When a baseball comes flying at somebody, the natural reaction is to be temporarily rattled.

Now imagine it happening while reporting live on television. For FOX Sports Wisconsin sideline reporter Sophia Minnaert, the show had to go on — even after an errant throw interrupted a live read.

In the top of the third inning of last Saturday’s game between the Brewers and Pirates, Minnaert was in the middle of a segment when a ball thrown by Brewers shortstop Jean Segura hit the dirt in front of where she was standing, bounced up and struck the bottom of her microphone, sending it flying to the ground.

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Though the ball deflected off of her, Minnaert calmly reached down, picked up the microphone and finished her read.

“Honestly, I didn’t even think about it,” Minnaert said. “I didn’t even know where the microphone was. I was looking around and I finally saw it down by my feet. I just picked it up and kept going.

“To me there was really no thought of doing otherwise. I did think ‘I don’t even know if this microphone works anymore?’ I just went as if nothing happened because if it’s not working they will cut away. I knew they were still on me because the producers were in my ear asking if I was OK. The camera light was still on so I knew I was still live.”

At first, Minnaert didn’t know who threw the ball. After a bit of investigation work, she realized it was Segura’s errant warmup throw that has caused the chaos.

“He didn’t even know anything about it,” Minnaert said. “There were a bunch of guys sitting right there in the dugout and they saw the whole thing and they were just staring at me. They didn’t know what happened either.

“I talked to him (Monday). I asked ‘Was it you that hit me?’ He was like ‘Oh, my God, that hit you? I’m so sorry.’ He felt bad, and he apologized.”

Minnaert knew Brewers broadcasters Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder were going to have some fun with the incident on the broadcast, but she thought that’s where the attention would end.

Instead, she’s seen herself all over the Internet and on television, with most of the attention being positive for her professional response to the ball interrupting her read.

“I’ve been really blown away with how quickly it’s got picked up by so many different sites,” Minnaert said. “I’m fortunate that a lot of the attention has been positive, and I appreciate everyone’s comments. That’s really nice to hear. It’s something we can laugh about now because I’m fine. The reality is, I got really, really lucky. That could have been a really serious injury and it could have turned out much worse than it did.”

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