First Zack Hample controversy of this Major League Baseball season:

The Rays challenged for fan interference and lost. Correct call. Hample doesn’t reach OVER the wall, but if he kept his grubby mitts to himself, we may have seen a robbery. It’s hard to tell from that angle.

But here’s the thing –

Ask 1,000 baseball fans an either/or question: Would they rather see Zack Hample catch this ball, or Christopher Morel attempt to make a great play at the wall? All 1,000 fans would choose the latter. Nobody wants to see Hample out there wearing a shirt with his name on it. It’s one thing for him to snag a ball in the 7th row, but he’s constantly making himself a nuisance. Two years ago, he caught a Cedric Mullins home run ball off Shohei Ohtani in Baltimore while reaching over a kid and his dad. There was the argument with the Rockies usher in 2022 and the 2016 incident when he snuck into Fort Bragg to shag balls. He did apologize for that one, and he does charity work, but I think people are just sick of the guy in general. We go to the stadiums and tune in to the broadcasts to watch the teams, not to watch Zack Hample.