Woman Misidentified as 'Phillies Karen' Says She Was Not Involved, Calls Herself a Red Sox Fan

A New Jersey woman on Thursday confronted a wave of online abuse after being wrongly identified as the fan who marched onto a family and demanded a home run ball during a Philadelphia Phillies game.

The woman posted on Facebook to deny she was the person seen in the viral video and to mock the misidentification, writing, "OK everyone … I’m not the crazy Philly Mom (but I sure would love to be as thin as she is and move as fast) …. And I’m a Red Sox fan." The social-media uproar had focused on a woman identified by some users as Cheryl Richardson-Wagner.

The confrontation occurred after a Phillies home run during a game against the Miami Marlins, when footage shown widely online captured a woman approaching a father and his young son who had the ball. The father, identified in local reporting as Drew Felwell, told NBC Philadelphia that he ultimately handed the ball to the woman to defuse the situation.

"I don’t even remember what she said, it was, you know, a lot of eyes on us by that time and the ball was already in his glove and she just wouldn’t stop and I mean, I’m literally leaning back as she’s in my face yelling and yelling and I pretty much just wanted her to go away because I had a fork in the road: either do something I was probably going to regret or be dad and show him how to deescalate the situation so that’s where I went," Felwell said in the interview.

The online attempt to identify the woman prompted wider local fallout when the name circulated on social platforms. The Hammonton Public School District in New Jersey issued a statement saying the woman who had been linked to the viral post was not and had never been an employee of the district. "Anyone who works for our school district, attended as a student or lives in our community would obviously have caught the ball bare-handed in the first place, avoiding this entire situation!" the district said, and added that no one from the district had been fired in connection with the incident.

The viral video and ensuing social-media sleuthing reflect a broader pattern in which online communities try to identify people seen in contentious public incidents. In this case the woman who was wrongly named used humor in her response, noting both the mistaken identity and her loyalty to a rival team.

The Phillies fan involved in the original on-field moment did receive the ball from the family, according to reporting, and the episode has prompted debate online about fan behavior and the appropriate way to resolve disputes at games. Local news outlets covered the father's decision to give up the ball to avoid escalation, and the mistaken identification prompted a corrective statement from the Hammonton school district.

No law-enforcement action tied to the misidentification has been reported, and the woman who denied involvement said she hoped the matter would end with her clarification on social media.