That guy who's been praised around the nation for the loving way he hugged his daughter after she tossed away a foul ball he caught at a Philadelphia Phillies game says he should have realized that when three-year-old Emily "gets a ball from dad, she's going to throw it."

As for the hug that's been watched at least a million times by now on the Web and TV, Steve Monforto says "I just wanted to let her know it was OK."

We first posted about this can't-be-cuter story yesterday. It was NBC's Today Show that landed a sit-down with Monforto and his family this morning:

The Philadelphia Inquirer calls it "the foul ball seen round the world". Monforto, a project manager with Lockheed Martin, tells the newspaper that he "would have been happy with a little blurb on the evening news."