{"id":133777,"date":"2025-09-10T13:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133777\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T13:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T13:06:08","slug":"who-is-the-phillies-karen-how-the-viral-drama-over-a-home-run-ball-unfolded-and-what-the-dad-and-his-son-have-said-about-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133777\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is the ‘Phillies Karen’? How the viral drama over a home run ball unfolded \u2014 and what the dad and his son have said about it"},"content":{"rendered":"

A father who was berated by a woman in a Philadelphia Phillies jersey into giving up a home run ball he had grabbed for his young son is speaking out<\/a> about the incident as online sleuths continue to search in vain for the identity of \u201cPhillies Karen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI pretty much just wanted her to go away,\u201d Drew Feltwell told NBC Philadelphia on Saturday<\/a>, a day after his altercation with the woman went viral. \u201cStill in disbelief that she walked down there like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feltwell, a Phillies fan from New Jersey who now lives in West Palm Beach, Fla., was attending last Friday night\u2019s game between the Phillies and Miami Marlins at LoanDepot Park in Miami with his wife and two children.<\/p>\n

The Feltwell family was in the left field stands when Phillies center fielder Harrison Bader hit a home run that landed near them in the top of the fourth inning.<\/p>\n

What happened next?\"Harrison<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Harrison Bader celebrates with his teammates after hitting a home run against the Miami Marlins on Friday in Miami. (Sam Navarro\/Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Several fans, including Feltwell, scrambled to find the ball. He grabbed it, turned, walked back to his family, gave his son Lincoln the ball and hugged him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already ecstatic, like I got Bader\u2019s home run ball, and I get to put it in my son\u2019s glove,\u201d Feltwell recalled. \u201cThen here she comes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video posted to social media<\/a> shows a woman approach Feltwell as he was embracing his son and angrily demand that he give her the ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just screamed in my ear, \u2018That\u2019s my ball,\u2019 like, super loud,\u201d Feltwell said. \u201cI jumped out of my skin and I was like, you know, like \u2018Why are you here?\u2019 You know, \u2018Go away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After a brief, tense exchange, Feltwell took the ball from his son\u2019s mitt and gave it to her, and she walked away.<\/p>\n

Feltwell said he decided to defuse the situation before it could escalate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a fork in the road: either do something I was probably going to regret or be dad and show him how to deescalate the situation,\u201d Feltwell said. \u201cSo that\u2019s where I went.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t very happy that we had to give it to her,\u201d added Lincoln, who will soon turn 10. \u201cBut we can\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative for the Marlins gave Lincoln a goodie bag<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After the game, Bader met with the family and gave Lincoln a signed bat.<\/p>\n

The altercation over the home run ball came just days after a similar scene unfolded at the U.S. Open. In that incident, a man was caught on video taking a hat from a tennis player who was trying to give it to a young fan.<\/p>\n

The man later apologized<\/a>, saying he believed the player had intended to give the cap to him for his sons, who had earlier asked for autographs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat mistaken belief made me reach out instinctively,\u201d Piotr Szczerek wrote in a post on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cToday I know I did something that looked like deliberately taking a souvenir from a child. That was not my intention, but it does not change the fact that I hurt the boy and disappointed the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The search for \u2018Phillies Karen\u2019\"The<\/p>\n

The woman in the Phillies jersey who berated Feltwell was later booed. (Phillies Tailgate\/X)<\/p>\n

The woman in the Phillies jersey was also seen on video confronting another man<\/a> seated in the left field stands who had apparently heckled her for her behavior.<\/p>\n

She was booed when she returned to her seat and promptly flipped off the entire section, cementing her status as a “Karen<\/a>” \u2014 a slang term that typically refers to an angry, entitled, middle-aged white woman.<\/p>\n

As the video of her initial confrontation with Feltwell spread across social media over the weekend, online sleuths searching for the real \u201cPhillies Karen\u201d apparently misidentified her.<\/p>\n

\u201cOK everyone, I\u2019m NOT the crazy Philly Mom (but I sure would love to be as thin as she is and move as fast),\u201d Cheryl Richardson-Wagner posted on Facebook Saturday<\/a>. \u201cAnd I\u2019m a Red Sox fan!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Harrison<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Harrison Bader reacts after striking out in his next at-bat. (Marta Lavandier\/AP)<\/p>\n

A New Jersey school district also issued a statement saying that the woman in question does not work for the school system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman identified on social media as \u2018Phillies Karen\u2019 is not, and has never been an employee of the Hammonton Public Schools located in Hammonton, New Jersey,\u201d the district said in a Facebook post<\/a>. \u201cAnyone 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

Blowout Cards, an online baseball card retailer, is offering the woman $5,000 for the ball<\/a> \u2014 but only if she signs it with an apology.<\/p>\n

“We’ll offer $5,000 for that baseball right here, right now … but there is a catch,” the company said in a post on its website<\/a>. “We want that ball signed and inscribed by her \u2014 and only her, whoever she is \u2014 ‘I’m sorry’ so we can simply give it back to the kid. Our offer is official and the offer is firm.”<\/p>\n

The incident has gotten so much attention across social media that it was even parodied by the Savannah Bananas, the Georgia exhibition baseball team, who likened the woman to the Grinch in a skit at a game over the weekend.<\/p>\n

In an interview with USA Today on Monday<\/a>, Feltwell said that he has heard from many people who have vowed to get the ball back from the unidentified woman \u2014 but he doesn’t want them to.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don’t do anything to that lady,\u2019\u2019 Feltwell said. \u201cLeave it alone. You know, somebody knows her and can talk to her, that’s different. But God, I don’t want people breaking in their house and stuff like that. The internet already messed her up pretty good.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A father who was berated by a woman in a Philadelphia Phillies jersey into giving up a home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[37041,49,48,72833,13987,3981,462,1498,1491,82],"class_list":["post-133777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-feltwell","tag-harrison-bader","tag-miami-marlins","tag-mlb","tag-phillies","tag-red-sox","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}