A 10-year-old Phillies fan gets national attention trying to catch Brandon Marsh’s home run

Game 3 of the World Series was just the second Phillies game that Ty Kuhner, 10, of Wilmington, Del., has attended this season at Citizens Bank Park. But he has been a Phillies fan “as long as I’ve been alive,” he said, and the kid came prepared. He had his glove with him as he and his sister, Madison, 13, sat in the first row of the right-field bleachers Tuesday night.

And when Brandon Marsh lofted a deep drive to right field — right at Ty — he knew what to do.

He reached out, and the ball landed right in his mitt. It just didn’t stay there.

For a few moments, there was an expectant and collective holding of breath around the park, as everyone in the place wondered whether Kuhner was the 21st century’s answer to Jeffrey Maier, the young Yankees fan who changed the course of the 1996 American League Championship Series by reaching over the right-field wall to grab a Derek Jeter fly ball, turning it into a home run.

Marsh wasn’t certain at first whether the ball had actually cleared the fence. “I’m like, ‘Dang, man, I got no juice,’” he said. It was only when he saw Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker take his time throwing the ball back into the infield that he knew his long drive had been long enough.

The home run, the Phillies’ third of the game, gave them a four-run lead in the bottom of the second inning. It turned Ty into a focus of national attention. And it gave the Kuhner kids, whose parents, Kris and Stef, were sitting a few rows above them, a memory they’ll likely never forget. Better yet, Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos tossed a ball to Ty. “I look for a kid, man,” Castellanos said. “That’s just a coincidence it happened to be him.” Later, Tom McCarthy, the team’s play-by-play man, hand-delivered the Kuhners another baseball, one autographed by Jimmy Rollins and Jayson Werth.

And no, Ty Kuhner said, no one booed him when he dropped Marsh’s home-run ball.

“Just Astros fans,” he said.