MLB games over the last few years, and the latest came in the St. Louis Cardinals-Miami Marlins game Tuesday night. In the second inning, Cardinals’ outfielder Tyler O’Neill (playing left field in this one) fouled off a pitch from Sandy Alcántara, and he caught the behind-home-plate camera from Bally Sports Sun right on its lens:

Tyler O'Neill just destroyed the camera behind home plate pic.twitter.com/hfC2dOvl0K

— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) April 6, 2021

BREAKING: broken pic.twitter.com/rcuNEbzytG

— Miami Marlins (@Marlins) April 6, 2021

That produced quite the damage, as this one screengrab form the broadcast shows:

Tyler O’Neill 1. Camera 0 pic.twitter.com/FMF8SCLksn

— Chuck Dorway (@CHICKENFOOTCHUC) April 6, 2021

And as that clip from the Marlins shows, this led to a bit of a delay while the team found someone with the appropriate level of on-field credentials (tougher in a COVID-19 era) who could sweep up the glass.

In some ways, though, this was a better moment for O’Neill than what he did in the first inning. There, he committed a fielding error that allowed two runs to score. At least the camera destruction didn’t hurt his team in the box score (although his subsequent strikeout did).

[@Marlins on Twitter]