Most kids would say their dads hung the moon. It’s easy to give high praise when you love someone. But for one dad during a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Atlanta Braves, what was a fun day out with his son quickly turned into something potentially more deadly.

A baseball player lost a bat and it went flying wildly into the stands, headed straight for Landon Cunningham’s face. The 8-year-old seemed doomed to have his face hit by an out-of-control bat. Until Dad stepped in. With one quick and envious move, Shaun Cunningham shoved his hand between Landon’s face and the heavy bat and saved the day. “I didn’t have a lot of time to think,” said the super dad.

Once I realized it was headed for my son, I just did anything I could to block it and deflect it.”

A photographer, Christopher Horner, happened to be there taking pictures for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and caught the entire thing on film. When the Cunningham’s first got a glimpse of the pictures, the mom couldn’t get over how close of a call for her son it was. ”It made me sick to my stomach,” Ashley Cunningham said.

Thankfully the dad only had a few bruises on his arm, while Landon didn’t have a scratch on him. Landon, he said, was responding to a picture on Shuan’s phone that Ashley had texted. So he wasn’t able to duck in time. “So while he was looking at the picture, I made sure I was paying attention to everything,” Shuan said.

Lending a special twist to the day – it was Shuan’s first professional baseball game, a treat that was for his upcoming birthday. For Landon’s part, he said his dad was amazing.

He is my hero, he’s the most amazing dad ever,” Landon said.

But Shaun says it was just his job as a dad that took charge. “Realizing it was coming for us and specifically him, and really all I could do was throw my arm in the way,” Cunningham said. “The barrel of the bat hit my wrist, when that happened I guess it deflected and spun it and the handle got him in the shoulder, which, I’ll take that over the alternative,” said the boy’s father.

But, Landon did get to keep the fly-away bat. Both walked away uninjured and the boy got to keep the bat. Many have called Cunningham a hero. “Honestly, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it. It was dad mode, you know, protecting my son so I just did what I could,” he said.

Pirates outfield Danny Ortiz, the player whose bat caused such a close call, said he didn’t know what had happened until his wife told him, showing the photos to the athlete. ‘I went home and my wife said to me, “You almost killed that kid!”‘ he said. After looking at the pictures, he said the whole thing was ‘crazy’. ‘That guy took (a blow) for the kid. He protected that kid,’ Ortiz said. For a look at the epic save by the super dad, watch below.

Sources: My Positive Outlooks | Daily Mail | WFTV9