One of those rare times where you probably shouldn't "Do the Bartman".
Narrator: Want to achieve instant success, become a baseball fan, revered the world over?
Goofy: Yeah!
Narrator: Just catch a…foul ball.
Goofy: Oooh.
Goofy: Yeah!
Narrator: Just catch a…foul ball.
Goofy: Oooh.
Going to a sporting event is a fun affair for young and old fans alike. Whatever the sport may be, there's fun to be had in watching the game, rooting for your favorite team or player, enjoying stadium food, and altogether having a good time.
However, what elevates the experience more is the potential for a souvenir. No, it's not specifically about the ticket, a promotional item, or something bought at the team store or memorabilia stand.
No, the souvenir in question, while free, is one of the most challenging things to come by: a foul or home run ball. Typically, a nine-inning professional baseball game will see an average of 20-23 baseballs fly into the stands, whether they be foul balls, home run balls, or even in rare instances, ground rule doubles. Then of course, there are instances where players will throw balls into the stands after an inning is completed. Depending on the size of the stadium, the number of fans in attendance, and the location of your seat, the odds of getting a game-used baseball is nonzero, but still more unlikely than likely.
The point is, a souvenir baseball, one that was used during the game, is a dream come true for any fan. Whether it's their first ever baseball or, in the case of people like infamous ballhawk, Zack Hample
, their 12,000th, it's a memorable experience that elevates an already fun time at a game.
Another sport that sees scoring objects fly into the stands occasionally is ice hockey, although hockey pucks are less likely to enter the stands due to a combination of high plexiglass barriers, protective netting behind the goals and a rarity of shots that would generate enough lift for a hockey puck to even make its way to the stands, though there have been many instances of pucks going Out of Play into the stands (though a player can be given a two minute penalty for Delay of Game if they deliberately do this) and many players are also kind enough to give fans pucks or even one of their sticks during pre-game warmups, if they ask nicely.
In other sports - like basketball and soccer - balls that do enter the stands cannot be kept by fans and are usually returned to the field of play by stadium workers, due to them being more expensive to manufacture and produce compared to baseballs. Additionally, in the case of basketball, players prefer older, more broken-in balls compared to newer ones. American football is similar, as some players have specially prepped footballs that they use during games. Although there have been instances where players will give footballs to fans after scoring touchdowns, and of course there is footage of fans that have somehow managed to obtain a game ball that has made it way to the stands.*
For this trope to take effect, a character will have to catch a ball that has left the field of play and entered the stands. While the prevalence leans towards foul balls, home run balls (and to a lesser extent, other on-field souvenirs like baseball bats) the only limitation is that the item in question must have been used during the actual game, so if the ball is tossed or given to the character by a player, that counts as a variation. This means no baseballs used in batting practice, no balls brought into the stadium, the idea is relatively straightforward. Bonus points if the character caught the ball under extraordinary circumstances although if the character brought a glove to the game, they won't be judged for it.
Again, variations of the trope involving other sports balls or on-field equipment are considered acceptable alternatives. Getting hit by a ball that goes into the stands also counts, so long as the ball ends up in the character's possession at least briefly.
Most likely part of a Baseball Episode. Can be an example of a Literally Prized Possession, especially if the ball has significant value, i.e. a home run ball.
In Cricket, this is referred to as a "crowd catch", although spectators are expected to return the ball if it is hit into the crowd.
Not to be confused with Foul Ball Pit, which focuses on disgusting ball pit play areas at restaurants.
There will be a limit on Real Life Examples, mainly to prevent Troper Tales from oversaturating the example list.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Being longtime sponsors of Major League Baseball, both Budweiser and Bud Light have made ads featuring this trope.
- Weaponized in this Bud Light commercial where two fans notice a long line in the concessions booth. One of them then pulls out two pieces of wood to mimic the sound of a bat hitting a foul ball in the stands, while the other tosses a baseball near the seating entrance. With the line gone, the two fans buy their Bud Light. The Stinger has them planning the same trick, this time for a long restroom line.
