Quote:
Originally Posted by David Watts
Just curious, have any of you ever caught/picked up a foul ball/home run at a game before. I attended my first big league game way back in 1972 at Tiger Stadium. Been to lots of games between then and now. I've never even came close to getting a ball. The only ball I ever left a game with, was one I found while leaving a Shreveport Captains minor league game years ago. Found it in the parking lot on the way to my car resting against someone's car tire. I still have it. I did catch a few hockey pucks while attending Saginaw Gears hockey games when I was in junior high/high school.
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In case you haven't read the Mets thread (
FEEL SHAME!!), the first game I recall attending was on August 26th, 1970, when the Mets blew a 6-run lead at home, losing to a Hank Aaron 3-run homer in the 8th inning, which I did not see because my dad (RIP) had decided to leave early so we could "beat the traffic" and I had to hear it on the radio in the parking lot.
(The Mets didn't blow another lead of 6 or more runs until the "God Cries for Wilmer Flores" game of July 2015, by which point this had been a record for at least a decade.)
I did not get foul ball for a very long time after that. In 1985, I marched into Satan's Lair (aka Yankee Stadium) to see Tom Seaver, the Greatest Pitcher of All-Time, win his 300th game, snuck down to the front row and got my hands on a foul ball, only to have it squirt out of my hand and down to a guy a seat or two away, who made the grab I had fumbled. (The WPIX-TV telecast showed me futilely swiping with my left hand at a different ball.)
Until one day in September 2016, when on an eastern swing I decided to treat myself to a decently-priced resale seat in the "Shea Club" (right behind home plate), got to my seat while all the other big spenders were still getting victuals inside, watched the Twins' Brian Dozier take two balls and then loft the 2-0 pitch back over the screen [this was before they caged the lower level in], right at me. I stood up, raised my hands…and completely whiffed on the catch, but the ball lodged right where my ass had been and I was able to grab the ball.
A bunch of ball-scavengers swarmed over from the next section (ages 15-24? I don't recall), but I gave them a glare and they pouted away. And then the Mets won again (this was the "Curtis Granderson switch-hits HRs in extra innings* " game) and it was one of the best days of my life.
If Scavenger Dad had run in and zoomed away with the ball, I would have been too fat to catch him and too scared of criminal prosecution to beat him unconscious…but I would have thought about it. And if he told me he had done it for his son, I would have told him to go **** himself. And perhaps several other things. He has kids? Ask me if I care. My dad had kids, too.
46 years, but I did it! Top of the World, Ma!!
*—"extra innings" was an old rule where, if a game was tied after 9 innings, they
kept playing baseball. Shocking concept, huh? (They were abolished in 2020, along with several other things.)