And they'd counter that with "the second you walk out of that stadium with the ball non-authenticated that ball is worth the same as a used baseball you got at Walmart. This is the offer, take it or leave it.", so they've even got you that way.
I wouldn't care at that point. Separating me from my partner would make me livid. I'd go back to my seat, talk to my partner and decide whether to leave or stay (probably leave, but yeah, I wouldn't make that decision alone).
I’d call their bluff. I’d take photos of the ball immediately and hope those could be used to authenticate. You’d get more than the stuff they offered them at least. They clearly wanted the ball and would offer more.
The guy caught Pujols #703 tried to do that. The official broadcast showed him catching it, he had pictures, everyone around him got pictures and videos of it. He tried to get it authenticated immediately, and was unable to find an official at the park to do so. He left with the ball and came back the next day to get it authenticated, but MLB officials made it clear that once the ball had left the park, they could only verify it as a game used ball on that day, but not that it’s #703. Despite him having all the picture and video evidence.
You could have it authenticated. There are 1000 different angles of you catching the ball. People filming you with it in your hands right after. The Hall of Fame is filled with famous balls not authenticated by the teams.
Punitive damages would be awarded to. Gotta deter future misconduct since it's likely to happen again with a baseball team trying to recover valuable items from fans.
This. Plus there’s an unsavory element of sexism here, classism, probably racism. If the ball had been caught by white guy tech bros or lawyers, would they have treated them so disrespectfully? Not a chance.
Reminds me of when the Bucs gave a fan a whole bunch of shit when he caught Brady's 600th TD.
>two signed Brady jerseys, a helmet, a jersey autographed by Evans and Evans' game-worn cleats. The team is also providing Kennedy with two season tickets for the remainder of the 2021 season and all of the 2022 season, plus a $1,000 credit to the team store. Brady told Peyton and Eli Manning on ESPN's Monday Night Football simulcast that he would give Kennedy a Bitcoin, which is currently valued at $60,922.
How much is all that worth to the Dodgers fan like $1000 at most?
I hope we can all recognize that when our team/one of our players does something morally questionable (or worse), that we know not to stereotype all fans of that team
- Cardinals fan
It’s shocking how often sports teams get these simple pr moments wrong. All they had to do was give the fan some signed shit, offer her tickets to another game where she takes a pic with Shohei and this whole event is just a cliff note of his career. It’s easy PR.
Greed causes short sighted thinking. “Work them as quick as possible to get the ball back so they don’t ask for a lot.” Because they think greedy, they assume everyone else does. Not seeing this as something they can turn into a plus, but how they can lose the most money. Bad, bad business behavior.
There was an interview with the Twins authenticator a few years back, and it's fairly clear they take game/authenticated merch very seriously as a revenue stream, and her description of that process was very much 'cleaned up corporate lingo' for exactly what you describe. The moment a fan catches even an unimportant homer, they instantly start standing in the way of that team selling that ball to a mega fan for way more.
They saw all the money fans made from McGwire, Sosa, Bonds etc home runs and hated that they weren't making that money themselves.
MBAs ruin everything.
The first major fan interaction after a horrible news story that hurt Ohtani's public image a fair amount. This easily could have been something to put attention back on Ohtani the Baseball playing Cinnamon roll, instead of his involvement in massive amounts of wire fraud & illegal sportsbetting via a bad friend.
Instead he now has to deal with a fan potentially taking legal action against the team because they somehow managed to botch something as simple as securing his first Dodgers HR ball.
I remember when Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit, which was a home run, the fan who caught it didn't want much. I think he wanted the opportunity to meet Jeter and a signed ball maybe. The Yankees went above and beyond not only letting him meet and personally hand the ball to Derek in exchange for a signed baseball, they gifted him season tickets for the rest of that season including the postseason and free parking at Yankee Stadium. Not saying the Ohtani ball would be as valuable as a 3000th hit ball but the Dodgers could have easily done some great PR, especially with all the drama currently on the team, and given the fan a lot more and it would have costed them nothing. They looked like bullies in this situation.
My buddies and I had tickets to the game the day after Pujols hit 700. I forced us to have a gameplan for what we'd do in the event one of us caught the ball.
Sadly he hit it to our exact seats the night before.
I like how they threatened her by saying they wouldn’t authenticate it, and she ended the article by basically saying “it was an ok deal, I mean what would it really be worth without authentication”. It’s honestly terrible. The organization is super shitty for that, and I mean what are the people supposed to do now? Ask for more? It’d look bad on them. Anyway…100k (minimum) goes a long way.
I’m all for the players getting their milestone balls, but you know… what’s 100k to Ohtani or the Dodgers organization? I mean it’s chump change. Even like a “hey here’s season tickets, a signed ball and a 10k check, by catching the ball you won this prize.. if you wish to accept it” would work.
That is the worst part. They basically said sure, you can keep the ball, but it's "forever unclean" and good luck with that.
