Shohei Ohtani has now hit 172 home runs in his MLB career. But he only has one first home run with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that came last night against the San Francisco Giants. And seeing as that’s the team with whom he’ll likely retire (and enter the Hall of Fame) at the end of his career, that home run ball is reportedly estimated to be worth $100,000 at auction. So great news to the fan who caught it right? Not so much.

Shohei Ohtani’s First Home Run

In a really ugly report from Sam Blum at The Athletic, we learn that the Dodgers (and specifically their security staff) tried some really shady stuff to separate the fan, Amber Roman, from her new prize without anything close to appropriate value in return.

Within minutes, however, that storybook moment turned into a stressful and chaotic situation that left Roman and particularly her husband, Alexis Valenzuela, feeling pressured and possibly swindled by the Dodgers security staff.

As is customary with significant home run balls, there is a give-and-take negotiation between the team and the fan who catches it. The player will generally trade memorabilia and a meet-and-greet with the player in exchange for a ball that represents a meaningful personal achievement.

In this case, though, Roman and Valenzuela say the security staff separated them, pressured them, and left them little choice but to hand over the baseball for what they considered a low-ball offer.

More specifically, the report goes, the Dodgers security staff separated Roman from her husband, refusing to allow him to offer any advice or counsel, and even threatened to refuse to authenticate the ball if she took it home without accepting their offer – a potentially enormous hurdle for the fan to receive appropriate value at a later date. That’s basically saying “accept this offer right now, or you’ll never be able to prove this is the real ball.”

Their offer? Two hats signed by Shohei Ohtani. No meet-and-greet, no picture, no bats, no balls, no jerseys. Just two hats. That was their offer.

For reference, the Dodgers have a signed foul ball (hit by Ohtani in 2021) being sold for $15,000 at their own memorabilia store at the park, just to put into context the value of his first ever Dodgers home run.

Eventually, Roman negotiated to add a signed bat and a ball to her return. But Chris Ivey, director of sports auctions at Heritage Auctions, estimated that each of her signed items are valued at about $1,000 each. That is a FAR cry from equal value. And to add insult to injury, neither Roman nor her husband got to meet Shohei Ohtani.

“They really took advantage of her,” Roman’s husband said via The Athletic. “There were a bunch of (security) guys around her. They wouldn’t let me talk to her or give her any advice. There was no way for us to leave. They had her pretty much cornered in the back.”

When you head over to The Athletic and read the full story, you’ll see that Roman and her husband are true fans of the Dodgers (and Shohei Ohtani) and really did want him to have the ball. In fact, in reading their quotes, I’d say their almost overly-apologetic about the whole process, maybe bracing themselves for what could be seen as greed or to avoid backlash. But that’s just not a fair read.

For whatever reason, the Dodgers staff (and Shohei Ohtani, if he knew what was going on) really handled this awfully. It’s just an ugly, ugly look for a player/team already embroiled in one of baseball’s biggest betting scandals.

“They didn’t want (my husband) to influence my decision. At least that’s how I took it,” Roman said of being separated from Valenzuela. “… It was a little pressuring. Especially because it was like, ‘I need you to give me an answer like right now. You gotta make up your mind.’ It was a lot of pressure.”

What a terrible look for the Dodgers, who come to Wrigley for three games against the Chicago Cubs this weekend.