Apple Pays Ransom For Baseball

Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook had some fun this week at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Cook, the keynote speaker, informed the audience that Apple paid a ransom to save a kidnapped baseball.

The story all started last week when Brandon Moss of the Cleveland Indians cracked the 100th home run of his career against the Kansas City Royals. His mistake was hitting it into the Indians’ bullpen where his teammates swiped the ball and delivered a ransom note to Moss. The 11 conspirators quickly scrawled a ransom note and left it on Brandon’s locker. The list of demands included several Apple products — iPads, iPhones, Apple Watches, and MacBook Airs. They also demanded a 50-gallon drum of lube. Bloomberg reported that Apple will meet the demands, minus the lube, with Cook saying they felt they had to help Moss out.

“It’s a shopping list for the Apple Store. Brandon would have had to raid an Apple Store to get that ball back. That didn’t seem quite right to us. And, so, what we’re gonna do, is we’re gonna pay the ransom.”

Moss was apparently willing to let the ball stay with his teammates. The nine-year veteran, who is in his first season with the Indians, felt the demands were simply too high, even though he will make $6.5 million this season. He told Cleveland.com that he wished someone else would have grabbed it.

“I saw they caught the ball, but they said, ‘No, no, no’. Then I see the list and I said, ‘I think I can do none of this. This is like $10 grand worth of stuff. I would have rather a fan caught the ball.'”

But Apple came to the rescue and now the ball can find a home in Brandon’s trophy case. There is no word yet on the status of the 50-gallon drum of lube and maybe it is best for all involved if that status remains a secret.

Apple also attended to some serious business. As reported on earlier at the Inquisitr, Apple gave a few details about its upcoming music service that will feature a new streaming platform and a major software update for the Apple Watch.

It was nice to see Apple get involved in this fun baseball story, and the free advertising of some of Apple’s biggest products certainly didn’t hurt. Having a sense a humor rarely hurts when trying to draw in customers, and in this case, Apple hit it out of the park.

[Image Source: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images]