RandBall: 2,000 baseballs ... and the Shohei Ohtani home run that got away

In a career already filled with many magic moments, Shohei Ohtani delivered a particularly significant one on Aug. 23.

The baseball megastar, new to the Dodgers after signing a massive contract in the offseason, came to the plate in a 3-3 tie with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth against Tampa Bay.

With a mighty swing, he cracked a towering fly ball to right-center that eventually carried a few feet over the fence. Not only was it a walk-off grand slam, but also it gave Ohtani 40 home runs on the season. He had already reached 40 stolen bases, meaning the homer gave Ohtani just the sixth 40-40 season in MLB history.

The fans at Dodger Stadium were going wild.

Well, almost all of them.

“There were 45,556 people [at the game],” said Tony Voda of Minneapolis, a devout baseball fan who was in attendance, “and 45,555 were ecstatic. One was about ready to cry.”

Voda, who told his story in a conversation for Friday’s Daily Delivery podcast, was the one.

He has traveled extensively to games, with his trusty multi-colored glove, often arriving early enough for batting practice and the chance to snag some baseballs. By his count, Voda has snared almost 2,000 of them over many years. He was even featured in a Star Tribune story in 2015 for his pursuit of baseballs.

“It’s just a blast going out into the outfield before the game,” he said. “It’s really one of the only sports where you can kind of, as a spectator, still be active in the game and have a piece of the equipment regularly fly into it. Maybe it’s the glory days of playing high school ball?”

His best ball? The first MLB home run hit by former Twins player Kennys Vargas. It’s memorable enough that Voda went to see Vargas play in Mexico a couple years ago; Voda is well-known enough in baseball circles that Vargas still recognized him.

It was no surprise, then, that Voda hatched a plan for a late August trip to see some games. He went to San Diego to see the Twins and Padres, made a trip to Oakland to watch the A’s play in the old Coliseum one more time before they move temporarily to Sacramento in 2025, and hung out with a bunch of Dodgers diehards before taking his spot in the right-center outfield seats at Dodger Stadium.

That fly ball from Ohtani ...

But the high fly ball started to die down a little. Voda shuffled a few steps to his left as he realized it was essentially coming right for him. As the ball descended, his glove stretched out.

But he was also thinking: Don’t crowd too much into the other fans. And don’t reach over the fence and potentially interfere with a game-winning grand slam.

He had a line on it, but at the last second the other fan next to him nudged his glove just enough. The ball cleared the fence, hit his glove ... and bounced back onto the field. In the painful replay, you can see Voda almost immediately put his hands on his head.

What just happened?

“I’m just thinking that was my shot,” Voda said.

If you want to believe there’s good in this world, though, maybe it’s just as well that the ball bounced out?

Dodgers fans he had just met at the game consoled and encouraged him. Texts from friends started pouring in with the same theme: So close! We saw what happened. It’s going to be OK.

“It maybe took about 15 minutes,” Voda said. “But at that point through some of my own mental health reframing and learning how to cope with things, I was really able to see that on a normal Friday night, I would be at home in Minnesota probably getting ready to go to bed at that time. But instead I’m on the West Coast Dodger Stadium, perfect weather and I got to see history. So I can’t complain.”

He doesn’t have a ball, but he has an amazing story to tell and a renewed faith in humanity.