Today we look back at a video which went viral in 2008, featuring an amazing catch by a ball girl at a baseball game. In the video, a ball girl runs down a long fly ball down the line and climbs the wall to make a spectacular catch. But is it real?
It’s fake.
Although the actual game footage looks authentic, the video was actually a 2008 advertising spot for Gatorade. The creative, conceived by the advertising firm Element 79, used brilliant video trickery and editing to pull off this lifelike amazing catch by stunt-woman Phoenix Brown. Take a look at the video below.
An article written about the video by Advertising Age notes that:
It’s certainly an amazing fabrication of an amazing play. The ball girl is a stunt-woman who was lifted by cables as she planted her feet against the wall, a sequence cut into actual game footage and enhanced with a perfectly natural sounding announcer track.
Part of the footage was filmed during a real game with the remainder shot later. ABC.30.com noted:
The ad was filmed at Chukchansi Park, some during a Grizzlies game in April of 2008 and some done with about 100 fans and players that stayed late. The effect is topped off by the ball girl’s nothing-to-it attitude as she calmly returns her chair. Don’t forget the bottle of Gatorade beside the chair.
The video was “leaked” in mid-2008 and quickly amassed hundreds of thousands of views. Years later, it currently boasts over 6 million views on YouTube and is still wowed by those who never saw it the first time around.
It is still common to see the video shared on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Bottom Line
The impressive “amazing catch” by a ball girl was a 2008 marketing video for Gatorade. The video shows a stunt woman who was lifted by cables in order to create the effect of a superhuman catch.
Revised June 3, 2016
Originally published February 2014
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