The Dodgers’ third baseman thinks only a lifetime ban is appropriate

World Series - Los Angeles Dodgers v New York Yankees - Game 4
World Series – Los Angeles Dodgers v New York Yankees – Game 4 / Al Bello/GettyImages

The World Series may be over, but there is one moment of Game 4 that everybody is still talking about. It is the two New York Yankees fans, Austin Capobianco and John Peter, who attempted to pry a foul ball that Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts caught out of his hand during the bottom of the first.

The two fans were cheered by their fellow Yankee fans as they escorted out of the arena. A season ticket holder, Capobianco was originally slated to be allowed back to Yankee Stadium for Game 5. This decision was reversed after the MLB got involved and contacted the Yankees.

Ultimately, in a belated but classy move by the Yankees organization, the tickets were given to a 15 year old cancer fighter who had missed an earlier event with the Yankees due to his illness.

All’s well that ends well? Not really. Although Betts was okay physically, what the fans did was extremely dangerous and many, including Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy, think the fans should face further punishment.

Max Muncy believes that a MLB-wide lifetime ban is the only option

The incident was brought up to two time World Series champion Muncy on the “Foul Territory” podcast and he had a lot to say about the incident and how he thinks the MLB should have handled it.

“First off, thankfully Mookie didn’t get hurt. You know, you’re talking about your arm hanging over the wall like that. That’s very easy to get hyper extended, snap something,” Muncy said.

The interfering could have easily injured his shoulder or wrist. They are quite lucky that they did not injure the former MVP because, if they had, they could be facing assault charges. As for MLB-prescribed ramifications, Muncy wants the league to be proactive to prevent similar behavior in the future.

“It should have been an instant lifetime ban from all MLB stadiums right there,” he said. “If you’re talking about ‘you can’t come to another baseball game ever again,’ that’s gonna put some serious doubt into people’s heads about whether or not they wanna do something like that.”

Just because this one instance ended without anyone getting seriously injured does not mean all instances will yield the same relatively positive result. The fact of the matter is that Muncy is right. Fans need to understand this this behavior will never be tolerated and the only way to do this is to make an example out of anyone who engages in it.

There is no space in the game to even risk someone getting hurt because a fan thinks that they can impact the results of a game by grabbing a player.