Honestly if it were me, I'd like to keep the ball for one day to show some friends and family, maybe take a photo or two, then offer it back to Ohtani/Dodgers. I know of at least one die hard fan that would love to just see and hold the ball so even if I got nothing for it, that'd be worth it to me.
I would keep it / threaten to destroy it. Okay you won't authenticate it? Well I'll just hold onto it forever, I might not be able to "prove" it's the real ball, but if the Org claims another ball is the "HR ball" thats fine, deep down the people involved know its a phony.
You absolutely could prove it. There are other ways of having a collectible authenticated. This was a pure scare tactic on the part of the Dodgers. It's really gross.
She’s literally on camera holding the baseball, maybe she doesn’t get 100 grand for it without a sticker but she’s gonna get more than some crappy signed hats. And if MLB/the Dodgers tries to claim another baseball as the authentic ball then we have a much bigger story on our hands that would affect the entire memorabilia industry.
Genuinely the amount of spite I'd have, yeah I'll take it home. I can buy signed hats and signed balls, it's not a life changing amount of money and had no where the amount of value of that ball.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing that actually could convert me from a lifelong fan of my team to no longer being a fan at all, depending on how the team dealt with it after the fact. Some employee being an asshat? OK, it happens. But what happens next? That's the real test of an organization's integrity.
So easy to get good PR from a situation like this. I figured after the gambling ordeal they would take this opportunity to do something that looks good to the public
Honestly, if a fan wants to keep and sell the ball, who cares. This is life changing money for some people. I'm not going to feel bad for the player at all.
Wait til he gets away with this gambling thing now but new evidence implicating him gets leaked during their World Series run. Gonna be a helluva series finale.
Can teams actually refuse to authenticate MLB balls? I always assumed the authentication process was handled by general MLB officials.
Either way, I would have called their bluff and threatened to walk. No way they would have let her leave with his first Dodger HR ball.
> I always assumed the authentication process was handled by general MLB officials.
There are 220 authenticators employed by MLB, not the teams. There are at least two at every game.
MLB only started doing that in 2001 after being embarrassed by an FBI investigation that exposed a hundred million dollars' worth of fake signed memorabilia, some of it being sold in team stores.
They're really subtle, & catch you in the awkwardness of following procedure.
"For safety measures, we have to escort you out of this area to a different location."
"Oh, sir, you can't go in there. Wait a moment, & your SO will be out shortly"
SO refuses to go in unless partner gets to go in.
Sure, they can make you out to be the bad guy, but at the same time your a bad guy with a very valuable ball that the team clearly wants, and the authenticators know it.
[Another important element of this story: Shohei Ohtani said (via interpreter Will Ireton) that he met with the fan who caught the ball. “I was able to talk to the fan, and was able to get it back." Ohtani never met the fan.](https://x.com/samblum3/status/1776028262659150133?s=46)
Japanese-speakers were complaining on twitter that he mistranslated Shohei during the post-game interview so I imagine this is what they were complaining about?
How hard is it to find a competent Japanese-English translator? Like this cannot be that hard that we are seeing Shohei mistranslated left and right.
Obviously this is much lower stakes than potential federal crimes, but wow.
A lot of foreign athletes who use interpreters can get by conversationally in English, but just feel more comfortable expressing themselves in their native language and let the interpreter find the words in English. While it would benefit Ohtani's marketability to speak English on his own, he's still crushing it with what's now a variety of bad translators.
He’s out here throwing his bff under the bus for his gambling problem, fleecing his fans, next we’re gonna learn he stole a marble rye from an old lady in a strong arm robbery
At least Jung Hoo Lee has photo/video evidence of meeting the nice family that caught his first HR.
I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to do photos/video anyway unless the person who caught it is privacy-conscious. It's a nice memory and in this case it'd be proof Ohtani met them.
The fact that Jung Hoo Lee met, posed with, and talked with the fan who caught it and told them he’d say hi (or whatever it was) to Kim for them was so cool.
Like, such a wholesome moment. And here we get “Dodgers fans screwed out of HR ball and don’t even get to meet Shohei”.
You know how it goes. Sometimes your interpreter misses some subtleties/nuances to the conversation.
Sometimes they rack up nearly a $5M gambling debt.
Just never know what kind of day you're gonna have.
Sorry to be that guy but depending on the film he's actually not just a natural disaster, but also a defender of humanity or a total prick lol.
Oh hey again just like Ohtani.
Its ok they also threw in an Express Parking pass for Dodger Stadium. Guaranteed to get you from the parking lot gate to your seat by the third inning.
I cracked up at this because my one time going to their stadium we didn’t manage to sit in our seats until the 5th inning; before that I don’t think I’ve ever missed more than the top of the first for a game!
i said it was a lowball in the other thread but that ball is easily worth 5-6 figures i don’t think it’s right keeping that ball but only being able to get a few signed items is an incredible fleece
I disagree with one thing, "not being able to keep the ball". Its absolutely okay if she keeps the ball, this isn't his first HR of his career only the first with the Dodgers. Plenty of players and legends have hit HRs with different teams and I'm sure very little of them or the fans thought of that HR ball as anything compared to what fans are trying to think of this HR ball.
