Phillies Karen

I love baseball.  And I love going to baseball games...at any level, Little League, high school, college and professional, both Major and Minor League.

The ultimate baseball game souvenir is a baseball batted into the stands.  Of course, a home run ball is preferable to a foul ball.  In all the times I went to a baseball game, I never caught a ball, neither a home run nor a foul.

In early this September, a Philadelphia Phillies fan, who now lives in south Florida, attended a Phillies-Miami Marlins baseball game at LoanDepot Park in Miami with his family.  

In the fourth inning, a Phillie hit a home run into the left field stands near where the fan was sitting.  He went to where the ball landed and grabbed it and returned to where his family was sitting and gave the ball to his young son.  

Soon, a woman, wearing a Phillies jersey, approached the fan and berated him for entering her space and "stealing" the souvenir that was rightfully hers.  She demanded the ball.  Normally, in such situations, possession is what counts.

The media named her Phillies Karen (a pejorative slang term used to describe a middle-class, often middle-aged, white woman who is perceived as entitled, demanding, and who uses her privilege to get her way, often at the expense of others).

"She just screamed in my ear, ‘That’s my ball,’ like, super loud,”  said the fan. “I jumped out of my skin and I was like, you know, like ‘Why are you here?’ You know, ‘Go away.’”  

After a brief, tense exchange, the fan took the ball from his son’s mitt and gave it to her, and she walked away.  “I had a fork in the road: either do something I was probably going to regret or be a dad and show my son how to deescalate the situation.”

This reminded me of a similar event when my son Bret was young and playing basketball for MQ-FM.  I was asked to be one of two coaches at the annual all-star game.

I had 11 players on my team, including my son.  11 is an awkward number for a sport in which 5 players can be on the court at a time.

I was given no advice nor information as to how to substitute my players.  The other coach was substituting his players rapidly, almost every minute.  I had devised a different system which I thought was fair.  

Because the two teams were substituting differently, some spectators became frustrated.  One of the league directors approached me shouting angrily.  He demanded I start substituting like the other coach or he would replace me.  I tried to explain my alternative strategy, but he wouldn't listen.  

My immediate idea was to tell him to go f__k himself, but then I looked at my son sitting on the floor.  I didn't want to do anything to embarrass him or me.  I did what the director wanted me to do.  I de-escalated the situation.  And that was the last time I volunteered to help MQ-FM.