This is as close to a Jeffrey Maier or Steve Bartman incident as you’re going to get.
With two outs in the top of the ninth in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night in Los Angeles, Gleyber Torres smacked a ball deep to left field that appeared to be a homer.
Instead, though, a fan reached over the wall and caught the ball well over the left-field wall.
It was called fan interference and was confirmed on review — as the umps got the call right.
A truly wild moment in a tense ballgame in to start the Fall Classic.
The Yankees ultimately did not score in the inning after Aaron Judge popped out with two in to end the threat, and the Dodgers failed to score in the bottom of the inning to send the game to extra innings.
Luckily for the Dodgers fans, Freddie Freeman’s 10th inning grand slam gave him some extra relief, with Los Angeles taking a 6-3 walk-off win over the Yankees.
The play immediately gave some flashbacks, with Jeffrey Maier’s 1996 catch in the stands coming to mind.
The then-12-year-old famously reached over into the field of play in an attempt to catch Derek Jeter’s long fly ball in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS, deflecting the ball into the Yankee Stadium stands.
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Umpires ruled it a homer run — and not fan interference, despite outfield Tony Tarasco’s animated protest — allowing the Yankees to tie the score at four en route to a 5-4 win.
Then, in the 2003 NLCS, Steve Bartman deflected Luis Castillo’s fly ball into the stands in the eighth inning of Game 6 and away from Cubs outfielder Moises Alou along the left field line in a controversy that’s been the subject of documentaries in the years since.
Umpires ruled the play wasn’t fan interference and Chicago didn’t get a key second out with a pennant remaining five outs away.
Instead the Cubs defensively collapsed en route to an 8-3 loss and were eliminated the next day by the Marlins.
