Inside Humor, Baseball Edition

If you've interacted with children's media in any form, you know that they often operate at two levels. There's the excitement and story for the kids, of course, but often there's also a few well-placed or well-timed jokes that go over the heads of little ones, just to keep the parents entertained.

Recently we encountered one that is subtle, subversive, and hilarious if you remember 2003.

Nicholas loves baseball books. He loves dinosaur books. So why not Dino-Baseball? Needless to say, we've read it just about every night since it came home from the library, and quite a few other times besides. It's silly, mostly, narrating a game between the Green Sox (all herbivores!) and the Rib-Eye Reds (not herbivores, if you know what I mean).

At one point, a Red hits a fly ball down the left-field line, which leads to this play:

From 2012 March

If you can't quite tell what happens, a fan nabs the ball away from left fielder Diplodocus. But take a look at the fan. Notice anything familiar? Here's a close-up view:

From 2012 March

Get it yet? If not, take a look at this:

Yes, one of Nicholas's books has ever so subtly inserted a Steve Bartman reference, right down to the headphones. Well played. (If you still don't get it, read the Wikipedia entry.)