During Saturday’s game against the Houston Astros, Mike Trout received the Mookie Betts treatment in right field.
Yainer Diaz, the Astros’ catcher, hit Trout of the Los Angeles Angels with a lofty fly ball in the right field corner of the second inning. Trout was able to get a bead on the ball even though it hooked foul at the last second.
What Trout wasn’t anticipating though was an Astros fan taking the ball right out of his glove. But that is exactly what happened as a man in the bleachers at Daikin Park used two hands to successfully yank the ball away from a leaping Trout. To make matters worse, the first-base umpire sided with the fan, ruling simply that it was a foul ball rather than fan interference (in spite of Trout’s animated pleas).
The umpire’s decision may have been based on Trout’s attempt to make the catch by reaching into the stands, rather than the fan extending out into the field of play. Even yet, Diaz ended the inning with a flyout on the very next pitch, giving Trout and the Angels a case of “ball don’t lie.”
However, security eventually pulled the supporter out of his seat, according to a later account by Chandler Rome of The Athletic. All things considered, the strange scene was similar to when two New York Yankees fans (who were later banned from Major League Baseball games) pulled a ball out of Betts’ glove during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series last year.
