The Baseball

by Zack Hample

  Fan interference—If the ball is in play, don’t reach out of the stands for it. It doesn’t matter how valuable or historic it might be. Respect the game. As I mentioned before, you’ll be ejected if you break this rule, and the ball might get confiscated anyway (and even worse, you might end up like Steve Bartman), so there’s really nothing to gain.

  Sportsmanship—If another fan plays by the rules and beats you out for a ball, give him a high-five. Tell him, “Nice catch.” Share the love.

  If you’re serious about ballhawking, you need a level of focus and determination that borders on obsession. It also helps to be strategic and athletic (and to have a job with flexible hours), but most important, you have to be careful and respectful. That can be a pretty big challenge, so if you find yourself struggling with it, just remember—there are plenty of baseballs to go around.

  DOCUMENTING YOUR COLLECTION

  Let’s say you’re sitting in the front row behind the third-base dugout, and the batter hits a squibber to the third-base coach, who picks up the ball and tosses it to you. Pretty simple, right? You’re gonna high-five everyone around you, then call your parents to ask if they saw you on TV, and eventually brag to all your friends. But what exactly are you going to tell them? That you caught a foul ball? Would that really be an accurate way to describe it?

  Let’s take it a step further.

  Suppose the ball gets tossed to another fan, who catches it and hands it to you. How would that ball count in your collection? Should it even count in the first place, since you didn’t snag it yourself? What if a stadium employee gets a ball and gives it to you? Employees aren’t allowed to keep balls, so would that be any different? And what about Spring Training balls? Can you count those, or do they belong in a separate category? What about minor league balls? What if you happen to snag a minor league ball at a major league stadium? What if you catch a ball and give it away? Can you still count it even though you no longer own it?

  The answer to that last question is yes, at least for me, but here’s what it all comes down to: there’s not an official scorekeeper for ballhawks. There’s no rules committee—no national association or governing body6—so ultimately you’ll have to make these decisions for yourself.

  But hold on. Before you start worrying about how to tally your ballhawking stats, you need to record the details for each ball you snag. Let’s go back to that hypothetical toss-up from the third-base coach. If you’ve only caught a handful of baseballs in your life (which, by the way, is a handful more than most people ever get), you’ll probably remember the name of the coach who gave it to you. You’ll also remember which stadium you were at, but if you don’t jot down a few notes on a piece of scrap paper, you might forget the date. You also might forget who hit the ball and who pitched it. And what about the inning, the outs, and the number of balls and strikes?

  When I snagged the first two balls of my life on June 20, 1990, I had no idea how much I’d eventually care about these details. Luckily, I happened to save my ticket stub, so I remembered the date—but that’s all I remember. I can’t recall the names of the Mets players who threw the balls to me, and unfortunately, by the time I got home that day from Shea Stadium, I wasn’t sure which ball was which.

  This brings up another issue: identifying the balls after you snag them. If you don’t have a huge collection, you can keep each ball on a separate shelf or in a different drawer. You can buy plastic cubes for them or simply tell them apart by their markings. One ball might be scuffed. Another might have a smudged logo or a grass stain or a practice stamp or a bat imprint or an extra-dark coating of mud. You can also try to get the balls autographed by the players who hit and threw them, but what if a grounds-keeper pulls a muddy ball out from under the tarp and hands it to you? Are you going to have him autograph it? What if you find a ball in the seats or use your glove trick to snag one from a gap behind the outfield wall? Who’s going to sign it then? What if you catch a BP homer, but you’re not sure who hit it? (It’s not easy to identify batters from 400 feet away, especially when they’re wearing warm-up shirts over their jerseys.) What if you know who hit it, but the guy refuses to sign it? Will you be able to sleep at night if your autograph collection is incomplete? What if you end up snagging thousands of balls? Are you willing to spend more time going for autographs than for the balls themselves? Can you afford to buy thousands of ball cubes? Would you even have enough space to display them, and given the fact that sunlight darkens baseballs over time, would you really want to?

