What’s it like to catch Shohei Ohtani’s home run at the World Series? This Dodger fan can tell you
LOS ANGELES — David Aguilar has been a Los Angeles Dodgers fan for 50 years, but not once did he think he’d experience something like this.
The Dodgers were trailing the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in the bottom of the seventh inning of Game 3 of the World Series. Shohei Ohtani, who was 3-for-3 with a homer already, strode to the plate. He saw exactly one pitch from Blue Jays reliever Seranthony Domínguez — a 97 mph challenge fastball left in the heart of the plate — and sent it rippling high in the air to the opposite field.
Sitting in the left-field bleachers — the second row in section 307, to be exact — Aguilar tracked the ball all the way. He shot up his left arm and closed his eyes. When he opened them, history lay in his palm.
“I just reached up to the heavens,” Aguilar exclaimed, still very much riding the high of the moment. “And it landed in my hand.”
Ohtani’s second home run of the night — and his eighth big fly this postseason — didn’t just tie the score. It also accomplished something that hadn’t been done in 119 years. Ohtani became the first player to record four extra-base hits in a World Series game since Frank Isbell did so for the Chicago White Sox in 1906.
The ball left Ohtani’s bat at 107.8 mph, searing through the glow of the bright lights of Dodger Stadium. It cleared the fence and ricocheted off a group of fans sitting to Aguilar’s left. Aguilar saw the ball all the way, he said, until it was time to make the catch of a lifetime. Once the ball bounced in the bleachers, he stuck his arm in the air and hoped for the best.
“I squeezed so hard, and I still have it,” Aguilar beamed.
OHTANI HAS DONE IT AGAIN OH MY GOODNESS!! pic.twitter.com/YCt0Bx81NK
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 28, 2025
Aguilar instantly became a local legend. Donned in a Dodgers-blue Mookie Betts jersey, Aguilar was swarmed immediately by his fellow Dodgers fans. A security guard quickly made her way to the section, ensuring the ball remained in Aguilar’s possession. Fans flocked to his section to ask for selfies and to see the ball. Aguilar soaked in the moment, obliging for every photo request and a couple of media interviews.
“Left hand, no glove, baby!” he yelled when a fan a few rows over asked how he made the catch. His section again erupted in cheers.
Aguilar, a native of nearby Paramount, Calif., has been a Dodgers fan since 1975. He was able to attend Game 3 when his son, Isaiah, invited him. Upon making the catch, Isaiah immediately turned from son to security guard. He helped David navigate his way through the crowd and made sure each fan was able to take a picture of the ball, his dad or both.
“I am stunned,” Aguilar said. “I have never had this type of publicity.”
As he told the story of the play he’ll recount for the rest of his life, Aguilar said he had zero intentions of selling the ball. When asked what he planned to do with it, he broke into a yell and again thrust his left hand into the air, still firmly grasping Ohtani’s homer ball.
“I’m going to hold on to it until I die.”
