Todd Frazier Used a Toy Ball to Fool an Umpire Into Thinking He Made a Fantastic Catch
Mets third baseman Todd Frazier made an impressive catch at Dodger Stadium on Monday night by diving into the stands to nab a foul ball off the bat of Alex Verdugo. Or, at least he looked like he made the catch.
It’s always tough to tell whether a defender has actually caught the ball when he disappears behind the wall and so SNY’s Steve Gelbs broke down the tape to see what really happened.
It turns out that a rubber ball just happened to squirt out of a fan’s bag as Frazier came barreling into the stands. Though the real ball did hit Frazier’s glove, it was the rubber one that Frazier showed to the umpire to prove that he made the catch.
I was willing to believe that Frazier perhaps didn’t know he had the wrong ball when he showed it to the ump, but the shot of him in the dugout where he seems to be saying the ump had “no idea” has convinced me otherwise. That’s gamesmanship at its finest.
