The Dodgers realize they gave the fan who caught Shohei Ohtani’s first home run ball with the team a raw deal and sought to make amends.
Earlier this week, the husband of Ambar Roman, the fan who caught the ball during Wednesday night’s game against the rival Giants, said that he felt the Dodgers “took advantage of” his wife with a paltry exchange of memorabilia for the ball.
But The Athletic reported Friday that the team has attempted to smooth things over by offering Roman and her husband club seats and “an on-field experience” on her birthday next Friday when the Dodgers host the Padres.
“I for sure appreciate them reaching out to me. … I appreciate that I’m going to get to meet everyone. Not just [Ohtani],” Roman told the outlet.
“Whatever I do want to take to get autographed will get autographed.”
She also appreciated the news that the Dodgers plan to “review” their protocols for making trades with “milestone balls” in the future.
“It’s something very important,” Roman continued. “I wouldn’t want the next person that this happened to to go through the same thing. It wasn’t cool as a Dodgers fan. If it took for this to happen to me for them to change it, that’s great.”
All Roman had previously gotten in exchange for the ball, which reportedly could have been worth as much as $100,000 in an auction, was a a bat, two signed Dodgers hats and another baseball.
Ohtani signed a 10-year deal worth $700 million with the Dodgers this past offseason, with an eye-popping $680 million deferred until after the conclusion of the deal.
In addition to his exploits on the baseball field, he has been in the news in recent weeks for a bizarre story in which he accused his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, of misappropriating millions of dollars from his bank account to cover illegal gambling debts.