  I spent years trying to figure out a solution and finally, after snagging my 2,000th ball in 2003, started labeling the balls by writing on them. It pained me at first because it felt like I was defacing them, but I got over it pretty fast and ended up appreciating my collection even more. Anyway, it’s not like I was scribbling sloppily all over the balls. As soon as I snagged number 2,001, I wrote a tiny “2001” under the sweet spot and later typed the corresponding details into a file on my laptop: “5/24/03, Olympic Stadium, LF bleachers, BP, thrown by Phillies reliever Rheal Cormier.”

  Meanwhile, I kept a separate game log that looked like this:

  The “BP” column simply indicates whether or not there was batting practice; the numbers in parentheses show how many game balls I snagged.7

  This is how I document my collection. It’s not how you have to document yours. If you don’t care about the attendance, then don’t worry about it. If you don’t want to write on your baseballs, then feel free to skip that part of the process. But you should seriously consider keeping track of every game you attend, along with the number of balls that you snag. (Single-admission doubleheaders should be counted as one “game.”) Keep a separate list of the players and coaches who throw balls to you. (If a player throws one too short and it lands on the warning track and a security guard walks over and hands it to you, you’re allowed to add the player’s name to your list.) Keep track of your personal records or let mygameballs.com do it for you. (Most balls in one game, most balls in one season, most game balls in one season, most balls in one game without batting practice, most consecutive games with at least one ball, etc.) And finally, wear cargo pants whenever possible; if you snag six balls in a 90-second span, you’re gonna want to stick each one in a separate pocket until you have a chance to label them.

  1 Yes, Spring Training. It was that awesome. And by the way, this is the same Nick Yohanek that you read about in chapter 12.

  2 Yohanek caught two home runs at County Stadium on May 29, 1999, and as you might expect, he celebrated in a rather exuberant manner. When the cameras zoomed in on him, Brewers TV analyst Bill Schroeder said, “There’s a ball for a happy youngster.” The following off-season, Yohanek met Schroeder’s broadcast partner, Matt Vasgersian, who remembered the catches and encouraged him to make a HAPPY YOUNGSTER T-shirt. Yohanek took the suggestion and later told Vasgersian that he planned to wear the shirt on May 16, 2000. Yohanek ended up catching two homers that day, a stunning achievement that sparked a national media frenzy. Now known as “the Happy Youngster,” his career totals include 58 game home runs (from major league stadiums) and more than 1,000 balls overall.

  3 I recommend a stainless steel, collapsible vegetable steamer. That’s what I used when I visited The K in 2009, and it worked great.

  4 This is where Andrew Morbitzer grabbed Barry Bonds’s 715th career home run—a ball, you may recall, that bounced out of the bleachers and later sold for $220,100.

  5 This, of course, is a dreadfully selfish way of looking at it, but the way I see it, if a team can’t compete and the stadium is empty as a result, you might as well enjoy it.

  6 Guinness World Records doesn’t care. Isn’t that sad? I mean, the book features the man who can squirt milk from his eye the farthest. It lists records for the youngest cider pourer, the fastest stamp licker, and the largest collection of airplane sick bags—but there’s no love for ballhawks.

  7 Ballhawks are always debating what should and shouldn’t co
unt as a “game ball.” Technically, any game-used ball should fall into that category, but I don’t count the ones that get tossed into the crowd—not even game home runs. It’s an arbitrary decision that I made in 1992. Even then, as a 14-year-old with very little ballhawking experience, thrown balls during games seemed a bit too easy and predictable to be counted separately.

