Did Atlanta Braves Manager Brian Snitker adopt an orphaned baby named "Pinky" who was rescued from the July Texas flood? No, that's not true: Photos of Snitker cradling an infant and the text of a story claiming he adopted the "poor, shivering newborn" were all generated by artificial intelligence tools and shared on a fake baseball fan page administered from Vietnam and the Philippines. The names of the mother and father who purportedly died in the July 4, 2025, flooding do not appear on any list of victims. There has been no reporting of a rescue and adoption that "broke hearts worldwide," as the post claimed.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) shared by the Tomahawk Territory account on Facebook on July 8, 2025. The post featured photos of the baseball coach holding an infant wrapped in a blanket with a caption that opened:
FROM TRAGEDY TO HERO: A poor, shivering newborn, just days old, was orphaned overnight after a devastating flood in Texas. The head coach of the Atlanta Braves, Brian Snitker, made a life-changing decision for the baby.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Jul 16 03:58:19 2025 UTC)
The caption continued:
Just days after a newborn was found following the horrific flood that claimed at least 82 lives, including the baby's parents, the head coach of the Atlanta Braves, Brian Snitker, stunned the nation and warmed the hearts of millions worldwide with a deeply humane decision: he pledged to become the child's legal guardian and committed to covering all living and upbringing expenses until the child turns 18. From pain to hope, one man's compassion is rewriting this child's future.
The post then linked to an online article (archived here) headlined "From Tragedy to Hero: When a Baseball Coach Became an Angel." It opened:
Sometimes the most extraordinary acts of love come from the most unexpected places
In the aftermath of nature's most devastating fury, when the floodwaters of Texas had claimed 82 precious lives and left countless others shattered, a miracle emerged from the debris. It wasn't the kind of miracle that makes headlines or breaks records - it was the quiet, profound miracle of human compassion that would forever change two lives: a helpless newborn and a baseball coach who saw beyond the diamond to something far more valuable than any championship ring.
The Discovery That Broke Hearts Worldwide
The baby was found on a Tuesday morning, just five days old wrapped in a waterlogged blanket beneath the collapsed remains of what had once been a modest family home. Emergency responders discovered the infant - cold, weak, but miraculously alive - clutched in the protective embrace of debris that had somehow shielded the child from the worst of the flood's wrath.
When Lead Stories submitted that text to the AI detection tools ChatGPT Zero and Grammarly's Detector, both systems concluded with certainty that the words were put together by artificial intelligence.
The two images of the coach holding the baby were also AI-generated, according to Hive Moderation's AI image detection tool.
This test concluded that this first image was 100% AI-generated.
The second image was deemed by Hive Moderation to be 97% AI-made.
One Braves fan who commented below the post did not need an AI detector to cry foul. He questioned why the images did not show the whiskers Snitker has been sporting on his face this summer.
(Source: screenshot of MLB.com by Lead Stories)
The Texas flood tragedy resulted in an avalanche of fake claims debunked by Lead Stories. Click here to see our fact checks.
