The Los Angeles Dodgers are looking to make things right. A day after two fans said the team pressured them into surrendering Shohei Ohtani’s first home run ball for an unfair return, the team asked them back for a do-over.
A Dodgers official said Ambar Roman and her husband, Alexis Valenzuela, have been invited to an on-field experience at Dodger Stadium. Roman confirmed that they will be back on April 12 — her birthday — when they will be permitted on the field before watching the game from seats at the field club level. “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 Athletic. “Whatever I do want to take to get autographed will get autographed.”
The team also said it will review its ballpark processes for retrieving milestone baseballs. “It’s something very important. I wouldn’t want the next person that this happened to to go through the same thing,” Roman said. “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.”
The luckiest fan in the world comes up with the ball after Shohei Ohtani’s first home run at Dodger Stadium 👏
🎥: @SportsNetLA pic.twitter.com/wBBdYCiWlP
— Dodgers Nation (@DodgersNation) April 4, 2024
Roman told The Athletic on Thursday that following her retrieval of the home run ball, security staff separated her from her husband and made an underwhelming offer in exchange for the ball. Roman also said team officials told them they’d refuse to authenticate the baseball, should she opt to take it home.
The couple eventually left with two hats, a bat and a ball, all signed by Ohtani. The couple never met or spoke with Ohtani, who now is on the board as a Dodger after hitting 171 homers during his Angels tenure. As part of the new plan, the Dodgers’ will authenticate their merchandise when they return on April 12. “We’re not trying to extort anyone. It’s not that we’re money hungry,” Valenzuela said Thursday. “It’s just that it’s a special moment. It’s a special ball. I just think it’s fair to be equally rewarded.”
Roman, who made the trade, said she had no regrets about making the deal. She was happy that Ohtani could get his ball back. But she was unhappy with how the Dodgers team personnel handled the situation. The team took its lumps on social media, and the Dodgers encouraged her to spread the word that there was a happily-ever-after. The offer of VIP treatment served as an olive branch. “I’m glad I’m getting something out of it,” she said. “I would never be able to sit in those (field club) seats, so it’s something special, something I’m going to remember.”