- One of the Real Men of Genius radio ads highlights "Mr. Overzealous Foul Ball Catcher", a baseball fan who goes out of his way shoving fans and vendors, just so he could get a foul ball.
Voiceover: So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, mister bully of the bleachers. Because why pay for a souvenir, when you can fight for one.
- Another Real Men of Genius ad salutes "Mr. Baseball Stadium Glove Wearing Guy", a fan who brings his baseball glove to games with the hope of a catching a home run ball or a foul ball.
Voiceover: So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, ole señor screwball. Watching that ball bounce off your temple will always be our favorite pastime.
- A 1984 Budweiser commercial features Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray sitting in the grandstands with the fans instead of his usual box, only for an off-screen batter to hit a ball in his area. Harry then pulls out a fishing net and catches a beer can. Budweiser would replay this ad on TV decades later after the Cubs won the World Series in 2016.
Harry: Cubs fans, This Bud's For You!
- Weaponized in this Bud Light commercial
- An eBay commercial starts with a man catching a foul ball at a baseball game. He then notices a kid staring at him, and he gives the ball to her. It then cuts to him on a bus buying a championship game-used baseball on the eBay app, with a boy looking at him making his purchase.
- Gatorade once made a Viral Marketing commercial where one of the ball girls (people seated in the foul areas who usually catch a rolling foul ball before tossing it back to the players, or even tossing it to the fans) makes an unbelievable foul ball catch by jumping off the outfield wall. She then tosses the ball to the outfielder before sitting back in her chair, with a visible Gatorade bottle right next to it.
- A Kool-Aid commercial has the Kool-Aid Man catch a home run ball and giving it to a kid in front of him. He then tries to high-five the giant soda bottle seated next to him but is left hanging.
- In 2002, Taco Bell held a promotion during that year's World Series where they would set up a target in McCovey Cove outside of Pac Bell Park (now Oracle Park) in San Francisco, where if a home run ball hit the target, then everyone in America gets free tacos. Much like a similar promotion they did the year before involving the landing of the space station Mir, they were unsuccessful as no balls ended up hitting the target. They haven't done anything similar since then, transitioning towards their more successful "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco" promotion.
- A Texaco commercial features a rare NASCAR variant of this trope. Here, a pit crew member tosses a lug nut behind him after a pit stop, with the nut finding its way into the fan area. After bouncing off the hands of some fans, it lands in the drink of an unsuspecting fan, leading to a pileup. The ad ends with The Reveal that a woman got the lug nut, which is now hanging on the passenger mirror in her car.
Anime & Manga
- Case Closed: Played for tragedy; a man's girlfriend has a life-long dream of catching a home run ball at a baseball game, but she's an Ill Girl and dies before she has the chance. The man goes to a game in hopes of at least being able to put a caught ball in her coffin and manages to actually catch the ball, but then he gets hit by the crowd and drops it, where it's taken by someone else. The man follows him to a sports bar to ask for it back, but the one who took the ball is having relationship troubles of his own and blows him off without even listening, causing the man to fly into a rage and attack him with a deck brush, putting him in the hospital.
- Magic Kaito: One chapter has a little boy dressing up as Kaitou Kid in hopes of "heisting" a home-run ball from his hero (real-life Giants player Kazushige Nagashima). At first annoyed, the real Kid helps him get one after seeing the sheer amount of times he gets trampled by adult fans catching all the other stray balls.
Comic Books
- Peter Parker: Spider-Man: As an adolescent attending a New York Mets game with his Uncle Ben, Peter earnestly tries to catch a foul ball. Unfortunately, the ball hits Peter in the head, knocking him unconscious; then, adding insult to injury, Peter is horrified to be awakened by the giant baseball-headed mascot Mr. Met, and he’s so scared that he faints just after waking up.
Comic Strips
- FoxTrot: In one strip, the family is at a baseball game and both Peter and Roger try to catch a foul ball that is hit their way. Both miss and the ball lands in a bucket of popcorn Paige is eating, much to her displeasure.
