Royals Identify Man Who Stole Home Run Ball, Fled in Viral Video
In one of the most disgusting sequences you’ll see in sports, a man was seeing taking a home run ball courtesy of Juan Soto from a young fan’s glove at a Royals game Sunday. The video went viral as the thief remained anonymous, until now.
The person who stole the ball has been identified as Mark Kirsch. The Royals discovered and shared his name in an email sent to The Kansas City Star. He is known for pulling planes and cars in an online series called Man vs. Impossible.
The young fan named Bruce Williams, who is a lifelong Royals fan, was given tickets to Sunday’s game for his upcoming 18th birthday. He told The Kansas City Star that he made the two-hour drive from his home in Stockton, Missouri, to Kauffman Stadium.
“It was my first time ever sitting at the Pepsi Porch and I saw we’re playing the Padres. Because of how interesting the Royals pitching has been these days, I was like, ‘Juan Soto is gonna put one out on the party porch, so I better bring my mitt,’” Williams told the newspaper.
Sure enough, Soto blasted one right to him in the seventh inning and Kirsch can be seen trying to bully the 17-year-old for the ball but Williams still made the grab. However, when Kirsch saw that Williams made the grab, he used his other hand to take the ball right out of his glove in a split second.
“And I saw it coming to me and so I put my glove on real quick and I stood up right in my seat,” Williams told The Kansas City Star. “Like it was right at me. And then all sudden, someone was just plowing over me. He was bumping into me pushed me to the side trying to get the ball and I reached over him and snagged it right out of the air.”
Williams said Kirsch quickly left to grab a couple of Royals shirts and tried giving them to him, but he said, “No, I don’t want your shirts. Give me the ball.” Williams said that Kirsch’s response was, “No, I’m not going to,” before fleeing the stadium.
In the email from the Royals, the team said, “At this time we are not banning Mark Kirsch from the stadium.” However, after talking to a security guard who witnessed the whole thing, Williams was given two signed baseballs. One came from Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt and one was from Soto himself with some of his achievements written down on the ball and on the other side of it reading “sorry about that.”
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