The lucky fan who got his hands on Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball — making the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar the first MLB player ever to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season — was facing a potential $200,000 reward for that piece of history.
While the identity of the fan who ultimately got his hands on the home run ball after a scrum in left field at Miami’s LoanDepot Park during the seventh inning is known, an unlucky spectator was unable to get his hands on the ball, which happened in plain sight of Bally Sports Florida cameras.
Ohtani’s second home run of the game soared over the Dodgers’ bullpen in left field in the “Marlins Crew” section. The ball initially landed out of reach of a fan in a teal tank top, but bounced toward him for another shot at history and potential fortune. But the carom narrowly evaded his left hand as he reached for the ball.
From the camera angle, it’s uncertain how close the fan was to the ball. On TV, the ball appears to be inches from his fingers. Should he have reached out farther, or even tried to dive for the ball, as Tommy Hutton joked on the Bally Sports Florida broadcast? Or should he have risked falling over the railing and getting hurt. (The fan probably didn’t want that potential $200,000 going toward medical bills.)
Still, baseball history and a six-figure reward—assuming the fan hadn’t generously returned the ball to the Dodgers and Ohtani—seemed tantalizingly close, but painfully out of reach. The moment will undoubtedly always be memorable, but not for the reasons he would have liked.