- Peanuts: Charlie Brown once went to a game where the team's manager is his favorite player, Joe Shlabotnik. Despite all odds, Charlie Brown catches a foul ball and rushes to get Joe to sign it as the tour bus is leaving. Joe tosses the ball to Charlie, but it hits him on the head and knocks him out. A mean kid takes it and dares Charlie Brown to fight him for it; fortunately, Snoopy comes to the rescue, bites the kid and carries Charlie Brown and the ball to safety.
Film — Animation
- A Goofy Movie: Seen in the Good-Times Montage when Goofy and Max go to a baseball game during their roadtrip. Goofy manages to catch a fly ball but falls from the stands in doing so. Luckily some banners manage to catch him as he falls into the dugout where a player is sitting. Goofy tosses him the ball, the player signs it and gives it back to him before Goofy is sling-shotted back up into the stands where Max catches him.
Film — Live Action
- Angels in the Outfield (1994): During the winning streak montage, a fan angrily yells at a kid to get out of his view, only for a home run ball to land right in his mouth. That same fan shows up in the climax joining the crowd in doing the angel signal, now with a large tooth gap.
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Ferris and his friends go to a baseball game while playing hookey, and Ferris is caught on camera catching a ball hit into the stands. Fortunately for him, Ed Rooney (currently looking for them at a pizza place) is distracted for those crucial seconds and misses him.
- Fever Pitch: During a game between the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, Lindsay is working on her laptop in the stands and not paying attention to the action on the field. When Miguel Tejada hits a foul ball, it hits off her head and is caught by one of Ben's friends. Ben, who was buying hot dogs during the incident is unaware that Lindsay had gotten knocked out, however he celebrates his friend catching the foul ball. This, and the resulting highlight on the news is what convinces Lindsay to stop going to Red Sox games for a while.
- Kicking & Screaming: Buck Weston's prized possession is a North American Soccer League (NASL) ball that he got after it was once kicked into the stands by Pelé during his time with the New York Cosmos. The ball becomes part of The Bet between him and his son Phil when both of their teams play each other in the championship game. Phil's team, the Tigers, wins against Buck's team, the Gladiators, but Phil lets his dad keep the ball and decides to work for his business, which was also part of the bet.
- A League of Their Own:
- Inversion; in one scene, a Black woman watching the Rockford Peaches from the sidelines (since African Americans were not allowed to sit in the stadium in 1941) sees a foul ball in the grass. Dottie asks if she can throw it back to her, but the Black woman instead throws it to Ellen Sue, who is farther away. The throw was so hard Ellen Sue has to shake out her hand afterwards, and the woman and Dottie share a look, implying that the woman could have easily played alongside them if she had been allowed to try out like the white girls.
- Played straight in another scene, where the girls carry a huge banner across the field reading "Catch a Ball, Get a Kiss". After a Navy sailor does just that, the hitter of the foul ball — again, Ellen Sue — playfully grabs him by the neckerchief and kisses him.
- Mr. 3000: The night that Stan Ross supposedly gets his 3000th hit, he hits a comebacker to a Boston Red Sox pitcher that hits him in square in the nuts. To spite Ross, who has established a reputation of being a world-class asshole, the pitcher, while doubled over in pain, chucks the ball into the stands, forcing Ross to go after it. A young fan and his father who caught the ball tries to bargain with Ross to give him the ball, but he decides to steal it from them unceremoniously, to their protests. After his last game at the end of the film, the closing pitcher of the Houston Astros gives Ross the ball he bunted to win the game, despite ending up one hit short of 3000. After his Character Development throughout the film, Ross decides to throw the ball into the stands for a lucky fan to catch.
- Rookie of the Year: Subverted; when Henry Rowengartner and his friends go to a Chicago Cubs game after his arm surgery, they catch a home run ball hit by a Montreal Expos player. Per Wrigley Field tradition, Henry ends up throwing the ball back; however, his surgically repaired tendons allow his throw to reach home plate at 100 miles per hour, to everyone's shock.
- Tooth Fairy (2010) stars Dwayne Johnson as minor league hockey player Derek Thompson, who is nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" due his tendency of knocking off other players' teeth. One of those teeth in the beginning of the film is sent flying into the stands and grabbed by a fan, who triumphantly holds it up high.
