It all started in the fourth inning of the Phillies’ matchup against the Marlins. Philadelphia had already built a lead when Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader crushed a 410-foot home run just after Brandon Marsh’s 420-foot blast. As the ball started falling towards the stands, a lady in a white Phillies jersey attempted to catch it, but fumbled and dropped the ball. A man in a red t-shirt immediately picked it up and gave it to his young son, who was celebrating his birthday. And this is where the drama began.

This beautiful father-son moment was shattered when the woman who dropped the ball marched over and began yelling at the father, demanding the ball. The father, wanting to protect his son from the ugly scene, wisely gave up the ball with a classic “get out of here” gesture. As Sean Barnard of Crossing Broad  perfectly summed it: “It is not this man’s fault that she has the hands of Nelson Agholor.” He further added that the father had all the right to pick up the ball as the lady had dropped it.

The incident did not go unnoticed, as the host team immediately sent a staff member to the family and presented the young birthday boy with a gift bag full of baseballs and other team merchandise. Jomboy Media posted the clip of the incident with a post that read: “The Marlins gave this young fan some gifts after the woman took the ball from him and the crowd cheered.” 

And the boy’s own team Philadelphia Phillies, tracked the family and brought them to Harrison Bader after securing the 9-3 victory. Bader handed the boy a signed bat, and on their official X account, the Phillies shared the moment, writing: “Going home with a signed bat from Bader.” This wasn’t the first time such an incident had taken place in MLB.

Previous instances of teams making wholesome gestures towards fans

This wasn’t the first time a scramble for a souvenir ball became a viral story. In 2018, a Cubs fan was roasted online for snagging a foul ball from a child—until it came out he had actually given the boy another ball earlier. Despite that, the Cubs have gifted the boy a signed ball from his favorite player, Javier Baez, and the boy went home with two souvenirs in the end.

And not all of them were negative events. A  Blue Jays fan caught an Aaron Judge home run ball and immediately gave it to a young Yankees fan in a Judge jersey in 2022, and the next day, both the man and the boy were invited onto the field to meet Aaron Judge, who gave them autographed memorabilia.  In 2017, a Philly teenager caught a foul ball and then handed it to a crying 7-year-old girl nearby. And this incident also didn’t go unnoticed, as the Phillies rewarded him with another ball.

And here we have some incidents that changed the outcome of the game. In the 1996 ALCS, 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier reached over the right-field wall and deflected a fly ball from Derek Jeter and turning it into a game-tying home run. The common thread? Teams have shown up, making wholesome gestures for fans, especially for kids.