  BALLHAWK GLOSSARY

  assist—a statistic awarded to a fan who catches a ball on someone else’s behalf

  authenticator—a Major League Baseball employee who certifies historically significant memorabilia

  balligraphy—the use of baseballs to write a number or word

  Bob Feller used “balligraphy” to commemorate his 250th career win on May 23, 1954. (Photo Credit bm1.1)

  berm—a sloped, grassy area inside a stadium

  bleacher bite—a cut or scrape caused by running into the corner of a bench

  blem ball—a defective (or “blemished”) ball; sold to teams at a discount for use during batting practice

  BP—batting practice

  caddy—a person who performs snagging-related tasks (such as carrying equipment and labeling balls) so the ballhawk doesn’t have to

  cheat sheet—a printed roster that helps a ballhawk to identify the players and coaches

  clean up—to snag a large amount of balls in one day

  commemorative ball—a baseball with a special logo

  contraption—a ball-retrieving device

  corner spot—an end seat in the front row that’s closest to the field or players

  cross-aisle—an aisle that runs parallel to the rows of seats and provides lateral movement

  cup trick—a popular ball-retrieving device

  cutoff line—a boundary established by stadium security to prevent fans from spreading out when there are lots of empty seats

  device—a ball-retrieving contraption

  double digits—ten or more balls snagged at a single game

  double up—to snag two balls back-to-back

  dugout access—the ability to enter the seats behind the dugouts

  dummy ball—a worthless ball that gets substituted for a more valuable ball

  early access—entry to a particular section (or to the stadium itself) before the general public can get there

  early BP—a bonus session of batting practice that takes place well before the stadium opens

  Easter egg—a ball that’s lying in the empty seats when a stadium opens to the public

  gamer—a game-used ball

  gap—an inaccessible, walled-off space between the field and stands

  garbage ball—a snagged ball that isn’t caught on the fly

  glove love—a high-five with glove-to-glove contact

  glove trick—a popular ball-retrieving device

  jaked—knocked down (or crashed into) by another fan while attempting to catch a ball; named after an aggressive Bay Area ballhawk named Jake Frazier

  jump ball—a ball that two or more people jump for at the same time

  Lansdowne Street—the street behind Fenway Park’s Green Monster

  lifer—a ballhawk who’s been attending games at one stadium for as long as anyone can remember

  logo—the printed stamp on a baseball

  McCovey Cove—the body of water beyond the right-field edge of AT&T Park

  milestone ball—a ball that’s used to achieve a significant statistic

  moat—a walled cross-aisle that prevents the common fan from entering the fancy seats behind the dugouts

  negotiation—the act of bargaining for memorabilia before returning an important ball to the player who hit it

  on the fly—before it bounces

  oppo—to the opposite field

  overhang—the portion of the second deck that sticks out above the field-level seats

  pearl—a brand-new baseball

  poach—to enter another section and catch a ball that would’ve been snagged by the people sitting there

  posterize—to make a fantastic catch that’s worthy of having a still photograph blown up to poster-sized proportions and placed in a public area

  practice ball—a ball that has the word PRACTICE stamped on it

  range—the area that a ballhawk is able to cover

  reentry—permission to leave a stadium and get back inside

  regular—a ballhawk who attends every game at a particular stadium

  retriever—a ball-retrieving device

  robbed—deprived of a ball that would have been easy to snag

  rubbed up—describes a ball that’s been rubbed with mud and was therefore probably used during a game

  seesaw—an acrobatic catch during which a ballhawk’s feet go up in the air and his upper body lowers over the side of a railing

  700 Club—the group of fans who have caught a player’s career home run number 700 or greater

  Sheffield Avenue—the street beyond the right-field edge of Wrigley Field

  shut out—sent home without a single ball

  snag—to obtain a ball; not to be confused with “caught,” which suggests catching a batted ball on the fly

  splash hit—a home run that lands in a body of water

  spotter—a fan on the inside of a stadium who helps a fan on the outside by indicating when to get ready and which direction the balls are heading

