In the seventh inning of the Cubs series-clinching win over the Cardinals, Chicago left fielder Kyle Schwarber hit a towering home run to right field that seemed to clear the giant video board and go out of the stadium. As it turns out, it did not quite exit the friendly confines, instead it landed perfectly on top of the video board.
Tom Comings, a fan taking pictures during the game, noticed where the ball landed and snapped a picture before eventually getting word to the Cubs that he knew where it landed.
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Comings then went behind the Cubs’ dugout to join the celebration, and told an usher about the Schwarber ball. The usher referred him to the guest relations department. “We showed them the picture and they got on radio and were verifying it was up there,” he said. “They told me they’d send someone to retrieve it, and then they called us back and gave us some stuff as thanks, a (Jon) Lester bobblehead, a thermos lunch bag and an Ernie Banks’ pin.”
A local news outlet also had video of the ball’s location, taken from a helicopter.
The Cubs were able an MLB postseason watermark to verify that it was indeed Schwarber’s home run ball; Comings also has pictures from the seventh-inning stretch before Schwarber’s home run and there is no ball visible.
A Chicago employee initially took the ball down from the board, but then the team decided to put it back up there for the rest of the postseason, as a monument to the win or perhaps to serve as some kind of anti-goat voodoo. They are taking it very seriously, too. The ball will be encased in plexiglass and while there won’t be round-the-clock surveillance, anyone going up to the board to service it will be accompanied by a security guard in the event they get a case of sticky fingers.
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