Mookie Betts Home Run Ball Handed Off To 11-Year-Old RivCo Fan

PALM SPRINGS, CA — A San Diego Padres fan who caught Mookie Betts's home run ball during Tuesday night's National League playoff game found the perfect Dodgers fan to give it to: An 11-year-old Palm Springs boy.

Friars fan and San Diego ticketholder Dan Vincent captured the ball that rocketed over the wall and shared young Freddie Wright, Kirk Kenney wrote in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Vincent told Kenney that the ball "slipped through the mitt of Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar, clipping the edge of the player's glove." He added that the ball "landed right in his lap."

Immediately, the crowd began their chant: "Throw it back!" while others decried the idea.

A longstanding Major League Baseball tradition states that fans return the ball to the field when the visiting team hits a home run. Still, Vincent had another idea.

He asked an usher to find a kid who was a Betts fan, likely someone wearing a Mookie Betts jersey, in the stands and give him the ball instead.

The exchange occurred in the Entertainment Suite in the left-field corner to Freddie, a self-described "big Dodgers fan."

The home run in the first inning set the tone for a slugfest in the second inning and the ultimate 6-5 Padres victory.