Manu Ginobili vs. A Bat, Manu Wins….decisively!!!

Late in the first period of the Spurs win over the Kings on Saturday a bat swooped into the AT&T Center and descended onto the court. Players scattered and officials stopped play. The bat circled and left only to return — briefly.

That’s when Ginobili performed his Halloween trick, swatting the bat out of the air with a bare hand. He then carried the creature off the court to thunderous cheers.

…but, as you would figure, no good deed goes unpunished. Peep Manu’s tweet after the jump…

On Monday, Ginobili posted:

“Just wanted to give you guys an update on the bat situation. As many of you already know, it wasn’t a great idea. Not only for the fact that bats are great part of the ecosystem, but also, because some carry rabies, which is an incurable disease. That’s why I had to get vaccinated today [and it wasn’t just one shot!].”

At the time, Ginobili was a hero.

After he caught the bat, the theme song to “Batman” played, and a few Sacramento players applauded, too. A trainer emerged to squirt sanitizer on Ginobili’s hand.

“That was amazing,” teammate Tony Parker said. “The legend continues with Manu. Unbelievable. … He’s always doing crazy stuff.”

Ginobili was worried about the crazy consequences of his actions on Monday.

“Only 0.5 percent to 3 percent of the bat populations carry the disease, but If you can’t find the animal, it’s not recommended to take any risks, it can kill you!” Ginobili wrote. “Since after the incident, the usher took it outside and the bat flew away [not lying!], there was no way of knowing if he was infected or not, so I had to do the safe thing.

“Finally, please, don’t do it at home or anywhere, avoid contact with bats, skunks, raccoons, rats and animals like that.”
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