Fan on viral snap: ‘It was a moment, dude’
Flip Lehman felt lucky enough to be sitting in the front row of section 102 at Citizens Bank Park for Game 5 of the World Series on Thursday night. Little did he know his seat — row 1, seat 2 — would treat him to the best possible view of one of the most important plays in Astros history. It also provided him the opportunity to take an iconic photo that has gone viral.
By now you’ve probably seen Lehman’s photo of the stadium’s warning track with the distinct imprint left in the dirt by Astros center fielder Chas McCormick after he had just made what could have been a game-saving ninth-inning catch against the wall in right-center field and then lay starfish on his back soaking it all in. The photo is so clear, not only can you see where McCormick’s arms rested flat on the ground in relief, but you can also make out the No. 20 stitched into the back of his jersey.
Lehman — who grew up in Spring but lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., for his job with Northern Arizona Healthcare — celebrated the big catch next to his close friend Pat White, a Phillies fan who invited Lehman out to the game as a bucket trip type of experience.
“After he catches it, I’m celebrating and going crazy, but then I look down and I told Pat, ‘Man, can you see that? You can see the actual stitching,’ ” Lehman recalled shortly after he landed back in Arizona on Friday night. “I have a super good iPhone, so I was able to get a good shot of it.”
Lehman knew the photo was something worth sharing, but admits he’s “not huge on social media.” So, he texted the photo to a friend and asked him to start sharing it online so people could see it.
“He asked, ‘Is that from the play that just happened right now?,” Lehman laughed. “I told him, ‘Yeah, man. It was right in front of me.’ ”
The photo immediately went viral once Traces of Texas, which has more than 800,000 followers on Facebook, posted it Friday afternoon. Twelve hours after it was posted, more than 7,500 people had shared the photo from the Traces of Texas page. The Astros official Twitter account also posted the photo, which received more than 2,000 retweets.
“I knew it was a cool photo, but I can’t believe it got this big, this fast,” Lehman said.
In his postgame interviews, McCormick described laying on his back after making the grab and looking up into those outfield stands where Lehman was standing. McCormick, who grew up about 30 miles west of the Phillies ballpark, detailed the emotions he saw on the faces of disappointed Phillies fans, but Lehman swears McCormick also locked eyes with him, an Astros fan in a sea of powder blue and red.
“There’s this big crash when Chas goes into the wall, then I step forward and lean over the railing and see Chas laying on the ground,” said Lehman, who took a step away from the wall when he saw the ball coming his way to avoid a Steve Bartman moment. “When he hit the ground and he looked up, you could see how tense his face was and you could see the emotion go from that to relief. His eyes were super big. I’m telling you, it was a moment, dude. You could see the emotion in his face change from tense or scared, to exhilaration, to relief. It all probably happened in about three seconds, but it felt like 20 seconds.”