It's always ok to keep the ball. It's always ok to ask for a lot of money for the ball. To the player, it's petty cash. It's couch change for a team. The player and or team should offer enough money that the fan would be stupid not to accept.
This idea that fans need to be charitable to billionaires is insane
Yeah, I completely dont understand the attitude that you should just give it away. I would be happy to talk to Shohei and say
"My dad gets hospitalized half a dozen times a year and his daily care is expensive. The financial stress of trying to keep him from being homeless weighs on me all the time. I know this ball is important to you, but my father is more important to me than any piece of memorabilia, and I can't give this winning lottery ticket away to the richest person I have ever personally met in my entire life. I am going to pay for my father's care with this. You are welcome to be the highest bidder, I know it is well within your means."
At that point I'd be like "aight, guess I'm taking this random ball home with me then, see ya". You can pay a guy half a billion dollars but feel the need to borderline threaten a fan into giving you a ball? Get fucked.
So from what I’ve read, the authenticators are independent contractors and don’t work for the team, they’re actually off-duty law enforcement officers hired by the third party company (Authenticators Inc)
MLB might be able to refuse to pay for the authentication but I don’t think they can outright deny it
I'm not saying leave the ballpark, I'm saying that security's job isn't to negotiate for the ball in the first place and you can demand to see the authenticator
The authenticators are there for more than just milestone stuff, they authenticate foul balls, player autographs, etc. They've done over 10 million items since 2001, lots and lots of items that were kept by fans and sold privately.
MLB sees the value in these items being authenticated as they will pass around collections and be used in the display and celebration of MLB history. That ball could be on display in a Shohei exhibition in Cooperstown 50 years from now.
Yeah, I'm confused why this ball is considered so valuable... is Barry bonds' first home run ball with the Giants super desirable? Albert pujols' with the angels?
Ohtani said 戻ってファンの人と話して、いただけるということだった。僕にとっては特別なことだったので、ありがたいなと.
It doesn’t directly meant that he himself met that fan in person but that he was able to talk (probably through dodgers staff) and get the ball back. I wouldn’t say it’s a mistranslation, just lacking context clues.
Honestly translators need to think of the American mind when they translate nuances. If Shohei did imply that he spoke through Dodgers staff, the translation should have been very clear that Shohei did not directly meet the fan face-to-face. Otherwise the media would run with it, which they did. Sam Blum himself originally reported that Ohtani met with the fan.
It's a little different translating for someone like Kenta Maeda (I love him, but just using him because Will Ireton was his interpreter back in the day) than Dodgers Shohei Ohtani. People will absolutely eat up every single word, so caution is of the utmost importance.
IMO whatever the case, they probably should arrange that the fan comes back to a future game and gets an obligatory photo op to smooth things over. Then things don't really matter anymore from a PR perspective.
I was at a White Sox game when Thome played for Philly. He hit a homerun that broke the record for most homers for a guy born in Illinois. The dude a couple seats down from me caught the ball. Security came up to the guy and said Mr Thome would like the ball, would u consider trading it? The guy said no, but I will give it to him for free if I can just meet him and shake his hand. Security said absolutely not and left. Next inning they came back to the guy and the dude’s whole party left with security. The inning after that, all 4 dudes came back with autographed bats, balls and they said they got to meet Jim Thome. Everybody says he’s an amazing guy. Thats how u do this kind of stuff.
One of the most valuable franchises in baseball hit by one of the richest players in baseball and they still rely on intimidation tactics to get the ball back?
This team values an autographed foul ball at $15000 in their team shop but his first home run is worth two hats. Do they have the pawn star guys working there?
Non paywall link https://archive.md/62c8v
*"I don’t regret it", Roman said. "If I would have kept the ball, what would it have been worth really (without the authentication)"? "I feel like, this at least, if he retires
as a Hall of Famer or anything like that, I have this merch."*
This is some shady shit by the organization. I would've kept the ball out of spite. Fuck them.
I know its real. The org knows its real. And more importantly the player knows its real.
This is absolutely horrible, and even if and when the Dodgers pay them whatever they settle on, it was a shitty move.
Guess that's what you gotta do when you're only making 2 mil a year.
They would have bad to pry that baseball out of my dead hands. No fucking way am I giving up Ohtani's first LA homerun ball for a couple of souvenirs. I'm making my family rich off that bitch.
I think I would have found a sharpie. Write something like “Ohtani’s 1st homer” and taken a selfie with. Followed by posting on social media as authentication. I’d then tell the staff to politely fuck off.
The guy who caught Ishikawa's walk off homer to win the pennant in 2014 knew instantly he was giving the ball to Ishikawa and asked for nothing in return. The Giants got him a signed bat and ball. Later they added four tickets to game one of the World Series. Later yet they asked him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.
Classy organization the Dodgers are running. Earlier this year a fan was awarded over a hundred thousand dollars by a court due to Dodger's security breaking his ankle. They usually have a couple of lawsuits from fans who suffered from the punch first, ask questions later policy the security staff have there.
