OT: Detroit man donates Pujols 2,000 RBI ball to HoF in honor of late son

I'm sure that there were plenty of anonymous internet tough guys on social media judging him for keeping the ball. It's not hard to imagine the accusations: selfish, attention-seeking, etc. These people, who are usually not the representative of the majority, never seem to stop and think for a second about what or why someone did what they did, in this case, kept a caught HR ball. For some reason, they know exactly what everyone should do in any circumstance, and are not afraid to share it on Facebook or Twitter. 

Pujols seemed to come out of it looking the best, he basically said "we play for the fans, they can do what they want with the balls they catch. I have plenty of milestone balls." The media seemed to be baiting him into calling out the fan. 

You're right though that the Tigers screwed it up too. I heard that the team representatives who went down to negotiate for the ball were basically assholes, and that turned this guy off enough he decided to keep the ball out of spite. 

It was mostly that, but this person also gave some very, very strange media interviews, including one where he quite awkwardly invoked Anne Frank for reasons that seemed logical to no one but him. Within a couple days he had told the rest of the story, but it was not handled well by anyone for first day or so.

The reports of the Tigers being assholes came from him, though.  I don't think he came out of it smelling like roses.  I didn't get the impression it was "give it here or we won't verify it."  It seemed more like "we can't verify it, so you'll walk out of here with a worthless ball if you keep it."  MLB won't verify it unless they see the guy actually catch it, rather than fish it out from underneath the seats which is what this guy did.  I don't know what the demeanor of the Tigers' reps was, but he kind of trashed them in a way that didn't come off completely honest.