Yasiel Puig meets fan whose tooth he accidentally knocked out

[admin]

Yasiel Puig meets with Dodgers’ fan Alyssa Gerharter two days after accidentally knocking out her tooth. (Yasiel Puig on Twitter) Before leaving New York on Wednesday, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig had a fan to meet and an apology to deliver. According to USA Today Sports, Puig met with Alyssa Gerharter, a 25-year-old Dodgers fan who lives in Manhattan, two days after accidentally knocking her tooth out with a well-intended throw.
[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Baseball contest now]
After catching the final out of Monday’s 8-2 win at Yankee Stadium, Puig attempted to do something nice by tossing the ball toward a group of nearly 40 Dodgers fans.*As the story often goes with Puig though, even when he has the best of intentions, the results tend to backfire on him.*This was one of those instances, as the baseball ended up striking Gerharter*directly in the mouth, knocking out one of her front teeth.

Just got home from the ER… But at least we won the game? @YasielPuig @Dodgers pic.twitter.com/RxwR4HiC12
— Alyssa Gerharter (@alyxxg) September 13, 2016
​

According to the New York Daily News, Gerharter received immediate treatment from the Yankee Stadium ushers before heading to the hospital. She also held no ill will toward Puig, noting that the outcome might have been different had she been wearing a glove.

“I saw it coming at me and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t have a glove to catch this ball. And I think I put my hands up in front of my face. I saw it was coming at me and registered that it was coming at me, and I felt it hit me. It wasn’t so much painful as it was shock. So I felt it hit me and I could feel immediately with my tongue there’s a hole. And I looked down at my hand and saw there’s a tooth in my hand.”
​

“Everybody was going after it. And I guess we all missed,” said Gerharter, who attended the game with a group of “30 or 40” Dodgers fans based in New York. “It was so fast that I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault for not catching it. In our whole group there was only one person who had a glove. So everybody was trying to catch it with their bare hands. I caught it with my face.”
​

Gerharter made an emergency visit to the dentist on Tuesday, where the tooth was re-inserted. She’s hopeful that will be the only dental fallout from her situation, no pun intended.
Regardless, we’re guessing everything was made better on Wednesday, when Puig sought her out and posed for a picture after the Dodgers 2-0 win.

Had to make sure my friend was ok after she was hit with a ball #PuigMyTooth ?????????? pic.twitter.com/D2PLptUX39
— Yasiel Puig (@YasielPuig) September 15, 2016
​

Puig is not perfect, but his intentions were worthy of friendship.
More MLB coverage from Yahoo Sports:

The StewPod: A baseball podcast by Yahoo Sports
Subscribe via iTunes or via RSS feed​

– – – – – – –​

Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
Follow @Townie813