A Ballsnatcher Breaches Baseball Etiquette

This Karen’s viral embarrassment could be a societal tipping point

Much has been said about the abhorrent behavior of a female Phillies fan who demanded and received a homerun ball that a father had recovered and given as a trophy to his son. The incident, occurring at Miami’s loanDepot park (sic) on Friday evening September 5, set the Internet on fire, as fans everywhere castigated the gray-haired harridan, dubbed Karen Ballsnatcher, who literally cowed a man into reneging on a  gift to his son. Fans have been more divided on the father. Some praised him for being the bigger person and de-escalating the confrontation; others criticized him for showing weakness in a feeble attempt to appease the unappeasable. I find myself in the latter camp; the symbolism of a sullen dad coughing up a ball to a shrieking harpy is too potent to ignore. I’m not saying he should have gone full Al Bundy on her. (You never want to go full Bundy.) But a firm “No,” was the proper response to her entitled demands. And not just in this instance, but at all times when horrid women demand that men stop being men, because their mere existence is oppressive.

What’s baseball protocol for balls in the stands?

There have long existed unwritten rules for balls hit into the stands. 1. Any ticketholder can recover them. 2. Touching the ball is insufficient to establish ownership. 3. Incidental contact is expected, but going out of your way to interfere with another person’s efforts, such as grabbing their arm as they reach, is foul play. 4. After a fan establishes firm possession, the scrum ends.

According to all established rules for recovering balls in the stands, the dad had played fair and deserved the ball. Yet, Karen Ballsnatcher somehow thought the ball belonged to her. She marched down the row and confronted the father. Subsequent reports indicate that her argument consisted of “the ball landed in our section, so it belongs to us,” and “I had it.” The first point is irrelevant, since anyone who can get to the ball has a right to recover it. The father had simply walked down an empty row to the spot where the ball landed. Yet, Karen acted like he had invaded a foreign country to steal natural resources. If the argument had gone longer, I’m sure she’d have accused him of colonization. Her second point is equally fatuous, since touching the ball establishes nothing. How many fans in the 150 year history of Major League Baseball have lamented, “I had it!” Of course, those fans realized they didn’t really have it because they didn’t close the deal. Ask any fisherman about the one that got away.

The only reasonable argument Karen Ballsnatcher could have made is that she had established possession with a firm grip on the ball, and the father had wrested it away. In other words, he stole it. Video of the incident plainly shows the ball loose in the scrum when the father picked it up.

More than a souvenir, a moment to bond father and son

Despite having no basis to claim ownership, Karen Ballsnatcher climbed over a row of seats and beat a path towards the father. At this point, we must note that the father had given the ball to his son, who had closed his glove around it. In the annals of Americana, this is a sacred ritual. It is a moment that every father who has ever taken a child to a ball game longs for. There is no more heroic act a man can perform in the normal course of a game than to snag a souvenir ball and give it to his son. In doing so, he passes on his love of the game in a form of benediction. Few fathers ever have the opportunity to perform this act. Scarcity enhances solemnity.

Karen Ballsnatcher knew this ritual had occurred, but she didn’t care. And her callous indifference is what makes her intrusion upon the scene truly monstrous. In this moment, the shrieking harpy becomes the embodiment of the Leftist war against fatherhood that’s been waged in Western culture over the last two decades. She’s not going to let this toxic masculinity stand, not while she’s aggrieved. She is woman and they will hear her roar. At this moment, she seems the epitome of the chronically angry feminist malcontent who, having long ago donned the mantle of victimhood, feels entitled to demand special rights whenever equal treatment does not resound in her favor. Having shrieked the father into submission, she retreats triumphantly to her seat brandishing her prize, a Gollum with her precious. It’s a truly ugly and disordered moment, which, to no one’s surprise, unites the fans in the stands against her. When fans being to heckle her, she stands and raises a defiant middle finger to them. This is the point at which I would have had security remove her for disruptive conduct.

The awful court decision that paved the way for Karen Ballsnatcher

All this raises the question: Why would someone with no reasonable claim to possession have the gall to demand someone else’s property? Have we all forgotten the unwritten rules that governed civil society for centuries?

This incident reminds me of the hubbub over a Barry Bonds homerun ball in 2001, which unfortunately sowed the seeds for baseless claims like Karen Ballsnatcher’s. The San Francisco Giants slugger was chasing Mark McGwire’s, single-season, steroid-assisted, homerun record. On October 7, during the final game of the season, Barry Bonds hit his record-breaking 73rd home run into the rightfield bleachers of San Francisco’s Pac Bell Park.

One fan, Alex Popov initially caught the ball in his glove, but was immediately swarmed by other fans. In the melee, the ball came loose. A furious scramble ensued. A second fan, Patrick Hayashi, who was also knocked down in the scrum, ended up with the ball when the chaos subsided.

