Father talks about viral moment Phillies fan demanded home run ball from his son

The father who chased down a home run ball for his son at a Phillies game, only to have another fan demand it from him, is speaking out.

Drew Feltwell was at a Phillies-Marlins game in Miami with his children on Friday when Phillies center fielder Harrison Bader hit a home run. The ball went flying into the crowd in left field, landing in the bleachers where Feltwell was sitting.

Video circulating online appears to show the ball landing in front of a woman in a Phillies jersey and a man in a black shirt seated to Feltwell’s right. As they search for it on the ground, Feltwell walks over, picks up the ball and hands it to his son, Lincoln, placing it in his mitt.

“I was already ecstatic, like got Bader’s home run ball, and I get to put it in my son’s glove and that was, it was already enough,” Feltwell told NBC News in an interview Saturday, flanked by his children. “You know, and then, then here she comes.”

Video shows the woman in the Phillies jersey walk over to Feltwell, who is embracing his son, and demand the ball.

“Something touched my arm, and then she just screamed in my ear, ‘That’s my ball,’ like, so loud,” Feltwell said.

Feltwell appeared shaken by the confrontation, the video shows. After a brief interaction, he plucks the ball out of his son’s mitt and hands it to the woman in the Phillies jersey.

He said he made the decision because he did not want to do something he’d regret in front of his kids.

“There was kind of a fork in the road, like, I’m gonna go one direction and then probably regret,” Feltwell said. “Or go this direction and do something in front of my kids that, you know, like a teaching moment.”

Videos of the incident quickly went viral online this weekend, with some dubbing the woman in the Phillies jersey “Phillies Karen.”

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

“Who takes a baseball from a kid? An entitled Karen,” one commenter wrote on a YouTube video of the incident.

Another commenter said, “Bleacher Rule #1 If you catch it in mid-air, it’s your souvenir. If it is not caught, it is a live ball.”

The Phillies went on to win the game 9-3, and Lincoln was invited to meet Bader, with the MLB team sharing photos of that meeting on its official X account.

The team’s post on X was captioned, “Going home with a signed bat from Bader,” and included a photo showing Feltwell and his children.

Feltwell does not expect a genuine apology from the woman in the Phillies jersey, saying that even if she returned the ball, he imagines it would be a hasty handoff with her walking away.

“And that would still be hard for her to do,” Feltwell said.

NBC News has not been able to identify the woman in the Phillies jersey.