The dad who gave up his son’s baseball to an angry woman nicknamed “Phillies Karen” has spoken out and revealed the heartwarming reason he gave up the ball.
A home run ball got hit into the left field stands at a Philadelphia Phillies vs Miami Marlins game last week, and a dad called Drew Feltwell picked it up, walked over and gave it to his son Lincoln for his birthday.
Seconds later, a woman came storming over and started shouting at the dad, telling him she caught the ball first. After a bit of back and forth, he grabbed the ball from his son and gave it to her.
Everyone is saying he shouldn’t have handed the ball over, but the dad had a sweet reason. He wanted to be a great father and set a good example for his son about how to “de-escalate the situation”.
Here is the full video of the situation in the outfield after Harrison Bader’s Home Run.
@NBCSPhilly https://t.co/W5thuO6nhg pic.twitter.com/h9yJaPbcmX
— Phillies Tailgate (@PhilsTailgate) September 6, 2025
Speaking about the viral moment in an interview with NBC10, he said: “We’re just trying to make this week about him [his son for his birthday]. I felt like super dad putting that ball in his glove and giving him a hug.”
“I didn’t even see her walk up, and as she reached for my arm, she just yelled in my ear, ‘That’s my ball!’ like super loud. I jumped out of my skin, and I was like, you know, like ‘Why are you here?’ you know, ‘Go away.’ And she’s like, ‘That’s my ball! You stole out of – those are from our seats’.”
He said she just kept going “on and on,” so he handed her the ball. When asked why he did it, Drew explained: “Just trying to set an example of how to de-escalate a situation in front of my son, I guess.”
“I’m literally leaning back as she’s in my face yelling and yelling, and I pretty much just wanted her to go away because I had a fork in the road: either do something I was probably going to regret or be dad and show him how to de-escalate the situation, so that’s where I went.”
The dad said he’s “still in disbelief that she walked down there like that” and “wasn’t very happy” that they had to give it to her, but you can’t always “win”. After she took the ball, the woman was booed out of the stadium.
Lincoln was then invited to meet Phillies player Harrison Bader and given a signed bat. The Marlins staff also gave him a goodie bag.
Going home with a signed bat from Bader pic.twitter.com/pCaXHSjLgL
— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) September 6, 2025
“I wish I had the ball for my son to put in his room next to the bat, but if I had the ball, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the bat, so it worked out fine,” the dad added.
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Featured image by: NBC Sports
