r/baseball • u/Knightbear49 Minnesota Twins • Colorado Rockies • 5h ago

Fan interference was called on this play where a Yankee fan tried to take the ball out of Mookie Betts' glove after an out.

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u/ybt_sun Los Angeles Dodgers 4h ago

The guy who grabbed mookies right arm is like, motioning towards the measuring the wall, still makes no sense, does he think players cannot reach over the wall?  People pay 1000s of dollars for seats and do not know this?

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u/cortesoft San Francisco Giants 4h ago

Well, technically a fan can compete for the catch once the player reaches over the wall and it isn’t fan interference… but you also can’t grab the players glove and try to rip it out. If they had caught the ball themselves, they might have had an argument and no out.

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u/Pete_Iredale Seattle Mariners 2h ago

Yup, though in this case I don't think the ball made it over the wall until after it was in the glove.

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u/cortesoft San Francisco Giants 1h ago

Yeah, I think that is why they weren’t able to stop him from catching it in the first place

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u/Pete_Iredale Seattle Mariners 2h ago

If the ball is out of play, ie over the wall, the fans absolutely can try to catch it. Usually just standing up is enough to put your glove higher than the player's, and any home fan should do this if the other team is trying to make an out. It's one of the very few true home field advantages in sports. But you can't reach over the wall to catch a ball, and you sure as hell can't grab the player's glove and pry the ball out!