{"id":2059276,"date":"2025-09-30T08:42:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T08:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2059276"},"modified":"2025-09-30T08:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T08:42:30","slug":"royals-fan-sues-over-3000th-home-run-ball-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/royals-fan-sues-over-3000th-home-run-ball-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals fan sues over 3,000th home run ball dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In May, the 3,000th home run baseball hit at Kauffman Stadium<\/a> was hit by star Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. into a left field water fountain. A fan retrieved the ball without entering the fountain, but had the ball taken from him and was escorted out of the stadium by off-duty police officers, a lawsuit alleges.<\/p>\n

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Michael Liberty Jr. has filed a suit against the baseball team, seeking ownership of the ball, which he values at more than $30,000.<\/p>\n

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After Witt hit the 442-foot bomb in the first inning on May 30, Liberty alleges he leaned over a fence without leaving the ground and scooped the ball into his hat without touching the water. One Kauffman Stadium staff member applauded Liberty while a second worker \u201cdid not see the big issue\u201d and went to check with a supervisor.<\/p>\n

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Liberty was allegedly told he could not leave before a supervisor assessed the situation. The supervisor arrived and allegedly told Liberty he had committed a crime and could be arrested. The supervisor took the ball, and Liberty was allegedly escorted out by three off-duty officers.<\/p>\n

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Kauffman Stadium\u2019s policy<\/a> states that people who enter a fountain will be immediately arrested, \u201ctransported to the police station downtown and charged to the fullest extent of the law\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The Royals declined to comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n

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Liberty learned later that evening that the ball taken from him was a milestone marker, which currently sits in the Royals Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis was all based on the unlawful enforcement of a non-existent policy, stretching an existing rule against entering the fountains,\u201d Liberty said in a statement sent to The Star.<\/p>\n

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Liberty filed a complaint with guest services the same day, and spoke with the director of guest relations three days later. The director told him there is footage of the incident and accused Liberty of violating the stadium\u2019s policy, the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

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Liberty is adamant that signs around fountains do not prohibit fans from reaching over the fence to grab balls, the suit says, while citing several instances where fans have grabbed balls from the fountain with allegedly no punishment.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI believe that the evidence will show that the only \u201ccrime\u201d I committed was being the one who retrieved the baseball,\u201d Liberty said in his statement. \u201cThis is obvious from the fact that at no point did I ever \u2018enter\u2019 the fountain to retrieve the baseball.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is clear that the Royals\u2019 intent all along was to get the baseball from me and display it at their Hall of Fame as the 3,000th home run hit at Kauffman Stadium.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In his statement, Liberty said he has been a baseball fan since childhood and a Royals fan for most of his life. He has \u201ca daily, painful feeling\u201d after the incident.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBeyond the illegible fountain signage and the inconsistent enforcement of \u2018rules for me, not for thee,\u2019 every fan attending a game deserves to feel protected from undue accusations and aggression by staff whose role is to promote safety,\u201d Liberty said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI will continue to advocate not only for myself but for all fans who should not endure such treatment and heartache,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\nPJ Green<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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PJ Green is a breaking news reporter for The Star. He previously was a sports reporter for Fox\u2019s Kansas City affiliate and a news reporter for NBC\u2019s Wichita Falls, Texas affiliate. He studied English with a concentration in journalism and played football at Tusculum University. You can reach him at pgreen@kcstar.com or follow him on Twitter and Bluesky – @ByPJGreen<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May, the 3,000th home run baseball hit at Kauffman Stadium was hit by star Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. into a left field water fountain. A fan retrieved the ball without entering the fountain, but had the ball taken from him and was escorted out of the stadium by off-duty police officers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2059277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[383760,383761,383762,43627],"class_list":["post-2059276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-3000th-home-run","tag-ball-dispute","tag-fan-rights","tag-kansas-city-royals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Royals-fan-sues-over-3000th-home-run-ball-dispute.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2059276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2059276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2059277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2059276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2059276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2059276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}