Literature
- The Puppy Sister: After Aleasha has turned fully human (the story is about a dog who gradually turns into a human girl), she goes to a baseball game with her family. Her dog instincts remain, and when a ball flies towards her in the stands, she jumps up and catches it in her mouth like she would have done as a dog.
Live-Action TV
- The Drew Carey Show: The full version of the theme song for Season 3 shows Drew at a Cleveland Indians game having to choose between a hot dog he just bought and potentially catching a foul ball. He chooses the latter... only to have it be intercepted by Mimi.
- In an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, hideous embarrassment is caused to sports reporter Ray Barone, when his abominable father Frank goes out of his way to catch and claim a ball knocked into the crowd during a game. The catch is one of those situations where more than one person in a grandstand could have claimed the ball; it is possible Frank barged a kid out of the way to make sure of his catch, and popular sentiment supports the kid. Frank, however, refuses to give the ball up and instead offers to sell it to the kid's father. Ray, as a sports reporter covering the game, ends up in a hard place where journalistic integrity demands he criticise his own father in a newspaper potentially read by millions.
- Friends: In "The One with George Stephanopoulos", Chandler and Joey take Ross to a hockey game to take his mind off his ex-wife Carol. While there, Ross catches a stray hockey puck...and by "catch", it's more like "get hit square in the face". He goes to the hospital with a broken nose, and while there, the puck gets taken by a kid. In wrestling the puck off the kid's hands, Ross accidentally hits the mean receptionist, and the trio makes a run for it.
- Law & Order episode "Vendetta" begins with the murder of a fan who became a pariah after catching a foul ball and costing the home team a critical game (an obvious Expy of Steve Bartman (see below under "Real Life")) before taking a Halfway Plot Switch,
- In a Sesame Street skit, Mr. Johnson attends a baseball game and tries to catch a fly ball. Unfortunately, Grover keeps blocking the balls so that Johnson doesn't get hurt, then accidentally catches a ball and knocks Johnson out with it.
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody:
- In "Hotel Inspector", Mr. Moseby gives the twins tickets to a Red Sox game, hoping that they would be gone for long enough to miss the titular Hotel Inspector. He is shocked to find them back so soon, with the boys revealing that the game ended in a shutout and that their mom caught a foul ball. Cut to Carey entering with a bandage over one of her eyes and holding a baseball.
- In "Big Hair & Baseball", Zack and Cody bring Mr. Moseby to watch a baseball game. Moseby catches what he assumes a home run ball hit by the Red Sox and snatches it away from Yankees outfielder, resulting in a Fan Interference out and costing Boston their game, making himself public enemy number one.
- The Wayans Bros.: In "Say It Ain’t So, Marlon", an old friend of the brothers, real life baseball star Kenny Lofton, visits for a game. Marlon catches his important home run ball at a game. However, due to some lingering animosity when they were kids and used to play little league, Marlon refuses to throw the ball back and holds onto it out of spite. Eventually Kenny speaks with Marlon himself and hashes things out (turns out the problem was more Pops fault then Kenny's who was coaching their team at the time. Though Pops defends himself saying Marlon was a terrible player). Marlon returns the ball and actually manages to catch a legitimate fly ball at the end of the episode.
- Wizards of Waverly Place: A variation occurs in the episode "You Can't Always Get What You Carpet". When Justin secretly takes Alex for flying carpet lessons, they fly over Shea Stadium during a game. One of the players hits a home run, which Justin catches. The following day, Jerry reveals to Alex and Justin that he knew they went out on the flying carpet because he was watching the game that night and saw the home run, pointing out how it never came down.
Web Animation
- The Amazing Digital Circus: During the cast's softball adventure in "Untitled", Jax loses interest in playing after he gets voted into wearing a maid uniform for the game, so he deliberately hits a foul ball that gets caught and eaten by a giant centipede in the audience.
Western Animation
- American Dragon: Jake Long: In "Hero of the Hourglass", Jake catches a ball after defeating a villain at a ball game - and his dad sees him, and is angry at him.