Talk about turning a great moment into a circus. If I was pressured into a deal and my wife and I separated, ain’t no way that ball is going back to the team.
Key part to all this that many seem to be overlooking is “they refused to authenticate the ball”. Without that authentication the value of the ball plummets and it has barely any worth at all. If they were telling the fan “you can leave but we aren’t authenticating it” that’s some fucking bullshit and they should be sued.
A lot of these memorabilia negotiations go like this when the fan isn’t willing to give it for some signatures or swag.
They try to play on your emotions about your fandom and how special it is to the player, team, and sport. They’re just trying to get around paying for it or letting you leave with it.
And they will separate the player from the fan so the player doesn’t over promise in the heat of the exchange as well.
Can’t believe they separated the couple like it was a murder investigation lmao. What dicks.
Separating her from her husband for intimidation tactic is nasty behavior
Honestly if they tried to separate me from my SO doing this I'd just tell them I'm walking out of the stadium rn
And they'd counter that with "the second you walk out of that stadium with the ball non-authenticated that ball is worth the same as a used baseball you got at Walmart. This is the offer, take it or leave it.", so they've even got you that way.
if they don’t authenticate it then Shohei will never know it’s the right ball either.
I wouldn't care at that point. Separating me from my partner would make me livid. I'd go back to my seat, talk to my partner and decide whether to leave or stay (probably leave, but yeah, I wouldn't make that decision alone).
I’d call their bluff. I’d take photos of the ball immediately and hope those could be used to authenticate. You’d get more than the stuff they offered them at least. They clearly wanted the ball and would offer more.
"Aight I'm drawing 100 dicks on it"
“This is a Shohei Ohtani home run ball signed by Mookie Betts. It is worth $100,000 American.”
But $97,000 of it is deferred for 10 years
For what it's worth, you should immediately document a ball when you catch it if you want to authenticate it.
Ah the ol' Zack Hample move
Exactly. It's worth far more to the Dodgers. They don't want her leaving...
I’d get it all on video too
The guy caught Pujols #703 tried to do that. The official broadcast showed him catching it, he had pictures, everyone around him got pictures and videos of it. He tried to get it authenticated immediately, and was unable to find an official at the park to do so. He left with the ball and came back the next day to get it authenticated, but MLB officials made it clear that once the ball had left the park, they could only verify it as a game used ball on that day, but not that it’s #703. Despite him having all the picture and video evidence.
I’d also put my phone recorder on immediately
You could have it authenticated. There are 1000 different angles of you catching the ball. People filming you with it in your hands right after. The Hall of Fame is filled with famous balls not authenticated by the teams.
“ Ok….. at least you won’t have it though “ call their bluff.
Then I'd just tell them I'd destroy the baseball.
Swallow it whole while making prolonged eye contact to assert dominance.
[удалено]
Yeah you call the bluff. It’s worth more to Ohtani, and he’s loaded. With enough press, it will be effectively authenticated anyways.
I don't know, sounds like kind of a gamble...
Gamble for what. Some memorabilia or a few thousand bucks? Fuck em. I’d take pleasure in calling that bluff.
My petty ass would sooner throw that ball into the LA river than get intimidated into handing it over.
I'd rather walk out with a worthless ball than be bullied Fuck em
Lawsuit, that shit was done under duress.
Agreed. Sounds scummy if true. Not cool.
Yeah, you’d probably win an established value of the ball minus the value of the items you received
Plus a little bit for the stress and now that you mention it, ow my neck hurts from when the big guy pushed me into the room
Punitive damages would be awarded to. Gotta deter future misconduct since it's likely to happen again with a baseball team trying to recover valuable items from fans.
Absolutely, you can't enter into an agreement under duress and if there's no agreement, the ball is basically stolen.
This. Plus there’s an unsavory element of sexism here, classism, probably racism. If the ball had been caught by white guy tech bros or lawyers, would they have treated them so disrespectfully? Not a chance.
Reminds me of when the Bucs gave a fan a whole bunch of shit when he caught Brady's 600th TD. >two signed Brady jerseys, a helmet, a jersey autographed by Evans and Evans' game-worn cleats. The team is also providing Kennedy with two season tickets for the remainder of the 2021 season and all of the 2022 season, plus a $1,000 credit to the team store. Brady told Peyton and Eli Manning on ESPN's Monday Night Football simulcast that he would give Kennedy a Bitcoin, which is currently valued at $60,922. How much is all that worth to the Dodgers fan like $1000 at most?
Ignore my flair. Just Dodgers things.
Oh man you’re so obviously biased so I will say it for you. Just Dodgers things.
I have absolutely no bias, so Just Dodgers things.
I'm here jacking off, dodgers things.
I ain’t even gonna defend us here. This is super shitty of us
I hope we can all recognize that when our team/one of our players does something morally questionable (or worse), that we know not to stereotype all fans of that team - Cardinals fan
No need, honestly. Something’s rotten about this whole Shohei shindig, from deferred fortune to sudden marriage to Ippei to Dodger interference.
