Opening night at Dodger Stadium was an exciting one, but the action wasn’t strictly limited to the baseball game.
Although the Los Angeles Dodgers smoked the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-2, the most talked-about event of the evening happened when what was meant to be a romantic, life-altering gesture turned into something more closely resembling a football play.
At one point in the game, Dodgers fan Ricardo Juarez came up with the idea to run onto the field of play, pull out a ring and propose to his girlfriend who was sitting in the crowd.
But before he could get an answer, a security guard charged out, jumping on Juarez in a bone-crushing tackle.
Video captured on phones around the stadium shows the hard-charging security staff running full-speed at Juarez, who was already on one knee, before flattening him to the ground. Two other security guards also appear, pouncing on Juarez, before handcuffing and dragging him away.
Juarez’s girlfriend, Ramona Saavedra, revealed later on Instagram that she did say yes, but that it took several hours to be reunited with her now-fiancé, as he was facing the consequences of his romantic, but illegal, gesture.
“OK the best proposal ever,” she wrote on Instagram, “I love you and yes I’ll marry you.”
Saavedra said Juarez was taken to jail and released a few hours later. There’s been no news on whether he’ll be allowed to return to Dodger Stadium in the future.
The newly-engaged couple posed together for a pic after the dust settled, showing off Saavedra’s shiny new sparkler.
Of course, the internet has been having a field day with the footage.
As any good professional sports fan knows, trying to get on the field at any stadium is a major no-no, so it’s likely he expected to be escorted away. However, he probably didn’t see that rough tackle in his future. The things we do for love!