- Arthur:
- In the episode, "Bitzi's Break Up", Buster recounts a time where he and his mother's now ex-boyfriend Harry went to an Elwood City Grebes baseball game, During the game, one of the Grebes players makes a crucial throwing error that ends up sailing into the stands where it ends up in Buster's soda. He then exclaims triumphantly, "I caught the losing ball!"
- In "The Curse of the Grebes", a flashback reveals that the titular curse happened after a young Grebes fan, who was watching a game from atop a nearby building, caught a home run that went out of the ballpark and into his general area. The fan is then confronted by the team's owner, who bans him from entering the ballpark because he doesn’t like him watching the games without paying a ticket and demands the ball back. The fan responds by spitting on the ball before giving it back and curses the Grebes to never win another championship.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: In "Long Arm of the Law!", Plastic Man’s sidekick, Woozy Winks, asks Plastic Man if he can think of anyone who might have an axe to grind with him. A series of flashbacks is then presented, showing Plastic Man irritating people. In the last flashback, he’s at a ballgame and he stretches his arm to catch a foul ball, angering all the people it was heading towards.
- Bob's Burgers: In "So You Stink You Can Dance", Bob and Linda take turns accompanying Teddy to the waters off Wonder Wharf Stadium to catch home runs, making a contest out of who gets the most. Bob goes first, but there are no home runs that day, and he returns with nothing but an Embarrassingly Painful Sunburn. When Linda goes the next day, there are a lot of homers hit; listening on the radio, Bob has enough, closes the restaurant, and heads to the Wharf. After a long while, he manages to catch a ball, although he has to wrestle it from a jet skier to get it.
- Cyberchase: In a Live-Action "For Real" segment, Harry gets a job as a vendor at Shea Stadium so that he can catch a foul ball. With help from then-New York Mets pitcher John Maine, Harry uses data to determine which side of the stands he should be working (depending on the batter's handedness) in order to increase his chances. In the end, he catches one which lands in a soda that he's selling to a fan.
- Family Guy:
- In the episode "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington", the Griffin family is at a Boston Red Sox game, where a sick kid is about to catch a ball before Peter unexpectedly catches it instead (to the chagrin of some onlookers) and gives it to Stewie as a souvenir. Stewie claims that he will cherish it forever... then offers the ball to a boy named Opie in exchange for his souvenir bat. Opie agrees to the trade, only for Stewie to whack him with the bat, taking both ball and bat.
- In the episode "Stewie B. Goode", a cutaway shows Stewie convincing Steve Bartman to catch the foul ball during Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins, Steve voices concern about getting in the way, Stewie rhetorically asks "What harm can it do?"
- In the episode "The Old Man and the Big "C"", Peter and the gang get tickets to the Red Sox game with seats on the Green Monster. When David Ortiz hits a home run to the wall, the gang scrums over it, with Brian emerging victorious. Quagmire is furious, insisting that he had the ball, but fails to realize that his toupee has come loose, revealing that he is bald. As tens of thousands of Red Sox fans laugh at him, to his horror, he runs away crying.
- Zig-zagged in the episode "And Then There's Fraud". Peter and Chris go to a Red Sox game, with Chris showing Peter a baseball he brought in case Xander Bogaerts hits a glove their way, to Peter's resignation. Bogaerts ends up hitting a home run, which lands in the seats and causes a fan scrum, however the jumbotron zooms in on Chris holding his ball, and stating that this was Bogaerts's 200th major league home run. A fan offers to buy the ball from Chris for $100, later upping the offer to $300 with Peter's insistence. Chris remarks how fans are perfectly willing to buy memorabilia without verifying its authenticity, kickstarting the plot of the episode.
- Futurama: Exaggerated: In the episode "Fear of a Bot Planet", Fry attends his first ever Blernsball game between the New New York Yankees and the Mars Greenskins. During the game, a Yankees player catches a blern, but it forces him into the stands and into Bender's glove. Bender exclaims that he got a souvenir, but after seeing multiple fans glare at him, hands the player to a kid nearby, who collapses under the player's weight.