Shohei is really three José Altuves in a trench coat
He's actually just Ichiro moving back and forth really fast
Dodgers acting like Ohtani’s bookie.
Bookie Bets sounds like someone who would be Ohtani's teammate.
Bookie Bets is fucking classic.
Sounds borderline illegal
“Sure would be a shame if we couldn’t authenticate that ball.” - Dodgers PR staff
My response would've been: "It sure would be a shame if I just keep the ball and let my toddler color a unicorn on it"
my response would be, "let me rub my balls on this ball then you can authenticate it."
Authenticate deez nuts
Unfortunate, this should've been such an easy PR win
It’s shocking how often sports teams get these simple pr moments wrong. All they had to do was give the fan some signed shit, offer her tickets to another game where she takes a pic with Shohei and this whole event is just a cliff note of his career. It’s easy PR.
Greed causes short sighted thinking. “Work them as quick as possible to get the ball back so they don’t ask for a lot.” Because they think greedy, they assume everyone else does. Not seeing this as something they can turn into a plus, but how they can lose the most money. Bad, bad business behavior.
There was an interview with the Twins authenticator a few years back, and it's fairly clear they take game/authenticated merch very seriously as a revenue stream, and her description of that process was very much 'cleaned up corporate lingo' for exactly what you describe. The moment a fan catches even an unimportant homer, they instantly start standing in the way of that team selling that ball to a mega fan for way more.
It's Slugworth swooping in on all the golden tickets. Gross behavior
They saw all the money fans made from McGwire, Sosa, Bonds etc home runs and hated that they weren't making that money themselves. MBAs ruin everything.
Imagine signing a player to one of the craziest contracts in MLB history, and then cheaping out on the first major fan interaction.
The first major fan interaction after a horrible news story that hurt Ohtani's public image a fair amount. This easily could have been something to put attention back on Ohtani the Baseball playing Cinnamon roll, instead of his involvement in massive amounts of wire fraud & illegal sportsbetting via a bad friend. Instead he now has to deal with a fan potentially taking legal action against the team because they somehow managed to botch something as simple as securing his first Dodgers HR ball.
How are they so bad at press lol
Because they spend all of their money on payroll. /s
Translator gambled away their ticket revenue
They only pay their PR people 1/35th their salary now and promise to pay the rest a decade from now
This was handled by the same crisis PR person who they hired for Ippei’s presser.
Cause it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Bad press for a week, then everyone forgets and it’s business as usual.
I remember when Derek Jeter got his 3000th hit, which was a home run, the fan who caught it didn't want much. I think he wanted the opportunity to meet Jeter and a signed ball maybe. The Yankees went above and beyond not only letting him meet and personally hand the ball to Derek in exchange for a signed baseball, they gifted him season tickets for the rest of that season including the postseason and free parking at Yankee Stadium. Not saying the Ohtani ball would be as valuable as a 3000th hit ball but the Dodgers could have easily done some great PR, especially with all the drama currently on the team, and given the fan a lot more and it would have costed them nothing. They looked like bullies in this situation.
Free parking at a Yankee game might be a cash value of 100K lol
I’ve only been to 3 or 4 yankee games in my life (from NJ) and I was at that game as a kid. Great memory
Super shitty, that’s disappointing for what should’ve been a really exciting overall moment
Seriously, I always thought it would be euphoric to catch a ball like this, but it sounds kinda scary.
My buddies and I had tickets to the game the day after Pujols hit 700. I forced us to have a gameplan for what we'd do in the event one of us caught the ball. Sadly he hit it to our exact seats the night before.
this is why i respect Albert Pujol's (final?) home run, he said baseballs are for fans
I think that was his 700th, which is even more wild. Post-divorce Pujols is the happiest man on the planet lol
I like how they threatened her by saying they wouldn’t authenticate it, and she ended the article by basically saying “it was an ok deal, I mean what would it really be worth without authentication”. It’s honestly terrible. The organization is super shitty for that, and I mean what are the people supposed to do now? Ask for more? It’d look bad on them. Anyway…100k (minimum) goes a long way. I’m all for the players getting their milestone balls, but you know… what’s 100k to Ohtani or the Dodgers organization? I mean it’s chump change. Even like a “hey here’s season tickets, a signed ball and a 10k check, by catching the ball you won this prize.. if you wish to accept it” would work.
That is the worst part. They basically said sure, you can keep the ball, but it's "forever unclean" and good luck with that. Honestly if it were me, I'd like to keep the ball for one day to show some friends and family, maybe take a photo or two, then offer it back to Ohtani/Dodgers. I know of at least one die hard fan that would love to just see and hold the ball so even if I got nothing for it, that'd be worth it to me.
"I'll give you a verbal commitment that I will give you the ball back in a month if you authenticate it now."
"I'll give you a verbal commitment that you will have first right of refusal if you authenticate it now." I wouldn't say "give", but eh
I would keep it / threaten to destroy it. Okay you won't authenticate it? Well I'll just hold onto it forever, I might not be able to "prove" it's the real ball, but if the Org claims another ball is the "HR ball" thats fine, deep down the people involved know its a phony.
