SAVE ME OUT AT THE BALL GAME: IS BEING A BASEBALL FAN A CONTACT SPORT? HOME RUN BALLS, ABANDONED PROPERTY, AND VIOLENCE IN THE STADIUM

Written by Paul Finkelman^*

I. INTRODUCTION⁰¹

The ball goes over the fence. It is a home run or maybe a foul ball. Fans scramble to pick it up. It is a great souvenir to take home. It has also become a dangerous object. These days the ball is an attractive nuisance. If the ball is rolling around in the stands, fans might be rolling around as well, roughing each other up, trying to get it. If the ball lands in someone’s glove, or even their lap, another fan may grab the ball.

In 2022, Mark Kirsch, a fan famous for collecting home run balls, "deliberately stole a home run ball off Juan Soto’s bat that was caught by a 17-year-old kid." Kirsch is an adult, a giant of a man, who used to compete "in World’s Strongest Man qualifying events." Kirsch has no regrets about swiping the ball from the glove of teenager Bruce Williams. He felt no remorse. His only regret was that he did not have a better glove so he could have caught the ball without resorting to theft. But when it went into Williams’s glove, Kirsch just took it. In Krisch’s moral world, might makes right. His response to questions about his behavior centered on needing to upgrade his glove,⁰² not to upgrade his behavior. Kirsch somehow thought he had a "God-given" right, or perhaps a right given to him by Major League Baseball, to openly commit theft and common law battery. The Kansas City Royals gave Williams a signed ball from a Royals player and some bobble heads of Royals players. The team made no attempt to retrieve the ball from Kirsh or in any other way deal with his clear theft. Kirsh offered to give Williams an old Royals jersey but he refused to return the ball he had just stolen from Williams.⁰³