Featured Image Credit: NBC Sports
Topics: Baseball, Sport, Social Media
Kit Roberts
A heartwarming moment at a baseball game quickly turned sour when a fan strode up to a father and son celebrating his birthday to make a controversial demand.
The Phillies had been playing the Marlins at LoanDepot Park on Friday, when Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader sent a home run soaring into the crowd.
As is tradition in baseball, if a member of the audience catches a ball hit into the stands then they get to keep it.
Footage zoomed in as more than half a dozen fans raced into an empty row to intercept the mighty hit from Bader, but it landed in the stands where it was picked up by a dad, who walked back to where he was sitting around five seats away and handed it to his ecstatic son.
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Ordinarily, that might have been the end of it, but one fan was not giving up and angrily strode over to the family and demanded the ball.
Earlier in the video, the grey-haired women can be seen almost catching the ball, but appears to fumble the catch sending it falling to the ground.
The fan and the dad exchange heated words, indicating where the ball had been picked up.
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Fan recorded footage shows the woman claiming: “You took it from me. It was in my hand."
Eventually, the exasperated father grabs the ball from his son, named by the Phillies as Lincoln, and hands it to the fan who returns to her seat with the prize.
The unpleasant scenario only got worse after it emerged that it was Lincoln's birthday.
After seeing the controversial incident play out, the Marlins took it on themselves to make things right.
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Video shows a Marlins representative giving the birthday boy a prize pack containing an assortment of gifts and goodies, including baseballs for him and his sister, who was sitting next to him.
A video posted on social media shows the rep saying: “We brought you a cool little goodie bag."
And while Lincoln may not have got the ball that was hit by Bader, the Phillies did him one better after the game when Bader himself came to meet him and gift him a signed bat.
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A post to the Phillies' Twitter account shows two pictures of Lincoln meeting Bader after the match as the player gifts him the signed bat.
"Going home with a signed bat from Bader," the post read.
Fans took to social media to praise the club for making a bad situation right.
“Gonna make a Phillies (baseball) fan outta me,” wrote one.
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A second posted: “It is good the baseball team worked out something to try to make the situation right.”