SAN DIEGO — New video gives new insight into what led up to the chaos at Dodger Stadium Sunday night that ended with fans throwing baseballs at Padres’ outfielder Jurickson Profar.
It all started in the first inning when Profar went into the stands and made an amazing catch, robbing Mookie Betts of a homerun by taking the ball out of the hands of Dodger's fan Mario Zazueta.
“I reach to my left, over my girlfriend, and I felt the ball,” Mario said. “Then I'm looking for the ball and as I looked back, Profar is staring right at me and he's jumping up and down and I was just like - he caught it.”
Mario says he may not have caught the ball, but he definitely caught a lot of grief from Dodgers fans. The were blaming him for not catching the ball – or knocking it away from Profar - costing their team a homerun.
“You should have done this, you should have done that, I'm like, really?,” Mario said. “In the spur of the moment you don't even think. You're just trying to catch a ball.”
Mario says his cousin yelled at Profar during the game that the outfielder owed Mario a ball for taking the homerun out of his hands. So, in the 7th inning, Profar obliged.
“As he's walking over, I'm like, Profar, I don't want it,” Mark said with a smile. “I said I don't want it. I'm going to chuck it. And he's coming at me grinning, with his shiny whites, grinning. He hands me the ball and, as you can see in the video, I grabbed it and I just chucked it.”
You can also see in the video that Mario threw his ball away from the players toward to foul line and Profar saw him do it.
“You can see in the video he's chuckling, but then the unfortunate part after that - maybe a few seconds later - a ball came from my right in his direction which was not cool. And then a second ball from the pavilion came in his direction. So I get why he was upset.”
Profar was understandably furious and the umpires stopped the game for about 10 minutes. Fans also threw trash near Fernando Tatis. Mario's message to fellow Dodger fans? Stay classy.
“We're a proud organization. We're a very proud, loyal base. Act like we've been there before because we have been there before. We just need to think better of ourselves and make better choices in life.”
Speaking of choices, I asked Mario if he now wishes he kept Profar's gift.
“If I keep the ball, I'm still public enemy number one. How did you keep the ball? He took it from you. You're a San Diego fan. It was a lose/lose situation, but I told him I'm going to chuck it if you give it to me and I did.”
Security then chucked Mario from the game. He’s not sure if the other fans who threw baseballs were also ejected.
