A grown man has been filmed snatching a baseball thrown to a young girl by an outfielder at a baseball game in Washington, US.
The Washington Nationals had invited the Shenandoah Rec League Babe Ruth 10U All-Star Softball team to Nationals Park in the US capital when the incident took place on 1 September.
The Nationals organised the night game against the Oakland Athletics to mark Youth Champions Day.
During the game, a group of girls in the stands asked Nationals outfielder Joey Meneses to throw a baseball to them.
The sports star duly obliged, however a Nationals fan jumped in the way at the last moment and snatched the ball from one girl’s outstretched glove.
Regina Hilliard recorded the video of her 10-year-old daughter Avery urging Meneses to throw the ball to her.
The footage shows Avery about to catch the ball when the Nationals fan in a Juan Soto jersey snatches it from her glove.
“What?” screams one girl as Avery turns around in disappointment.
The man, still unidentified, promptly walks away without making eye contact with any of the young spectators.
Regina shared the video on Twitter with the message: “Grown man steals baseball from little girl.
Nationals, can you get Joey Meneses to sign a baseball and send it to my daughter?” The clip has gone viral with 5.4 million views.
Following the incident, the Nationals reportedly reached out to Regina to make amends for the family’s bad experience.
The mother later tweeted: “Thank you @nationals for reaching out and apologizing to hear that our experience that night was negatively impacted.
“They are sending something our way and hope that this can serve as a symbol of a good experience at the park rather than a bad one!”
She also said that a father confronted the man, who told him: “I bought a ticket to the game and have just as much right to the ball.”
Hilliard and other parents grew angry at the man’s attitude and had to walk away.
Twitter users were also outraged by the ‘grown man’ stealing the baseball from the girl’s outstretched mitt, with one person commenting: “He threw it right to her!”
Another user agreed: “She had it.”
“This dude always does this and my now teenager calls him out HARD. Much pointing and shaming but he runs away to hawk more ball,” wrote one user.
Someone else remarked: “It was just a baseball tossed. It’s not even like it was a homer or something with any game significance – Dude could just buy a ball from Dicks if he wants one so bad.”
“Ugh, this stinks. I go to 20 games a year at the park, and I’m glad this rarely happens. What a tool. Sorry your kiddo had this happen,” commented another person.
Oaklands Athletic, the Nationals’ opponents on the night, had recently experienced a controversial incident in the stands of their own.
A frisky couple was filmed getting jiggy at the RingCentral Coliseum in Oakland, California, during a baseball tie against Seattle Mariners on 21 August.
Filmed by a stunned crowd goer on the other side of the stadium, the footage apparently shows a young woman performing oral sex on the man in the top row.
However, despite many online users finding the incident amusing, the local police are apparently far from impressed and an investigation is now underway.
