Great Clips of the Week: Rainout can't keep Salt Lake Bees from reuniting Utah soldier with family


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UNDER THE STORM CLOUDS — We're hoping you all stayed dry this week.

More showers are expected to hit the Wasatch Front, as the high school sports season wraps up with the 5A and 6A baseball, softball and boys soccer tournaments held across the state.

Storm clouds even forced the 4A baseball tournament to be moved from Ogden's Lindquist Field to Dixie State in St. George.

But they weren't enough to stop the Salt Lake Bees from reuniting one Utah soldier with his family.

As always, click the video above for all of our Great Clips of the Week.

Rain can't halt soldier's reunion

Storms wreaked havoc across the Wasatch Front last week, forcing postponements at the Class 4A state baseball tournament (that will resume Monday and Tuesday in St. George), issuing lengthy delays at the 4A softball tournament in Spanish Fork (before Tooele rallied for its 10th title in school history), and even causing the Salt Lake Bees to move games scheduled Thursday and Friday.

But no amount of rain can prevent a good story — like a soldier being reunited with his family.

That’s Sgt. 1st Class Gary Packer, who has been in Iraq on deployment for the past 18 months, as he silently waited for his family to watch a prerecorded video message at Smith’s Ballpark.

This isn't the first time the Bees have helped successfully orchestrate a soldier's return, either.

The Bees were going to reunite Sgt. Packer with his family prior to Thursday’s game with the Las Vegas Aviators. But even after the game was postponed, Packer exited the clubhouse area and greeted his children with a hug as they stared at the deluge falling on the drenched tarp.

In baseball news, the two teams split a doubleheader Saturday, and the Bees followed it up with a pair of wins, 9-2 and 6-4 in Sunday’s matinee games.

The two sides will conclude the five-game series Monday night at Smith’s Ballpark. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. MT in Angels pitcher Andrew Heaney’s first start of a Major. League rehab assignment.

'Boy, am I impressive'

Marc Schwartz calls baseball games for the Somerset Patriots, the independent Atlanta League team based in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey.

He also moonlights as an outfielder, apparently.

When a batter tipped a foul ball directly at him in the broadcast booth behind the plate, Schwartz didn’t miss a beat as he accurately called his own catch.

And he tweeted about it, too — with a little help from a camera in the stands.

"I am very proud of myself," Schwartz said on the broadcast. "I hope somebody got video of that, as I caught it on the fly. And it’s a 1-2 count."

The video went viral, appearing on broadcasts from ESPN, MLB, CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, and even Jimmy Kimmel Live, according to the independent baseball team.

His "Boy, am I impressive!" call even inspired the Patriots, who made T-shirts with the saying that they began selling in the team store. All proceeds will benefit the Patriots Children’s Foundation for health, military and education programs in the Central New Jersey area.

Be careful what you tweet

As a reminder for all users of social media (which most of you probably are): be careful what you share and what you post, in general.

The Twitter accounts for the football teams at Iowa and Iowa State were suspended this weekend, reportedly over copyright violations via music used in a "limited number of posts in 2018," the Des Moines Register reported Saturday.

Both schools were actively working with Twitter to restore the accounts according to spokesmen with both universities.

Let that be a lesson for the rest of us.

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