Two baseball fans learned the hard way that grabbing at players isn’t just bad form – it’ll get you banned from every MLB stadium in America.
The fans who tangled with Dodgers star Mookie Betts during the 2024 World Series at Yankee Stadium won’t be seeing any more live baseball games anytime soon. MLB has banned them indefinitely from all stadiums and facilities across the country.
It all went down in the first inning of Game 4, when Yankees’ Gleyber Torres hit a foul ball down the right field line. Betts jumped to make the catch at the wall, but that’s when things got ugly.
Two fans, sitting right at the railing, grabbed Betts’ throwing hand and yanked the ball right out of his glove.
“We’re not going to go out of our way to attack,” said Austin Capobianco, one of the banned fans, trying to explain himself to ESPN afterward. “If it’s in our area, we’re going to ‘D’ up. Someone defends, someone knocks the ball.”
MLB wasn’t buying that explanation.
“Your conduct posed a serious risk to the health and safety of the player and went far over the line of acceptable fan behavior,” the league wrote in their ban notice.
The Yankees didn’t waste any time dealing with the situation. They kicked both Capobianco and John P. Hansen out of Game 4 immediately and banned them from coming back for Game 5, calling their behavior “egregious and unacceptable.”
The interference actually hurt their own team – Torres was called out on the play because of the fans’ actions.
It turned out to be a costly mistake in more ways than one. While the Yankees won that game, it would be their only victory of the series. The Dodgers went on to win it all in five games.
The incident serves as a pretty expensive reminder: no souvenir is worth a lifetime ban from baseball.
