Two women being derided throughout the internet for demanding that a man hand over the home-run baseball he’d snagged for his son at a Phillies-Marlins game in Miami appear to be cases of mistaken identity.
Drew Feltwell was at the game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Miami Marlins with his wife, daughter and son, Lincoln, to celebrate the boy’s impending 10th birthday, the New Jersey-born Phillies fan told WCAU after the viral incident.
At the top of the fourth inning, centerfielder Harrison Bader sent a solo home run soaring into the partially empty stands off left field, and fans pounced. Video taken by an attendee caught Feltman jogging over to where others were searching and swooping down. He scooped up the ball and trotted excitedly back to his seat, where he slipped the prize into his son’s baseball mitt and enveloped the boy in a dad bearhug.
“We’re just trying to make this week about him,” Feltwell told WCAU. “I felt like super dad putting that ball in his glove and giving him a hug.”
Feltman’s exuberance didn’t last long because hot on his heels was a woman, since dubbed “Phillies Karen,” who raced over and got in his face, yelling that it was her ball and accusing Feltman of snatching it from her hand. He looked both astonished and nonplussed as she yanked on his arm and demanded he give it back. Reluctantly, Feltman took the ball from his son’s mitt and handed it to the woman, who walked away looking smug.
Stadium cameras had also filmed the drama, and the Phillies redeemed the boy’s evening, bringing him a goodie bag during the game. Afterward, Lincoln met Harrison Bader himself and went home with a bat signed by the Bronxville, N.Y., native. He and the family also got to watch the Phillies beat the Marlins 9-3.
Going home with a signed bat from Bader pic.twitter.com/pCaXHSjLgL
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 6, 2025
Bystanders had recorded the interaction from numerous angles, and a new meme launched, along with a search for the woman who would take a ball from a child. She was first identified as an administrator in a New Jersey school district, after which the X-sphere lit up with news that she’d been fired.
But none of it was true, the school district that supposedly employed her clarified.
“The woman identified on social media as ‘Phillies Karen’ is not, and has never been, an employee of the Hammonton Public Schools located in Hammonton, New Jersey,” the district said on its Facebook page. “Social media and news reports indicating that she is, are incorrect.”
“Anyone who works for our school district, attended as a student or lives in our community would obviously have caught the ball bare-handed in the first place, avoiding this entire situation,” the district added.
Internet sleuths then fingered Cheryl Richardson-Wagner, who set the record straight by trumpeting the impossibility of her even being at a game between those two teams.
“OK everyone … I’m NOT the crazy Philly Mom (but I sure would love to be as thin as she is and move as fast),” Richardson-Wagner wrote in a Facebook post that has gone as viral as the ball grab. “And I’m a Red Sox fan.”
She even made that announcement her new profile picture, in large white type on a red background, and turned her cover shot into the red-and-white Red Sox insignia.
The actual woman who demanded the little boy’s baseball has not been found.
With News Wire Services