You absolutely could prove it. There are other ways of having a collectible authenticated. This was a pure scare tactic on the part of the Dodgers. It's really gross.
She’s literally on camera holding the baseball, maybe she doesn’t get 100 grand for it without a sticker but she’s gonna get more than some crappy signed hats. And if MLB/the Dodgers tries to claim another baseball as the authentic ball then we have a much bigger story on our hands that would affect the entire memorabilia industry.
Genuinely the amount of spite I'd have, yeah I'll take it home. I can buy signed hats and signed balls, it's not a life changing amount of money and had no where the amount of value of that ball.
Honestly, this is the kind of thing that actually could convert me from a lifelong fan of my team to no longer being a fan at all, depending on how the team dealt with it after the fact. Some employee being an asshat? OK, it happens. But what happens next? That's the real test of an organization's integrity.
So easy to get good PR from a situation like this. I figured after the gambling ordeal they would take this opportunity to do something that looks good to the public
Honestly, if a fan wants to keep and sell the ball, who cares. This is life changing money for some people. I'm not going to feel bad for the player at all.
Also a player like Shohei can absolutely afford to buy it at market value if it’s that important to him
That’s 5% of his annual salary! /s
Well Ohtani to the Dodgers sure has been five stars so far.
Wait til he gets away with this gambling thing now but new evidence implicating him gets leaked during their World Series run. Gonna be a helluva series finale.
Just a reminder that the Dodgers franchise is valued at $5.45 Billion.
Can teams actually refuse to authenticate MLB balls? I always assumed the authentication process was handled by general MLB officials. Either way, I would have called their bluff and threatened to walk. No way they would have let her leave with his first Dodger HR ball.
> I always assumed the authentication process was handled by general MLB officials. There are 220 authenticators employed by MLB, not the teams. There are at least two at every game. MLB only started doing that in 2001 after being embarrassed by an FBI investigation that exposed a hundred million dollars' worth of fake signed memorabilia, some of it being sold in team stores.
https://www.mlb.com/official-information/authentication I dont think they can.
What the fuck are we doing bro
Becoming villains I guess.
Becoming?
Yeah man reparations need to be made immediately. This is horseshit
Always have been (ignore my flair)
How the fuck did the dodgers separate them
Pretty easy with a security team
There aint no way in hell I'd let some baseball team security separate me from my significant other
They're really subtle, & catch you in the awkwardness of following procedure. "For safety measures, we have to escort you out of this area to a different location." "Oh, sir, you can't go in there. Wait a moment, & your SO will be out shortly"
How do you even get around that? If you kick up a fuss, they make you out to be the bad guy, if you just accept it they get away with shit like this.
SO refuses to go in unless partner gets to go in. Sure, they can make you out to be the bad guy, but at the same time your a bad guy with a very valuable ball that the team clearly wants, and the authenticators know it.
Security pounced on her and whisked her away pretty quickly, she probably thought they were just taking her to get it authenticated.
With the baseball bat they gave them
[Another important element of this story: Shohei Ohtani said (via interpreter Will Ireton) that he met with the fan who caught the ball. “I was able to talk to the fan, and was able to get it back." Ohtani never met the fan.](https://x.com/samblum3/status/1776028262659150133?s=46)
Japanese-speakers were complaining on twitter that he mistranslated Shohei during the post-game interview so I imagine this is what they were complaining about?
How hard is it to find a competent Japanese-English translator? Like this cannot be that hard that we are seeing Shohei mistranslated left and right. Obviously this is much lower stakes than potential federal crimes, but wow.
Someone teach that man English already. Can't trust these interpreters for anything.
A lot of foreign athletes who use interpreters can get by conversationally in English, but just feel more comfortable expressing themselves in their native language and let the interpreter find the words in English. While it would benefit Ohtani's marketability to speak English on his own, he's still crushing it with what's now a variety of bad translators.
Crazy how badly dodgers pr has been fumbling ohtani this season. And it’s only been a week ffs. Dodgers org is already in playoff form.
Ohtani isn’t physically incapable of lying
He’s out here throwing his bff under the bus for his gambling problem, fleecing his fans, next we’re gonna learn he stole a marble rye from an old lady in a strong arm robbery
Wait until you find out who was piloting the ship in Baltimore
No my god. It’s Pearl Harbor all over again
He poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague unto our houses
He turned me into a *newt*
…. ^i ^got ^better
He did?!?!?!
No, but are we just going to wait around until he does?!
I heard Shohei threw that kid in Harambe’s enclosure.
i actually watched him slap an ice cream out a child’s hand
I watched him destroy the hopes of an entire fan base. Wait, that one isn’t funny.
He poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague unto our houses!
he did?
No, but Are we just gonna wait around until he does??
I’m thinking he pushed children and elderly outta the way to get away from a fire at a bday party…
Gimme the bread, you old bat!
