Opinion: Can I keep the baseball I caught?

Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Enrique Hernández bats during the fifth inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in Atlanta.

Colin Hubbard/AP

Colin Hubbard/AP

This week, an ethical question, of all things, intruded into the baseball playoffs.

Tuesday night, Dodgers versus Braves, in Atlanta. A young man in a Dodger jersey caught a foul ball in the stands. As so often happens these days, someone seated nearby captured it on video, and then felt compelled to instruct the man, “Give it to the kid! Give it to the kid!”

And indeed there was a small boy, maybe preschool-aged, a few rows back in a Braves jersey.

But the Dodgers fan looked into the man’s camera and told what turned out to be millions of viewers on social media, “I’m sorry, I can’t! I’m not giving it to the kid! I feel bad, but I’m not giving it to the kid!”

Some commenters denounced the man for keeping the ball. Some others have inveighed against the little boy for looking disappointed.

Before we criticize anyone’s ethics, we ought to ask ourselves: what would we do if a baseball fell into our hands at a playoff game? Keep it, or give it to the nearest child?

Because I am a father, I’m pretty certain I would give it to a child. But also because I’m a father, I know that within a few days, the ball so tenderly bequeathed might have rolled, abandoned, under a bed, surrounded by lost socks and forgotten Labubus.

Also, a foul ball hit by almost any player would be a nice souvenir. But what if it had been a home run struck by, say, Shohei Ohtani? That ball could be as much of an investment as a Picasso!

We sought ethical advice from Nancy Sherman, a Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, who told us, “Manners are not morals.”

The professor said she was mostly alarmed by the public shaming of both man and boy, who, after all, were not aware that their instinctive, personal reactions would soon be turned into some kind of moral exercise for the digital age.

“The young guy who caught the ball says, ‘I’m sorry…I feel bad, but I’m not giving it to the kid'”… says Professor Sherman. “I think that’s a healthy, honest response.”

So the next time you go to a game – if a fly ball seems to be arcing your way, you might pause before you reach for it to ask yourself, “Do I really want this ethical dilemma?”

NPR Topics: News wp:paragraph