- Hey Arnold!:
- In the episode "The Baseball", Arnold catches Mickey Kaline's last hit, a home run, while trying to evade ballpark security who are trying to kick him out for illegally switching seats. Although he receives an offer from Mr. Green to buy the baseball, he decides that the best thing to do is to return the ball to Mickey, especially after Kaline publicly admits that he finds the concept of retiring from playing the game he loved bittersweet. With Grandpa Phil driving him back to the stadium, he gives Mickey the ball, who in return plays catch with him while telling him stories about his professional career.
- Arnold and Mickey switch places in the episode "Dangerous Lumber" as Arnold, having overcome his fear of unintentionally injuring people, hits a home run during a baseball game. Kaline, who previously advised Arnold to face his fear, happens to be walking down the street when Arnold's ball hits him in the head. Later, Mickey gives him the ball as Arnold plays catch with him, with Arnold telling him the story of how he hit it.
- A variation in ''The Legend of Korra": In "And the Winner Is...", when Korra knocks out Tahno to take the tiebreaker for round 2 of the pro-bending championship, one Fire Ferrets fan is so shocked that she inadvertently catches Tahno's helmet, which was knocked clean off by Korra's water jet.
- A Kids' WB! promo for Legion of Super Heroes (2006) features the superhero team watching a baseball game, as a home run ball is hit that goes out of the ballpark. Brainiac 5 then proceeds to extend his arm to grab the ball before it hits the ground outside the stadium.
- The Looney Tunes Show has a variation of this in "Sunday Night Slice". As Bugs, Daffy, and Porky watch a baseball game, Daffy heckles a player, to the point where the player decides to send a ball flying right into Daffy's face.
- Maya & Miguel: In "The Autograph", Abuelita ends up catching a home run while seated at the nose bleed section at a baseball game she and her grandkids are watching. Because the home run broke the ballpark record for the longest homer hit, she ends up using the ball as a way to negotiate getting the autograph of the baseball player Maya was trying to get to replace Miguel's lost valuable card.
- In the Mickey Mouse Works/House of Mouse short "How To Be A Baseball Fan", Catching a Foul Ball is one of the steps shown. In which, Goofy catches a foul ball and ends up in a Dog Pile of Doom consisting of other Goofs trying to get the ball. He gets out of the pile after hiding the ball in his hat, only for a bratty kid to pass by and grab it off his hand. Later in the short, he tries to catch the game-winning ball hit by Slugger Jones. He catches it, but Jones is instead ruled out via Fan Interference, leading to Goofy being beaten up by angry fans and ending up in the hospital. But at least he still has the ball, which gets immediately taken by the same kid from earlier.
- Phineas and Ferb: In "Finding Mary McGuffin’’, while Vanessa thinks back on her father's awkward parenting moments, she recalls how he had tried to catch a foul ball for her… by using an invention to reach into the field and catch the ball while it was still in play, effectively disrupting the game.
- The Replacements: A rare football example in "Ball Hogs". Todd and his friend Jacobo attend a football game and quarterback Carson Palmer throws a ball into the stands. Todd stands to catch it but it hits him in the head, briefly knocks him out and lands in Jacobo's nachos. Jacobo claims the ball for himself citing it landing in his food and this causes fighting between the two over it. After Carson catches their antics on a bridge, he tells them they shouldn't jeopardize their friendship over something trivial like a football, only to then immediately grab the ball back when the two boys are distracted at the end of the episode.
- Rocko's Modern Life: In "Spitballs", Rocko's baseball was a foul ball he caught from the first baseball game he went to as a kid. When he and Heffer play with it, it lands in Mr. Bighead's front yard, and Mr. Bighead not only refuses to give it back to them but destroys it with his wood chipper. To get a new baseball, Heffer takes Rocko to the baseball stadium, since the O-Town Zeros hit more foul balls than any other baseball team. Jumping through hoops, humiliation, and very bad seats, Rocko eventually manages to get a foul ball but is stopped by a kid who wants it. He is convinced to give it up and ends up with a huge wad of tobacco from Spike Hammerhead, Heffer's favorite baseball player instead. Rocko imagines that the kid with the foul ball is gonna cherish it, but it is revealed that the little brat ripped it to pieces.
