Cubs Fans Outraged After Man Appears to Take Game Ball from Child — But There's More to the Story

One Chicago Cubs fan utterly struck out whena viral videoreportedly unfairly painted him as a villain.

In a video shared to Twitter over the weekend from Sunday’s Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals match-up, an adult male fan appeared to snatch away a game ball tossed to a little boy seated in the row in front of him.

Many were quick to vilify the man for his actions, prompting the Cubs to step up to help out.

The teammade surethat the child went home with a baseball with Javier Báez’s signature. Posting photos of the boy on Twitter, the Cubs official account wrote that the “signed ball should take care of it.”

In the photos, the young fan proudly held both the signed ball — and another ball. In fact, according to NBC Sports Chicago’s David Kaplan, the adult attendee whose actions were in question had apparently already gifted a foul ball to the little boy.

Chicago Cubs/Twitter

Kaplan wrote on Twitter, “I spoke with people from the Cubs. The man who grabbed the ball on the widely seen video had actually already helped the little boy get a ball earlier. The young man has a game used ball and a Javy Baez ball. All is well. Guy is A-OK so let it go people.”

In fact, the man reportedly gave baseballs to multiple children at the game — including the one in question, who a fellow game attendee said the fan gifted to a different child in his row. Yet another attendeetold Kaplan, “That guy did nothing wrong. He gave three balls out to people around him including the little boy in question. He was great.”

Ballgate aside, it was a solid Sunday for the Cubs, who defeated the Cardinals.

source: people.com