Phillies

There’s a New Phillies Karen and I Think This One’s Worse Than the Original (UPDATED) 

By Matt Schultz

Published: Jul 21st, 2026 · 9:59 AM EDT

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The Phillies beat the Dodgers 10-7 on Monday night, but the biggest story of the evening didn’t happen on the field – it happened in the outfield stands, where two guys argued over who was the rightful owner of a home run ball:

This fan had his hands on TWO home run balls and came away with ZERO 😅 pic.twitter.com/kaP84AIxxc

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 21, 2026

Many online are pointing out the similarities between this wild exchange and last year’s infamous Phillies Karen, who berated a father and son over a home run ball that she insisted was hers until she got her way:

Spot the difference pic.twitter.com/geu3uB8jdA

— Pinstripes on Pattison (@PSOP_Pod) July 21, 2026

But I’ll tell you this: I actually think this new situation is more egregious. Watching the original Karen video back, I can at least understand her logic; I don’t agree with it, but I get it. The dad ran all the way over to right in front of her to snatch up the home run ball. I can see her being like, “Hey, this real estate directly where I’m standing should belong to me. I think that ball is mine. You ran a good twenty yards over here to get this ball. That’s not cool” Again, I don’t agree with what she did – she acted insane. But I can at least get where she’s coming from.

But this Halladay jersey guy is doing something I simply can’t wrap my head around. He believes the ball belongs to him because… the ball touched his hat? He thinks he has hat dibs? It’s not like the Eagles jersey guy caught the hat. The ball got stuck in the hat, flipped around a couple of times, and then came out and landed cleanly right in the Eagles guy’s hands. Eagles jersey caught the ball – while Halladay guy was falling down, by the way, his large jean shorts falling off, his belt failing to do its sole job, his gray-boxered-ass being exposed on national television. For Halladay guy to stand up after taking an embarrassing tumble and demand that the ball is his – to go as far as to take the ball out of Eagles jersey’s hands – is next level. There’s no logic there. No reason I can get behind. He’s going by hat law. In the Honorable Schultz’s courtroom, we do not recognize or abide by hat law. We do regular rules here.

This guy sucks. He may be the number two Philly Karen chronologically, but he’s the top ranked bad Philly Karen, in my opinion. Excited to hear original Philly Karen’s response to all this.

Kinkead: It would be one thing if Eagles jersey grabbed the hat and demonstrably removed the ball from within the hat, but the hat was spinning and dropping and it looks like the ball naturally fell out as multiple people were reacting in real time. It was such a bang-bang play that I think it has to be considered a live ball. I take the side of Eagles guy.

EDIT 1 –

Kinker: People are saying that a child with Halladay ended up with this ball. That’s nice, a good outcome, but it’s worth pointing out that said ball was acquired via theft/bullying. So what lesson was really learned?