Jonas Gomez has been going to Dodgers games his whole life.

Growing up in Fillmore, Calif., 50 miles north of Los Angeles, he remembers watching Ken Griffey Jr. play when interleague play first started. He vividly remembers watching Hideo Nomo pitch and used to try to emulate him on the mound at his own baseball games.

“My dad used to call me ‘Little Nomo,’” Gomez said.

He even remembers catching his first foul ball on his eighth birthday, Aug. 4, 1994, from Delino DeShields, in section 131 in the Loge. Among the 200-plus games he thinks he’s been to, it’s one of his favorite memories.

And Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series earlier this week is now up there, too. In capturing a Teoscar Hernández home run, he also captured the hearts of the baseball world.

“I never thought I’d have a chance to tell my story on this kind of a scale, especially all these years later, but here I am,” Gomez said.

The 39-year-old went viral earlier this week when he caught Hernández’s second home run in the Dodgers’ 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday. Hernández homered on a fly ball to right-center field to extend the Dodgers’ lead to 6-0, and the ball was launched right to Gomez, who caught it in his right hand while holding a lefty glove. The impressive catch was shown on the SportsNet LA game broadcast.

PLAYOFF TEO >> 🙌#LetsGoDodgerspic.twitter.com/JaFPaOFQKl

— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) October 1, 2025

Gomez says he received tons of messages from people who recognized him from the broadcast within the first six hours.

Jomboy Media even included the catch in its roundup of top plays from Game 1 of the wild-card series on Instagram the next day. Gomez commented on the post: “Fun fact about my catch last night, I’m not left-handed but brought a lefty glove for this exact reason. I played baseball my entire life but I have Erb’s Palsy in my left arm. It’s partially paralyzed.”

“My buddies were kind of ragging on me, as childhood friends would. They’re like, dude, you totally took a lefty glove … and so that’s kind of why I threw it out there,” said Gomez, who attended the game with his friend Deana.

Jonas Gomez caught Teoscar Hernández’s second home run in the Dodgers’ Game 1 NL Wild Card Series win over the Reds.

Jomboy Media then posted a screenshot of Gomez’s comment on top of the video clip of the catch on its social media channels, which ultimately went viral.

“I was kind of hesitant to write it in general. But it’s reality, right? Like, it is my story,” Gomez added. “I didn’t think anything was going to come with this whole thing, but if there’s anything that I could shed a light (on), I always thought my story was kind of cool.”

Erb’s Palsy is a partial paralysis of an upper extremity; in Gomez’s case, it affects his left arm. He got stuck at the shoulders during birth, and the doctor had to break his left clavicle to safely get him out. In doing so, some of the nerves in Gomez’s shoulder were severed.

“The message from my brain to my arm doesn’t go,” Gomez said. “It says lift your left arm up, but it only goes so high.”

Gomez has full sensation in and full use of his left hand, but only 53 percent use of his arm. He can’t lift it above his shoulder. Growing up, he was encouraged to stay active, and played baseball and basketball.

“So I grew up, you know, obviously with challenges, growing up with a physical disability,” Gomez said. “But I’m very fortunate. … My parents encouraged me to try anything I wanted to try. They had honest conversations with me about, ‘you’re going to have to do things different. You can’t do it like everybody else, but you can do it. You’re just going to do it your way.’”

He received an outpouring of kind messages from strangers, including others with Erb’s Palsy.

“One gentleman reached out to me, his daughter has Erb’s Palsy and was like, ‘man, this is awesome, I can’t wait to show my little girl.’”

While playing baseball as a teenager and an adult, Gomez learned to catch with the “basket catch,” in which he held open the glove with the palm facing up.

“I always dreamed about making a play one day at Dodger Stadium,” he said. “So it was definitely a surreal moment, catching that ball (on Tuesday).”

Gomez doesn’t normally bring gloves to games — he says he hasn’t done so since he was probably 12 — but decided to borrow a friend’s glove since he’d be sitting in right-center field.

“The worst thing that could happen is an Ohtani 110 mph missile right at you,” Gomez said. “So I was like, I’m gonna take a glove with me just in case, because you never know. And then I was, like, well, that’d be dumb, I can’t even lift my arm.”

He brought the glove anyway, and the rest is history.

“I even took a picture before the game like, ‘hey, I’m ready for a home run,’ like, you know, right here in the home run seats. So it definitely was a meant-to-be moment.”

The Dodgers, reigning World Series champions, won Game 2 of the series 8-4 on Wednesday and are now headed to the NL Divisional Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Gomez has already been to three World Series and is optimistic about attending a fourth.

“Being a Dodger fan, we have been very fortunate with the success the team’s had,” he said. “But here we are in October again. Now it’s time to get it done.”

As for whether he’ll bring the glove?

“That was probably the last time I’ll take a glove,” he said. “It was meant to be.”

(Photos courtesy of Jonas Gomez)