With the Yankees down 4-2 in the sixth inning of ALDS Game 3 on Wednesday, Anthony Volpe hit a ball to left field that was called a two-run home run. It would have tied the game. It never counted, because a fan sitting in the front row put his hands over the wall and touched the ball first.
Rays left fielder Victor Mesa Jr. was underneath it and jumping. Umpires went to replay, and MLB’s Replay Center took the homer off the board. Volpe was credited with an RBI double, George Lombard Jr. scored from first, and the Yankees trailed 4-3 instead of being level. They lost by exactly that run, and the series ended 3-0.
What MLB Said
The league’s explanation was unusually firm. MLB said the replay official reviewed “all relevant angles” and “definitively determined the spectator interfered with the ball over the field of play.” It added that “the ball would not have left the playing field nor would it have been caught,” which is why Volpe was placed at second rather than being ruled out.
That second half matters. Rays manager Kevin Cash argued the play should have been an out under the spectator interference rule, and he lost that argument. The replay official judged that Mesa was not going to catch it, so the Yankees kept a run.
Aaron Boone, who had every reason to be furious, was not. “I thought they got it right,” the Yankees manager said. Mesa’s version was shorter: “It was interference.” Aaron Judge, watching from the dugout in street clothes, said Volpe “almost had a big home run.”
What Happened to the Fan
This is where it gets uncomfortable. According to reporting on the play, the fan and the group around him celebrated hard in the moment, apparently believing they had just watched the Yankees tie a playoff game. They were still going while the replay drew groans from the rest of the section.
Security arrived almost immediately after the ruling. Video showed the fan, in a Yankees windbreaker, being walked out of the outfield stands by a uniformed NYPD officer and several stadium security staff, with another fan leaving alongside him.
Here is what has not been reported, and it is worth stating plainly. The fan has not been publicly identified. No ban has been announced by the Yankees or by MLB. Neither the club nor the league has commented beyond the Replay Center’s explanation of the call, and nobody has suggested he did anything other than reach for a baseball coming toward him, which is what most people in that seat would do.
The comparison everybody reached for was Jeffrey Maier, the 12-year-old who reached over the right field wall on a Derek Jeter drive in the 1996 ALCS. That one stood, because replay did not exist. Thirty years later the technology exists, the Yankees were the team it cost, and their World Series drought now stands at 17 seasons.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.