Photo of the day: The second a father saved his son

 A photograph that went viral this week of a father’s flash reflex to shield his child when a baseball bat went hurtling into a crowd of spectators is so arresting in its visual power it could jump-start the pulse of a hundred . close picture after the cut..

The photo was taken in Orlando, Florida at the instant when a bat slipped from the hands of Pittsburgh Pirate, Danny Ortiz, during a spring training game against the Atlanta Braves.
Shaun Cunningham with son Landon Utterly unstaged, the image captures the heart-stopping nanosecond when a fan instinctively stretches his arm to deflect the lethal trajectory of the stick as it whirls wildly towards his son’s oblivious face.