Cubs great Anthony Rizzo snags home run ball in Wrigley Field bleachers — again

Cubs great Anthony Rizzo snags home run ball in Wrigley Field bleachers — again

Economy World


Anthony Rizzo made a career of catching baseballs at major league parks. Specifically at Wrigley Field, where he played 10 of his 14 MLB seasons with the Chicago Cubs.

It seems old habits, especially those of a three-time All-Star who retired in 2024, die hard. Even back in the bleachers at Wrigley on Saturday, watching the Cubs’ second game of a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins with a baby in his arms, he was still collecting baseballs flying off bats.

And it wasn’t even the first time he’s done so since retiring.

On Saturday, a first-inning swing by Cubs first baseman Michael Busch sent a 402-foot home run into the right-field stands. In what was the first run of a 6-2 Cubs win over the Twins, the home run ball found its way into the right hand of Rizzo.

“I saw it play (on the scoreboard) in between innings,” Busch told reporters postgame. “I didn’t know, and then (Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya) actually told me, ‘Rizzo caught your ball.’ … That was pretty cool.”

Technically, Rizzo didn’t actually “catch” the homer.

After Busch launched the ball at 101 mph off his bat, the broadcast camera panned to the bleachers, where a man in an iconic blue jersey with a red No. 44 on the back turned around and emerged with the home run ball in his right hand and a baby in his left arm. Nick Friedell, an NBA reporter with The Athletic and lifelong Cubs fan, said he happened to be sitting directly behind Rizzo and handed him the ball.

As Rizzo turned toward the crowd and held the ball with a beaming smile, fans inside the Friendly Confines and longtime Cubs play-by-play announcer Jon Sciambi instantly recognized that the man wearing the jersey was the actual owner of the name on the back.

“No way!” Sciambi exclaimed on the local broadcast Saturday. “You got to be kidding me. Michael Busch says hello to Anthony Rizzo. ‘You got it this time, Rizz.’”

It was a fitting day for Cubs fans to remember Rizzo, the player who caught the final out of Game 7 of the 2016 World Series against Cleveland, securing the Cubs’ first championship in 108 years. Saturday marked the 10-year reunion celebration of the 2016 championship team, with several players returning to be honored.

So it made sense that Rizzo was in the house, but this wasn’t the first time he returned as a fan and snared a home run.

On Sept. 13, 2025, during a 5-4 Cubs win over the Tampa Bay Rays, Cubs designated hitter Moisés Ballesteros hit a 391-foot home run into left field that also found Rizzo among the bleacher creatures. There was no baby in tow that time, but he drew applause all the same.

Just like on Saturday, he recovered the ball after a scramble.

Sciambi marveled at the improbability that, of all 39,508 reported fans in attendance Saturday, the ball found its way to the former Cub for the second time in less than a year.

“I mean, the one guy in the ballpark?” Sciambi asked in bewilderment. “In all of the ballpark that it gets hit to?”

After making his major league debut with the San Diego Padres in 2011, Rizzo played for the Cubs from 2012 to 2021. During that span, he was a three-time NL All-Star, won four Gold Glove Awards and hit 242 of his 303 career home runs. He later played three and a half seasons with the New York Yankees to finish his career. He was one of the cornerstone pieces of a Cubs team that reached the postseason five times, captured three NL Central titles and won the franchise’s third World Series title.

So yes, to Sciambi’s bemusement, of all the people in the ballpark, the baseball found an old pal on Saturday.

A familiar and hallowed hand, out past the ivy.



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