Child moved from seat at Diamondbacks game after fan interference on potential Tommy Pham home run
Every kid who goes to an MLB game with a baseball glove dreams of catching a home run, but the experience turned sour for one young fan at an Arizona Diamondbacks game on Friday.
In the seventh inning of the D-Backs’ game against the Cincinnati Reds, Arizona outfielder Tommy Pham hit a fly ball to deep ball that was destined to go over the fence. However, the ball was low enough for Reds rookie outfielder Spencer Steer to rob Pham’s homer.
Steer leaped and came down with … nothing. Upon further review, it became clear what happened: a young D-Backs fan basically pulled the ball out of Steer’s glove into his own glove.
The play was called on the field as a home run for Pham, but an umpire review overturned it into an out on fan interference.
The slo-mo view of the catch makes it hard to tell if the fan really cost Pham a homer. The ball was in Steer’s glove, yes, but only after bouncing off the kid’s glove over him. Either way, it’s a pretty textbook case of fan interference for the home team.
The child, who received “MVP” chants during the video review, was later seen being escorted from his seat while getting high fives from fellow fans along the aisle. The Diamondbacks broadcast later reported the child and his family weren’t ejected from Chase Field, just relocated.
Fortunately for all involved, the play didn’t have much bearing on the outcome of the game between two wild-card contenders.
The Diamondbacks won 10-4, with Pham going 1-for-4 with two RBI. Arizona’s record now sits at 68-61 with a 1.5-game lead on the Reds and San Francisco Giants for the third and final NL wild-card spot.
