Much like the rest of the internet, the team inside the YES Network booth was left in disbelief after a fan jumped from the stands trying to catch Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run ball on Tuesday night.
Michael Kay, who made the call on Judge in Arlington, Texas, for the Yankees’ doubleheader against the Rangers, elaborated on the incident with David Cone and Meredith Marakovits.
“I’m watching the ball travel into left field, all of a sudden, I see a body go over the railing in left field and I’m thinking, ‘Did I just see that, right? Was that a person that fell over?’ I couldn’t tell if they had accidentally fallen over, if they had intentionally fallen over. It was interesting,” said Marakovits, the Yankees clubhouse reporter.
In the footage, a fan is seen jumping over the railing in an attempt to retrieve Judge’s home run ball. The ball landed some distance away from the individual in question, with a different fan catching the prized piece instead.
Cone said he missed what transpired the first time, while Kay remarked, “Maybe it was a strategic move? Where he felt if the ball did carom off someone’s hand, it was going to drop down in the section between the wall and the outfield wall.”
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Marakovits responded, “I think that could’ve been what he was doing,” before adding, “I don’t know that it’s worth breaking both legs, we hope that individual is OK. It’s scary.”
Later Tuesday evening, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News reported that the fan “did not incur injuries, but was escorted out of park “for trying to jump [the] fence.”
Cory Youmans, a Dallas investment VP, caught the ball instead.