- The Simpsons: In "The Boys of Bummer" one of the many attempts for Bart to fix his earlier fumble and catch a pop fly is foiled when Homer catches the ball in the stands. This directly parodies the Steve Bartman incident, complete with Homer wearing headphones.
Real Life
- The infamous "Steve Bartman incident" during the 2003 National League Championship Series is an example of how catching foul balls can have unfortunate consequences. In Game 6 between the Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins, Marlins second baseman Luis Castillo hit a ball foul, with Cubs outfielder Moises Alou tracking it down. However, a Cubs fan named Steve Bartman (along with other fans) unintentionally intervened, accidentally slapping the ball away from Alou, who was visibly frustrated afterwards. The Cubs would lose the series, and Bartman would be treated horribly by his fellow Cubs fans as he became the target of fan ire for the team's loss, to the point where Bartman basically had to go into hiding. The combination of Alou's reaction and the TV broadcast holding on Bartman made him an easy scapegoat, despite the Cubs making multiple other mistakes that led to them losing the series. Afterwards, Cubs ownership had to issue a public statement defending Bartman and apologizing to him. The incident was scrutinized in later years for how badly Cubs fans reacted, particularly in the ESPN 30 For 30 documentary "Catching Hell" which detailed the living nightmare that Steve Bartman had to endure. This lasted until the Cubs won the 2016 World Series, and Bartman was given a championship ring as a goodwill gesture.
- Averted by Charlie Sheen, who famously bought out an entire section of seats for a California Angels game so that he could have a shot at catching a Cecil Fielder home run. As it turned out, no home runs were hit to his section that day, and he went home empty-handed.
- An Arizona Diamondbacks fan named Dave McCaskill gained infamy for interfering with outfielders during plays for four straight years, After being outed by Jomboy Media, he was banned from Diamondbacks games and had his season tickets revoked for the rest of the 2025 season. According to McCaskill, who appeared on a local radio show the day after, he admitted that he had unintentionally caused fan interference ten times as a season ticket holder, and had been ejected three times for his actions.
- A more tragic example involves Texas Rangers fan Shannon Stone. Stone, who went to a game with his son, fell 20 feet while leaning over a railing to catch a ball tossed by outfielder Josh Hamilton. Although paramedics got to him quickly, Stone would succumb to his injuries en route to the hospital. A bronze statue of him and his son would be erected in his memory outside the stadium the following year.
- During a 2025 game between the Phillies and Marlins in Miami, Philly fan Drew Feltwell would get a home run ball hit by Phillies player Harrison Bader and gave it to his son Lincoln as a gift for his 10th birthday that they were celebrating that day. However, a fellow Phillies fan would come over to him and angrily demand the ball from them, claiming that it was rightfully hers. Not wanting to escalate things, Drew would give her the ball. Thankfully, representatives from both teams would give young Lincoln gifts, with the Marlins giving him a bag of merchandise (including a ball), and the Phillies inviting him to meet Bader after the game (who signed and gave him his game-used bat).
- In the spinoff sport of "Banana Ball", played by the Savannah Bananas and their associated counterparts the Party Animals, Firefighters, Texas Tailgaters, Loco Beach Coconuts, and Indianapolis Clowns, as well as their farm team, the Visitors, rule 8 of Banana Ball stipulates that a foul ball caught in the stands by a fan is ruled an out. There have been multiple instances of this happening, most notably a game in 2024 where a fan caught a foul ball to end the game and win it for the Bananas.
- A rare football example happened when Mike Pantazis famously caught an extra point that went over the catching net for field goals when he jumped into the field entrance tunnel on a 1995 Monday Night Football game between the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.
- In 1998, a 5-year old Florida Panthers fan was attending the home opener at the newly-opened National Car Rental Center (now Amerant Bank Arena), when she got hit twice by two separate hockey pucks that struck both her wrists. After being tended to by medics and officials, she was given merchandise by the team and even rode the Zamboni during the first intermission. The name of said fan: Ariana Grande.