Alex Call jumped the dugout railing to join the postgame handshake line and, on the way down, clipped Shohei Ohtani in the elbow. The incident happened Tuesday, July 23 at Citizens Bank Park, right after the Dodgers beat the Phillies 9-5 to improve to 65-38 — the best record in baseball. Nobody was seriously hurt, but Call almost certainly saw his entire career flash before his eyes in that split second.
A jump, a railing, and Ohtani’s elbow
The postgame routine was standard stuff: players head out to shake hands on the field. Call, a 31-year-old backup outfielder, decided to vault over the dugout railing to get there faster. The problem? Ohtani was standing right there, and Call’s leg made contact with his left elbow in the process.
The moment was clearly accidental — no question about that — but the context made it genuinely nerve-wracking. Ohtani is already dealing with a knee injury and hasn’t pitched at all this season, so the last thing the franchise needed was to add another risk area on their most valuable player. Call had to know it the instant it happened: no bench player wants to go down in history as the guy who hurt Shohei in July.
No injury confirmed — Call can breathe again
As of this writing, there is no official injury report for Ohtani stemming from the incident. According to coverage from Yahoo Sports and The Big Lead, Ohtani shook it off and the team issued no emergency statement. That’s the best possible news for Los Angeles.
There is a minor discrepancy in the reports about which elbow was affected: Yahoo Sports and The Big Lead point to the left elbow, while ClutchPoints mentions the right. The video doesn’t resolve it cleanly, so that detail is worth taking with a grain of salt until the team clarifies.
What is clear: Call finished the night with more adrenaline than any backup player ever wants. He’s hitting .270/.383/.350 in 2026 with 15 RBI in 120 plate appearances — solid numbers for a bench role — but that slash line is not what anyone will remember about this evening.
Dodgers stay on top, but the scare wasn’t nothing
With the 9-5 win over Philly, the Dodgers hold the best record in the majors at 65-38. The victory was comfortable on the scoreboard, but the dugout moment was a sharp reminder of how fragile a season can be when your centerpiece is already limited by a knee injury.
That Call’s miscalculated jump didn’t turn into something worse is, franchise-wide, just about as important as any regular-season win. The Dodgers are in first place; what they cannot afford is losing their most valuable player to a celebration gone sideways.
Call will probably do the same postgame routine next game. He’ll just look twice before he jumps the railing.
