A woman, seemingly Phillies fan, has gone viral on social media for stealing a baseball from a child, given by his father after a home run in the stands. The incident took place during a Major League Baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Miami Marlins. A video has gone viral on social media, highlighting how the ball arrived near the woman's seat after a home run was hit but it was a man who managed to retrieve the ball first, and decided to give it to his son.
The woman, however, stormed at the father-son duo in anger and demanded the ball to be given to her. "You took it from me", the woman could be heard screaming at the father-son duo. The woman eventually managed to take the ball away from them, inviting criticism on social media.
There were reactions, both for and against the woman. While some felt that the woman should've let the child keep the ball, others said that the child's father didn't follow baseball etiquette by coming out of the area of his seat to scoop the ball.
Leaping across multiple seats and into someone else's personal space crosses that social boundary," a post read on social media. "The [man] jumped over roughly 10 seats, ending up directly in the woman's area. By doing so, he invaded her space and effectively blocked her chance to catch the ball. Even though he physically secured the ball first, from an etiquette standpoint, this seems rude."
"If I was the woman, I would have said something to the father, without causing a scene, and let the kid keep the ball. This way you still make your point without causing a viral moment, and you allow the child to have the ball," according to the post," another post on X read.
In the end, however, it was a happy development for the father-son duo as both Phillies and the Marlins presented the child with gift hampers to make up for the chaos that took place in the stands.