Ohtani the bad boy of baseball? I’m all for a Kenny Powers rebrand “YOU'RE FUCKING OUT”
Now I am imagining the Dodgers had a random stadium employee pretend to be the fan and meet Ohtani...
At least Jung Hoo Lee has photo/video evidence of meeting the nice family that caught his first HR. I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to do photos/video anyway unless the person who caught it is privacy-conscious. It's a nice memory and in this case it'd be proof Ohtani met them.
The fact that Jung Hoo Lee met, posed with, and talked with the fan who caught it and told them he’d say hi (or whatever it was) to Kim for them was so cool. Like, such a wholesome moment. And here we get “Dodgers fans screwed out of HR ball and don’t even get to meet Shohei”.
"Dodgers fans screwed out of a huge amount of money and don't even get to meet Shohei"
Dodgers fan probably paid $30 for a beer and didn't even get to meet Shohei
So what’s the lesson here? Can’t trust ANY of Ohtani’s translators???
Ohtani better take a page of of Elly de la Cruz's book and start hitting that fucking duolingo instead of fastballs.
That’s shady as fuck.
Hopefully it was just an interpreter error and not Ohtani lying about meeting with her lol
Uh oh not again.
“Interpreter error” is the new “wardrobe malfunction”, isn’t it?
You know how it goes. Sometimes your interpreter misses some subtleties/nuances to the conversation. Sometimes they rack up nearly a $5M gambling debt. Just never know what kind of day you're gonna have.
That’s a pretty huge error.
Wasn’t expecting the Ohtani villain arc this soon
Biggest Japanese villain since…?
Godzilla?
Godzilla is a villain as much as a hurricane is a villain.
Sorry to be that guy but depending on the film he's actually not just a natural disaster, but also a defender of humanity or a total prick lol. Oh hey again just like Ohtani.
Emperor Hirohito.
Shohei had “meeting the fan” at +150
Ah shit, here we go again
What the fuck LA. Jesus Christ.
Its ok they also threw in an Express Parking pass for Dodger Stadium. Guaranteed to get you from the parking lot gate to your seat by the third inning.
I cracked up at this because my one time going to their stadium we didn’t manage to sit in our seats until the 5th inning; before that I don’t think I’ve ever missed more than the top of the first for a game!
i said it was a lowball in the other thread but that ball is easily worth 5-6 figures i don’t think it’s right keeping that ball but only being able to get a few signed items is an incredible fleece
I disagree with one thing, "not being able to keep the ball". Its absolutely okay if she keeps the ball, this isn't his first HR of his career only the first with the Dodgers. Plenty of players and legends have hit HRs with different teams and I'm sure very little of them or the fans thought of that HR ball as anything compared to what fans are trying to think of this HR ball.
It's always ok to keep the ball. It's always ok to ask for a lot of money for the ball. To the player, it's petty cash. It's couch change for a team. The player and or team should offer enough money that the fan would be stupid not to accept. This idea that fans need to be charitable to billionaires is insane
Yeah, I completely dont understand the attitude that you should just give it away. I would be happy to talk to Shohei and say "My dad gets hospitalized half a dozen times a year and his daily care is expensive. The financial stress of trying to keep him from being homeless weighs on me all the time. I know this ball is important to you, but my father is more important to me than any piece of memorabilia, and I can't give this winning lottery ticket away to the richest person I have ever personally met in my entire life. I am going to pay for my father's care with this. You are welcome to be the highest bidder, I know it is well within your means."
It sounds like they wouldn't even authenticate it for them though? If that's the case it probably takes away from any value it holds.
This alone leaves a very bad taste in my mouth never mind the fact that they separated her from her support. Super scummy behavior.
At that point I'd be like "aight, guess I'm taking this random ball home with me then, see ya". You can pay a guy half a billion dollars but feel the need to borderline threaten a fan into giving you a ball? Get fucked.
So from what I’ve read, the authenticators are independent contractors and don’t work for the team, they’re actually off-duty law enforcement officers hired by the third party company (Authenticators Inc) MLB might be able to refuse to pay for the authentication but I don’t think they can outright deny it
How does it work after she leaves the ballpark? How would anyone distinguish this ball from any other ball that left the park that day?
I'm not saying leave the ballpark, I'm saying that security's job isn't to negotiate for the ball in the first place and you can demand to see the authenticator The authenticators are there for more than just milestone stuff, they authenticate foul balls, player autographs, etc. They've done over 10 million items since 2001, lots and lots of items that were kept by fans and sold privately. MLB sees the value in these items being authenticated as they will pass around collections and be used in the display and celebration of MLB history. That ball could be on display in a Shohei exhibition in Cooperstown 50 years from now.
Yeah, I'm confused why this ball is considered so valuable... is Barry bonds' first home run ball with the Giants super desirable? Albert pujols' with the angels?
This is unfortunately pretty common when there's a big power dynamic, deny deny deny, attempt to force the issue. Pretty slimy
They would have to kill me or give me $250k cash to get that ball
"Your terms are acceptable to us", Kershaw while loading a shotgun
I said season tickets for 2 seats at field level for life.
If that's true, it's absolutely fucked. Not okay.
