Commissioner Rob Manfred had promised in March “a unique event” in honor of the military with the Sunday game played at a baseball field that didn’t even exist at the time of the announcement.
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The attendance for Sunday night’s historic game between the Atlanta Braves and Miami Marlins at Fort Bragg, NC, was listed at 12,582, with stipulations that tickets on the active military base be limited to Department of Defense employees and their family members. His collection of more than 9,000 baseballs include Alex Rodriguez’s 3,000th career hit, Barry Bonds’ 724th career home run, and Mike Trout’s first major league home run.
It wasn’t until he wrote about snagging one of those commemorative balls, though, that the internet ire set in.
Many commenters on Twitter suggested he give any balls he caught to kids and leave the game immediately. It was dubbed the Fort Bragg Game, and it was extremely entertaining.
But from the looks of it, Hample stayed for the entirety of the game.
Hample countered that he donated money to a military charity and gave away all but one of the balls he caught.
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In fact, Hample boasted of collecting eleven balls, a skill he told Breitbart Sports last season that comes with understanding “the players’ tendencies, know[ing] how to judge and catch long fly balls, and hop[ping] over rows of seats easily”.
