8/31/05 at Shea Stadium

Two stops before my #7 train pulled into Willets Point-Shea Stadium, I struck up a conversation with a guy who was clearly lost. Turned out he was also heading to Shea, and he asked me if I needed a ticket.

"Yeah, but I'm just gonna buy a cheap one."

"How much'll that run you?"

"Fourteen bucks."

"How 'bout if I sell you one for ten?" he suggested, pulling a rubber-banded wad of tickets out of his pocket.

Was he a scalper? Was this a scam? He said he had a large group of people coming and that a few of them couldn't make it. (Riiiiiiight.) He handed me a ticket, and I inspected it:

Wed Aug 31, 2005 7:10pm (I always look for the date first.)
Mets vs. Phillies (So far, so good...)
Game 67 (whatever)
Shea Stadium (unfortunately)
NO REFUND IF RAINED OUT (Aha!)

"Thanks," I told him, "but I'm gonna pass." He looked at me like I was crazy, so I explained that for just four dollars more, I'd be able to get my money back if the game were to get rained out.

"Then just take it," he said.

"Really?"

"Take it," he insisted. He was getting annoyed.

"Wow, are you serious? I mean...okay, thanks."

"You didn't want it because you were skeptical," he said. "I'm showing you that you shouldn't have been."

"Well, can I at least give you five bucks for it?"

He nodded, and I paid him. It was the least I could do. Not only had he provided admittance to the ballpark, but he'd given me a valuable life lesson.

The train doors opened, and we spilled onto the platform. I ran to Gate C and worked my way to the front of the line by pretending to know someone standing there. Then I had to wait for 15 minutes until the gates opened. I had my backpack searched and got wanded with a metal detector and headed for the ticket-scanning machines at the turnstiles. Was I holding a fake ticket? This was for the moment of truth...

BEEP!! BEEP!!
I was in.

I ran through the ground level concourse. I ran up the double ramp to the Field Level concourse behind home plate. I turned right and ran through the main aisle toward the empty seats along the right field foul line. I turned left and ran down the steps toward the front row--and nearly got hit by a ball. I was so busy running that I hadn't been watching the batter. The ball skipped off a railing and ricocheted two sections to the right ("Please, God, don't let it bounce back onto the field!"), then hit a little concrete wall where the seats jut out and trickled all the way back to me.

Thirty seconds later, my friend Adam (A.K.A. "thegroceryman") showed up with his glove. I held up the ball and grinned.

"You got fifty-five thousand seats here," I said, "and you have to pick one right next to me."

I couldn't blame him. He couldn't blame me. The right field foul line is the best spot for the first five or ten minutes...and sure enough, moments later, a Mets righty sliced a foul ball right toward us. It looked like it was going to fall a bit short, so I started to climb over one of the many railings to get a little bit closer to home plate, but the ball carried five feet over my head, hit a concrete step, and bounced 50 feet away. Adam cut through the seats. I raced up the stairs and cut through the aisle. The ball was a few steps below me. Adam was approaching it from below. There was another kid coming at us from the side--and Adam dove headfirst under a railing and scrambled on his hands and knees and grabbed it. Well-deserved.

I was furious, of course, for having misjudged the ball. If I'd taken a couple steps back instead of moving forward, I would have easily caught it on a fly. Then I reminded myself that most major leaguers probably would've made the same mistake. Think about how often a player will move one way and then drift in another direction to catch even the most routine fly ball or pop-up. It happens all the time. No one can predict exactly where the ball is heading from the moment it leaves the bat, not even Andruw Jones, but because there are so many railings at Shea--one railing for every FOUR seats on the Field Level--I'm forced to attempt such predictions on a regular basis. Sometimes I get lucky, and sometimes other people/punks end up with the ball. That's how it goes.

The seats started filling up. I told Adam, "This day is going to [be lousy]. I just know it," and then I moved one level up to the less crowded Loge. I headed toward the corner spot in the first row, but hesitated because there were two people standing just a couple feet away from it--a superdorky college-aged kid and a superold man with a matching glove--and I couldn't decide if it would be rude to squeeze past them.

In the true spirit of New York, I decided to go for it, so I walked down the steps, walked through the second row to the edge of the section, and climbed over the first row into the corner spot. The two guys looked at me and then each other with expressions that said: "What a lot of nerve. Oh no, we should've been standing there. I wish we weren't so dorky and old."

Ten seconds later, I got Victor Diaz to throw me a ball.

"Excuse me!" growled the geezer. "These are our seats."

"Right HERE?!"

"Yes," he said, pulling out his ticket. "You got a ball. We'd like a chance to get one, too."

I looked at his ticket. I was standing in front of his seat. I couldn't believe it. I had no choice but to move over five feet and give them the corner spot, but it didn't matter. Two minutes later, I got Mets bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello to throw me a ball. And five minutes after that, I saw a ball drop into a narrow gap between the field and the seats along the right field foul line, so I bolted down the ramps and through the concourse and aisle and down the steps and through the seats. The first row was packed with people leaning over for the ball, but it was just out of their reach. I was surprised that no one had jumped down there, or that fathers weren't dangling their kids by the ankles. I set up my glove trick and said "excuse me" and wedged into the front row and got the ball easily (check out those torn stitches!) and headed back to the Loge.