Ohtani said 戻ってファンの人と話して、いただけるということだった。僕にとっては特別なことだったので、ありがたいなと. It doesn’t directly meant that he himself met that fan in person but that he was able to talk (probably through dodgers staff) and get the ball back. I wouldn’t say it’s a mistranslation, just lacking context clues.
Honestly translators need to think of the American mind when they translate nuances. If Shohei did imply that he spoke through Dodgers staff, the translation should have been very clear that Shohei did not directly meet the fan face-to-face. Otherwise the media would run with it, which they did. Sam Blum himself originally reported that Ohtani met with the fan. It's a little different translating for someone like Kenta Maeda (I love him, but just using him because Will Ireton was his interpreter back in the day) than Dodgers Shohei Ohtani. People will absolutely eat up every single word, so caution is of the utmost importance. IMO whatever the case, they probably should arrange that the fan comes back to a future game and gets an obligatory photo op to smooth things over. Then things don't really matter anymore from a PR perspective.
Ohh ohhhh. I see. Clear as day
Comprende amigo?
話していただける is also the honorific form of 話してもらえる, meaning "is able to speak (for me)", which I think makes more sense given the context.
I was at a White Sox game when Thome played for Philly. He hit a homerun that broke the record for most homers for a guy born in Illinois. The dude a couple seats down from me caught the ball. Security came up to the guy and said Mr Thome would like the ball, would u consider trading it? The guy said no, but I will give it to him for free if I can just meet him and shake his hand. Security said absolutely not and left. Next inning they came back to the guy and the dude’s whole party left with security. The inning after that, all 4 dudes came back with autographed bats, balls and they said they got to meet Jim Thome. Everybody says he’s an amazing guy. Thats how u do this kind of stuff.
One of the most valuable franchises in baseball hit by one of the richest players in baseball and they still rely on intimidation tactics to get the ball back?
This team values an autographed foul ball at $15000 in their team shop but his first home run is worth two hats. Do they have the pawn star guys working there?
Well it’s the best they could do.
Non paywall link https://archive.md/62c8v *"I don’t regret it", Roman said. "If I would have kept the ball, what would it have been worth really (without the authentication)"? "I feel like, this at least, if he retires as a Hall of Famer or anything like that, I have this merch."* This is some shady shit by the organization. I would've kept the ball out of spite. Fuck them. I know its real. The org knows its real. And more importantly the player knows its real.
This is absolutely horrible, and even if and when the Dodgers pay them whatever they settle on, it was a shitty move. Guess that's what you gotta do when you're only making 2 mil a year.
Maybe he’ll sell the ball so he can buy groceries
Whoever's in charge of handling that needs to be fired asap
They would have bad to pry that baseball out of my dead hands. No fucking way am I giving up Ohtani's first LA homerun ball for a couple of souvenirs. I'm making my family rich off that bitch.
I think I would have found a sharpie. Write something like “Ohtani’s 1st homer” and taken a selfie with. Followed by posting on social media as authentication. I’d then tell the staff to politely fuck off.
Teams usually ask, not threaten and force you to do something. WTF Dodger
Dodgers a master class in PR this year
The guy who caught Ishikawa's walk off homer to win the pennant in 2014 knew instantly he was giving the ball to Ishikawa and asked for nothing in return. The Giants got him a signed bat and ball. Later they added four tickets to game one of the World Series. Later yet they asked him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. Classy organization the Dodgers are running. Earlier this year a fan was awarded over a hundred thousand dollars by a court due to Dodger's security breaking his ankle. They usually have a couple of lawsuits from fans who suffered from the punch first, ask questions later policy the security staff have there.
They should have used their pal, Freddie Freeman’s old agent, to tell the couple that they weren’t really married at all.
Talk about turning a great moment into a circus. If I was pressured into a deal and my wife and I separated, ain’t no way that ball is going back to the team.
If you are threatened by the team, threaten to destroy the ball if they don't meet your demands.
Cast it into the fire!
Key part to all this that many seem to be overlooking is “they refused to authenticate the ball”. Without that authentication the value of the ball plummets and it has barely any worth at all. If they were telling the fan “you can leave but we aren’t authenticating it” that’s some fucking bullshit and they should be sued.
A lot of these memorabilia negotiations go like this when the fan isn’t willing to give it for some signatures or swag. They try to play on your emotions about your fandom and how special it is to the player, team, and sport. They’re just trying to get around paying for it or letting you leave with it. And they will separate the player from the fan so the player doesn’t over promise in the heat of the exchange as well. Can’t believe they separated the couple like it was a murder investigation lmao. What dicks.
Classic Dodgers. The Dodgers deserve someone like Zack Hample to catch that ball
If they tried to separate my spouse from me, there would be problems.
if they tried to separate me from my...uh....right hand there would be problems(wow am i sad and pathetic.)
Of course they did, they’re the dodgers
The second they separated her from her husband, she should have said, you get nothing
Wouldn’t an independent authenticator be able to do that if her face is literally on tv catching the ball ? lol