Best Fan Catch goes to member of Cubs Nation

It wasn't just the catch itself that earned one Cubs fan an Esurance MLB Award on Friday for Best Fan Catch. It was the spontaneous celebration.

Everyone raise a glass -- or a plastic cup, as it were -- to Krista Dotzenrod, who was sipping a Green Line Pale Ale from Goose Island in the upper deck at Wrigley Field in April when a foul fly ball landed right in her beer. What happened next was caught on camera and made Dotzenrod a social-media sensation.

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"I was told they were amazing seats because you can catch a lot of foul balls," Dotzenrod, 24, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I was sitting there, and all of a sudden there is a ball in my cup. It fell straight in there. I didn't know what to do."

What else could she do?

With the baseball still in her cup, Dotzenrod chugged the rest of her beer.

"It all happened in five seconds," she said.

Other finalists for the Best Fan Catch award were a man who caught a Mike Trout homer with an appropriately labeled "Trout net," and a young Detroit fan who celebrated nabbing a Ben Zobrist grand slam before quickly agonizing over his Tigers falling behind.

The Esurance MLB Awards annually honor Major League Baseball's greatest achievements as part of an industry-wide balloting process that includes five components, each of which accounts for 20 percent of the overall vote: media, front-office personnel, retired MLB players, fans at MLB.com and voters from the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Individual awards were presented for 22 categories, including Best Major Leaguer, Everyday Player, Bounceback Player, Social Media Personality and Postseason Performer. Winners were also recognized for the year's Best Offensive Play, Defensive Play, Moment, Single-Game Performance, Social Media Post, Celebrity Fan and Fan Catch.

Manager and Executive winners will be announced at the Winter Meetings in December.

Nominees were judged on their bodies of work from the entire year -- from Opening Day through the postseason -- and selected after a careful review of all 30 clubs. Winners in all 24 categories receive a Greatness in Baseball Yearly (GIBBY) trophy.