David Villar’s third career homer came off Dodgers legend Clayton Kershaw, and Villar’s teammate helped him get the ball from the Giants fan who caught it.
Giants infielder David Villar rolled into Dodger Stadium at the same time as a record-breaking heatwave, which worked out well for the rookie who had one career homer coming into Los Angeles and had four when he got on the team charter Wednesday evening.
The second of Villar’s three homers in L.A. came off a future Hall of Famer, as he got a hanging slider from Clayton Kershaw and drove it over the wall in right-center to give the Giants a short-lived 2-0 lead.
The homer was actually caught in the Home Run Seats by a Giants fan named Ankit Shah, who got a surprise a few minutes later: Mike Yastrzemski asked him for the ball.
“What happened next was Yaz came up to me asking me for the ball back, he said he will give me a signed bat and I agreed If I get to meet Villar after the game and take a picture and we did!!”
As Giants beat writer tweeted later, while it wasn’t Villar’s first career homer, it was his first off a legend, so he wanted the ball back.
Ankit says Yastrzemski was the one who suggested to Villar that he might want to keep that ball.
“Yaz was actually the one that pushed Villar to trade for the ball. He said it was a cool feat because it was off of Kershaw, someone he grew up watching a bunch. So I gave him the ball and Yaz brought me out a signed bat.”
The fan posted video of the exchange on his Instagram account.
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Ankit also gave a different ball to the young fan behind him who missed her chance to catch Villar’s homer when Ankit made a sweet running grab.
In the end, Ankit swung a deal, getting his autographed Yastrzemski bat and a photo with Villar, Villar got the ball from the biggest homer of his young career, and the Dodgers got the 7-3 win over their arch-rivals. Everyone wins except the Giants, which is perfect!