Popov sued Hayashi in San Francisco Superior Court, arguing he had established possession (and therefore title) when the ball first entered his glove, and that the subsequent mob interference unlawfully deprived him of it.

In December 2002, Judge Kevin McCarthy delivered a verdict that twisted the tenets of property law beyond recognition. McCarthy found that because Popov had control of the ball before the crowd’s unlawful interference, he had a “pre-possessory interest” in the ball. McCarthy stated that Hayashi had “legitimate possession” because he had ended up with the ball without any wrongdoing. Since both fans had valid, competing claims, McCarthy ordered that the ball be sold at auction and the proceeds be divided between the two. In 2003, the ball sold for $450,000, each man receiving half, which probably barely covered their legal fees. Yay, lawyers!

(Have you read the novel behind your favorite baseball movies?)

McCarthy’s decision was revolting on numerous levels, but the press, which loves to praise revolting things, hailed it as a Solomon-like decision. Yes, so wise. Split the baseball, just as Solomon split the baby. Of course, if the press weren’t just as ignorant of the Bible as they are of property law, they would have known that Solomon’s decree to cut the baby in half was simply a ruse by which he gathered the additional evidence he needed to restore the baby (intact) to its true mother. Just as the baby could only belong to one woman, the baseball could only belonged to one fan.

McCarthy found that although Popov did “not achieve full legal possession,” he had taken “significant but incomplete steps” toward it—steps that were interrupted by others’ unlawful conduct. The court held this created a “legally cognizable pre-possessory interest.” This is all nonsense. Either Popov caught the ball (video confirms he did) or he did not. If he did, he established title and is the legal owner of the ball. The subsequent melee might strip him of possession, but cannot invalidate his title. Anyone who took possession of the ball after wrongdoers stripped it from Popov cannot establish title/ownership. Like the person who finds a wallet full of cash on the sidewalk, Hayashi is obligated to return the ball to its rightful owner, Popov. Hayashi wouldn’t be able to keep the wallet (legally, at least) simply because he hadn’t mugged Popov to get it. Conversely, If Popov did not catch the ball (and thus did not establish title), he has no rights and Hayashi is the true owner.

But McCarthy wrote that “Each man has a claim of equal dignity as to the other,” a fanciful conclusion that only a liberal nitwit unconstrained by logic or law could have reached. He continued, “The court therefore declares that both plaintiff and defendant have an equal and undivided interest in the ball.” McCarthy’s order that the ball must be sold further violates the rights of a true owner, who might have valued an historic souvenir above its cash value.

Judge McCarthy’s ruling is a smoke and mirrors attempt to be fair and not hurt anyone’s feelings. “Pre-possessory interest” is a nonsense phrase McCarthy made up to wheedle his way out of a difficult but necessary enforcement of established law. But ruling for Popov would have caused angst to Hayashi. May the baseball gods forbid! Even in 2001, a San Francisco court couldn’t grant relief to a white man if it would hurt the feelings of a minority. Legal norms be damned; courts must be empathetic. Courts must redress historical inequities. Remember Korematsu! Feelings uber alles, so equity trumps justice. It’s not whether you catch the ball, it’s how you feel about whether you should have caught the ball.

The fallout from two decades of indulging complainers’ feelings

It’s not surprising that more than 20 years later, we’re at a point where people’s feelings about what they’re entitled to are more important than societal norms and written law. We’re also at the point where men and fathers have been so debased, especially by militant harpies, that they cave immediately, accepting abject humiliation in front of their wives and children, rather than responding with the firm, unyielding “No,” the situation calls for.

If there’s anything positive to take from the incident, it’s the crowd’s unequivocal condemnation of Karen Ballsnatcher. Good luck coming back from this crass display, sweetheart. Not that I’m eager to condemn any person for a single incident. But, let’s face it, she acted the stereotype put forth by her short, battleship gray, Liz Warren haircut and oversized Julie Felss Masino glasses. She deftly conjured the image of the AWFUL destroyer, advocate for transing schoolchildren, defunding the police, and doxxing ICE agents. Ready to march for higher taxes, more censorship, and less oppression, without noting the irony. An ardent crusader who banishes ethnic mascots from the marketplace, then complains about white supremacy. First among her professionally aggrieved, pink-hatted peers to take offence on behalf of any minority who isn’t educated enough to be offended themselves. In other words, the tedious, meddlesome, humorless shrew that we see far too often and wish would go away.

I fervently hope that this incident has brought us to the tipping point, where people are just plain tired of spoiled brat behavior by adults who should know better. It seems like most of the country now agrees that it’s time to accept life’s disappointments without the entitled tantrum. In short, it’s time to make being a grownup great again.

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