By David Waldstein
When Jeff Maier caught Derek Jeter’s home-run ball in the 1996 playoffs — actually pulling a fly ball over the wall and out of the grasp of the Baltimore Orioles outfielder trying to catch it — he became a bit of a hometown hero. He was invited to appear on David Letterman’s talk show the next day, but he declined. He was more interested in going to the next Yankees game than in going on late-night TV.
Twenty-eight years later, Austin Capobianco and a friend gained a kind of infamy for interfering with a batted ball in a far more menacing way. It happened in Game 4 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, when they wrestled a ball out of the glove of Mookie Betts, the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder.
Unlike Maier, who was allowed to remain at the game, Capobianco and his companion were ejected and barred by the Yankees from returning for Game 5 on Wednesday night. It was actually the second case of fan interference in this year’s World Series, because, as Yankees radio announcer John Sterling says, that’s baseball.
It is one of the few sports where fans have the ability to reach into the field of play from their seats. They are usually instructed not to during pregame announcements, but sometimes the passion of the moment overtakes sensibility.
“I understand the instinctive reaction to a fly ball coming towards the stands,” Maier said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “But I can’t understand grabbing at a ball that’s in the glove and physically engaging with the player. That’s a boundary that you don’t go over.”
In football and soccer, fans are almost always too far away from the actual playing field to interfere with the players. Hockey fans are separated by thick plexiglass panels. Basketball fans sit courtside, close enough to reach out and grab a player during a game, and tennis and golf fans could have opportunities, too.
But in none of those sports does it happen as frequently as in baseball, where seating areas abut the playing surface. Of course, catching a home-run ball or a foul ball is an accepted tradition, as long as fans wait for the ball to go over the wall and get to them. If it does, it is fair game — though it doesn’t always end with a lucky souvenir.
In 2003, a Chicago Cubs fan was hounded out of Wrigley Field when he tried to catch a foul ball hit out of play during the National League Championship Series. Moisés Alou, the Cubs outfielder, reached over the wall and became tangled up with the fan, Steve Bartman, and did not make the catch for the out.
Other fans mercilessly blamed Bartman for compromising Alou’s chances at the ball. He had to be escorted out of the stadium amid threats and abuse, and immediately went into hiding. More than two decades later, Bartman still avoids discussing the incident publicly.
“That was more a case of player interference,” Maier said in defense of Bartman.
“Fan interference,” as it is called by the rules of the game, happens regularly. But rarely is it more than an accidental collision of fan and player. The altercation at Tuesday’s Yankees-Dodgers game, which New York went on to win, 11-4, to stay alive in the Series, was something else.
In the first inning of Game 4, Gleyber Torres of the Yankees hit a foul ball down the right-field line. Capobianco, a Yankees season-ticket holder, and a friend, identified by ESPN as John Peter, stood at the restraining wall along the right-field line, and, like many fans do, reached for the ball. But Betts got to it first, jumping at the wall with his left arm extended.
Capobianco pulled at Betts’ glove, trying to pry it open, while Peter grabbed Betts’ other wrist. After a quick struggle, the ball popped out and landed on the field. But the umpire along the foul line immediately signaled fan interference, meaning Torres was out. The two fans were then escorted out of the stadium for interfering with play, high-fiving fellow Yankees fans as they left.
The Yankees, in a statement announcing that the pair would not be permitted back into the stadium, said the men had made “egregious and unacceptable physical contact” with Betts.
Reached Wednesday, Capobianco declined to comment, except to say he was disappointed that his younger brother and his friends could not use their tickets for Game 5. There was no indication whether the ban would extend beyond this season.
According to ESPN, Capobianco said he and his friend had previously imagined doing exactly what they did.
“We always joke about the ball in our area,” he told ESPN. “We’re not going to go out of our way to attack. If it’s in our area, we’re going to ‘D’ up. Someone defends, someone knocks the ball.”
Betts said after the game that he held no animosity toward the fans, and Dave Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, said Wednesday that the incident had not made Betts concerned for his safety in Game 5, which the Dodgers won, 7-6, to claim their eighth World Series title.
“It was just an unfortunate circumstance that was dealt with in the right way,” Roberts said.
Often, when a fan interferes in a significant baseball game — especially at Yankee Stadium — comparisons are made to Maier. That play was different in several ways. A Yankee, Derek Jeter, was the batter, and he hit a ball to deep right field in Yankee Stadium. Maier reached over the wall and caught the ball. The Orioles outfielder, Tony Tarasco, was camped underneath the ball and had been prepared to catch it.
Video replay was not in use at the time, so the home-run call by umpire Rich Garcia stood — no fan interference — and the Yankees went on to win that game, the American League Championship Series and then the World Series. It was the first of four they would win between 1996 and 2000.
Maier, who played a small part in that history, went on to play baseball at Wesleyan University. Now 40, he lives in New Hampshire and works in generative artificial intelligence tech security. He is still a passionate Yankees fan, but he missed the foul-ball play Tuesday while putting one of his sons to bed.
He said there was no comparison between what he did and what happened at that game.
“There has to be a safe place for them to play,” he said. “I understand the emotions and the passions that fans have. But there has to be a certain level of decorum and expectations.
“Admittedly,” he added, “people probably don’t want to hear that from me.”
Maier recalled that when he attended a Boston Red Sox-Yankees game at Yankee Stadium in 2018, Betts, then with the Red Sox, tossed a ball to Maier’s son Braden.
“Obviously, I’m rooting for the Yankees,” Maier said. “But Betts seems like a really good guy.”
MLB PLAYOFFS
World Series (Best of 7)
Last Friday’s Game 1
Los Angeles Dodgers 6, New York Yankees 3
Saturday’s Game 2
Dodgers 4, Yankees 2
Monday’s Game 3
Dodgers 4, Yankees 2
Tuesday’s Game 4
Yankees 11, Dodgers 4
Wednesday’s Game 5
Dodgers 7, Yankees 6 (Dodgers win series 4-1)
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