Jake Reiner stepped onto Dodger Stadium on Sunday and turned a family tribute into the night’s most personal moment. He and Romy Reiner threw ceremonial first pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Boston Red Sox, honoring Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner months after their deaths.
Dodger Stadium on Sunday
The siblings wore jerseys that read “Reiner,” then posed with Dodgers outfielder Alex Call and infielder Miguel Rojas after their pitches. Call and Rojas caught the throws, with Jake appearing to put his pitch over the plate and Romy’s ball drifting slightly wide of home plate.
For Jake, the appearance fit a bond he had already described in public. In May, he said on an episode of The Incline: Dodgers Podcast, “When it comes to the Dodgers, my first love, it’s something that I’ve always connected with my dad first and foremost, and it’s something that I will continue to connect with him for the rest of my life.”
April, May, and the Dodgers
In April, he wrote in a Substack essay that his connection with his father was first built on baseball. “My connection with him was first built on baseball. It was my grandfather’s favorite sport, passed down to my dad and then to me. We loved the Dodgers more than anything,” he wrote.
He added, “We went to so many damn games. I’ll never go to Dodger Stadium again without feeling my dad’s presence and hearing his voice tell me why Shohei Ohtani should never bat in the leadoff spot.” That is the frame around Sunday’s first pitches: not a one-off appearance, but a public return to a place he had already tied to memory.
Romy Reiner steps forward
Romy Reiner took part in the tribute even though she has largely remained out of the spotlight and has yet to break her silence on her parents’ murders. That makes her appearance on Sunday more than a routine family gesture; it was one of the few public signs of the Reiner family since December.
Rob Reiner was 78 when he was found stabbed to death in his Los Angeles home in the Brentwood neighborhood in December, and Michele Singer Reiner was 70. Their death certificates stated that they died within “minutes” of receiving “multiple sharp force injuries” with a “knife, by another.”
December to February
Nick was arrested as the prime suspect in the murders and hit with two separate charges for first-degree murder. He is currently behind bars at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, and he pleaded not guilty at a February court hearing.
Nick was diagnosed with schizophrenia before the killings and has a long history of drug addiction. Sunday’s pitches did not change the legal posture of the case, but they did place the Reiner family back in public view at Dodger Stadium, where the tribute carried the weight of a season measured in grief rather than baseball.
