Keith Hartley catches a baseball while bottle-feeding his baby at a Major-league Baseball game. Source: Supplied

But in my child-carrying career I’ve never pulled off anything quite as astonishing as what Chicago fan Keith Hartley managed during Tuesday night’s Cubs-Dodgers game at Wrigley Field. In the second inning, Cubs pitcher Jason Hammel was at the plate and hit a foul ball that drifted off the first-base line and toward the seats. Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez scrambled over to

OK, it’s pretty nuts, right? Hartley makes a clean catch while holding his 7-month-old son Isaac and (here’s the truly astonishing part) managing to keep bottle-feeding him in the process. It’s a nifty piece of barehanded defence, totally composed. If Hartley played for Kansas City, he would be a lock for the All-Star Game.

Of course, it’s not as cute as that. Hartley’s manoeuvre was ruled to be fan interference — Gonzalez clearly had an opportunity to catch the ball — so Hammel was called out and the inning ended.

And then there’s the matter of the, uh, baby. What if he messed up the catch? Bobbled the ball? What if the 102kg Gonzalez had barged into him? Watching live baseball is not an entirely risk-free experience. You don’t really want to consider the possibilities.

Hartley — who actually wasn’t sitting in the first-row seats, because he wanted to protect his son — was quoted by ESPN.com’s Jon Greenberg as saying the catch was actually an act of preventative defence.

“Baseball is not a new thing to me,” he said. “I didn’t want to hit the ledge and hit him, so I wanted to make first contact, I think.”