  statue—a ballhawk who stays in one place and waits for the ball to come to him

  stonehands—a gloveless fan who lets a ball clank off his hands

  sweet spot—the area on the ball opposite the main part of the logo

  third-out ball—a ball that is used to record the final out of an inning

  toss-up—a ball that gets thrown gently to a fan

  training ball—a lesser-quality ball used by some teams during batting practice

  trickable—able to be snagged with a glove trick or cup trick

  tunnel—a passageway that leads from the seats to the concourse

  warm-up ball—a ball used by players before the game or between innings

  Waveland Avenue—the street beyond the left-field edge of Wrigley Field

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Although he doesn’t know it, Barry Bonds indirectly contributed to this book with one swing of the bat, so let me start by saying thanks to him.

  August 16, 2006—that’s when the magic happened. The Giants were in San Diego, Chan Ho Park was on the mound for the Padres, and in the top of the second inning, Bonds launched his 724th career home run into the right-field stands. I was there. I caught that ball. And when my celebration ended, I frantically started calling everyone I knew to find someone to tape SportsCenter. Another fan overheard me. He said he had a friend in San Francisco who was taping the game, and then without warning, he called his friend and handed me the phone. Long story short: the guy from San Francisco is now a great friend of mine. His name is Brad Paterson, and he helped me with this book more than anyone. When the project was in its infancy, he brainstormed with me for hours every night. Whenever I wrote a new section, he listened patiently as I read it, and when the first draft was complete, he looked it over and gave me countless suggestions. Quite simply, this book is much better than it would’ve been had I never met Brad—so perhaps I should also thank Chan Ho for serving up such a meatball.

  Two other friends also edited for me: the lovely Lia Norton and the Cubs-obsessed Kelly McMahon. They both gave me great notes, and I didn’t even ask for their help. They offered. That’s special.

  Jona Jolley is also special. Very very extremely special. (Anyone who’s willing to be my girlfriend during four different baseball seasons has to be.) She kept me sane when my writer’s block was crippling, when my deadlines were overwhelming, and when life itself was a bit much. All those times she made me watch Jersey Shore, all those organic vegan meals she made me eat, and all those afternoons when she made me step away from my laptop and go jogging with her in Riverside Park—even though I might’ve been bitching
about these “interruptions” at the time, I must admit that they really helped.

  Like most writers, I endured a bunch of ups and downs over the course of this project. My parents, Stuart and Naomi, were there for all of them. They, too, edited parts of the book, but they mainly helped just by being there for me—by being loving and supportive and embracing my inner nerd.

  Big thanks to six folks in particular at the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. Matt Bourne and Jeff Heckelman fielded my initial questions and invited me to ask them in person. Howard Smith not only answered those questions, but helped set up my trip to the Rawlings baseball factory in Costa Rica. Don Hintze and Megan Pearce granted permission to use dozens of photos, and Ryan Samuelson followed up with me on everything.

  Rawlings, as you may have gathered, came through for me in a major way. Mark Kraemer, my main contact there, answered more of my questions than any human being should ever have to deal with. He and his boss, Mike Thompson, traveled to San José (and then to Turrialba) to give me a personal tour of the factory, led by plant manager Alejandro Cotter. (On a personal/cheesy note, I had wanted to visit the factory long before I started working on this book, so these guys really did make a dream come true.)

  My debt to the Hall of Fame is enormous. Tim Wiles jump-started my research by sending me a phonebook-sized stack of ball-related articles and clippings. Pat Kelly dug up dozens of obscure photos from the archives. Mary Bellew pulled vintage baseballs from the collection, and Milo Stewart photographed them to perfection.

  During the 18 months that I worked on this book, editing advice trickled in from all directions, but Jenny Jackson, my editor at Vintage, gets the official tip of the cap. She helped me figure out exactly what the book would be and gave outstanding suggestions throughout the process. Special thanks are also in order for her assistant, Andrea Robinson, for Nicole Pedersen in production, for Cathy Aison in the design department, and for Dan Ozzi, whose publicity efforts began a year in advance.