The two guys in the corner spot asked Roberto Hernandez for a ball--the first time they'd spoken up all day--and he threw it right over their heads. That was their one chance, and they missed it. (Some other kid got it.) Meanwhile, Marlon Anderson was holding a ball waaay out in shallow center field, and I'd gotten his attention simply by waving my arms and holding up my glove. The two guys were on my right. Other people were on my left. Marlon reared back to fire the ball, and I was nervous. He was going to have to make a PERFECT throw from 150 to 200 feet away. I was surprised that he was even going to attempt it, but he did, and the ball started flying right at me...but it was falling short. I reached out and over the wall. Too short! It smacked the netting just below me and bounced back on the field. The other fans flinched. They hadn't even seen it coming. I threw my arms up in disgust. Marlon held up his right index finger as if to say, "Hold on," while he went to pick up another ball that was sitting nearby. By now, I had moved several rows back into the main aisle. This way, the ball would still reach the seats even if the throw was a bit too short...and if the ball sailed over my head, I'd still be able to get it because there was no one sitting behind me. The other fans were oblivious as Marlon wound up and let it fly again, but the ball fell short AGAIN and hit the netting AGAIN and I threw my arms up AGAIN. I wasn't annoyed. I was getting a huge kick out of the interaction and simply making the gestures as part of the game. Marlon didn't have any more balls, so he yelled at Juan Padilla who tossed one to him. I moved back to the aisle and asked some guy to get out of the way. He didn't know what was going on--no one did, and that amazed me--and probably thought I was nuts, but he happily stepped aside to give me a clear path. Marlon took a deep breath, then a crow hop, and launched the ball for a third time. This one had the distance. I could tell right away. But it was drifting to my left. Luckily, I'd gotten that other fan to move, so the aisle was clear.

"Here it comes!" someone yelled, and everyone in the front row--including the two guys in the corner spot--looked up and watched in awe as this UFO sailed right over their heads and into my glove. This was by far the most fun pursuit of the season, and it felt great. Before I had a chance to label the ball and put it away, someone on the Mets (it was either Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran) pulled a deep line drive in my direction. With the Marlon ball in my bare hand, I zipped down the steps to the front row and reached out and caught the home run with my glove hand. The two guys in the corner looked like they were going to cry, or throw up, or both.

Minutes later, a player on the Mets tossed a ball to some fans on the Field Level who dropped it onto a sloped grassy area between the field and the seats. I ran down to the front row of the Loge to take a look. Adam was already there, trying to get it with his own glove trick. (If you're new to the blog and don't know what the glove trick is, you can read all about it in my entry about April 25th.) It's not easy to use the trick there because the grass is thick. The glove has to be shaped just right in order for the rubber band to be able to stretch around the ball. Adam was struggling. It was 6:22pm. I took his picture and shouted from 20 feet above, "I'm giving you two minutes. If you don't have it by 6:25, I'm coming down there."

I wanted to be fair and give him two FULL minutes, but when another ball landed in the spot at 6:24, I took off. Up the steps, through the aisle, through the Loge concourse, down the ramps, through the Field concourse, down the steps and into the front row. I got both balls. (Sorry Adam. Okay, no I'm not. But you know I love you. Eww, not like that.)

It was crazy. Half an hour earlier, I had one ball and was moaning about how bad this day was going to be. Now I had eight.

I went to the 1st base dugout and got number nine from hitting coach Rick Down as the Mets came off the field after BP. (Does anyone know why he's so jittery?)

Was it possible? Double digits TWO days in a row? It seemed like a guarantee. The Phillies were just starting BP, and I only needed one more ball. But it wasn't so easy. This was a Pedro game, so the crowd was huge--it ended up being 43,780--and the seats were packed everywhere. In addition, the Phillies are the closest non-NYC team, so there were Phillies fans all over the place. AND...I had to be at work back in Manhattan at 8pm. Not only was I going to have to the leave the ballpark before getting to see Pedro throw a single pitch, but I wasn't even going to be able to stick around for the pregame throwing in front of the dugouts.

I went to the Phillies dugout. Nothing.
I went to shallow left field. Nothing.
I went to the Loge in left field. Nothing.
I went to the left field corner back on the Field Level. Nothing.
Aquilino Lopez was throwing balls to everyone but me. My friend George (A.K.A. "Loveg30" to those of you who post/read the comments) helped me say all kinds of silly, self-deprecating things in Spanish to get Aquilino's attention--stuff like "How about a ball for a stupid white boy" and "Just one ball and I'll shut up"--but none of it worked. I was desperate. Time was running out. It just wasn't happening.

I didn't get a single ball during the entire Phillies batting practice. My last chance was to go to the 3rd base dugout and try to get one as the team was coming off the field. Ryan Madson was the only player who had a ball, and he tossed it to someone else. All of the coaches came back empty-handed except Ramon Henderson, who was responsible for dumping the balls from the basket into the bags and carrying them back inside. He stopped on the warning track to make the transfer, and I asked/begged him for a ball. He reached into the bag and pulled one out and tossed it to me. Number ten. HeII yeah.

I hung out with Adam for 20 minutes and ate the second half of my sandwich (honey turkey and cheddar on an onion bagel) and left for work. Happy happy.

STATS:
• CPB = 0.50

• 222 balls in 32 games this season = 6.9375 balls per game

• 79 balls in August (My one-month record is 103, back in May of 1995.)

• 416 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 42 consecutive games with at least three balls

• 51 lifetime games with at least 10 balls

• 2,653 total balls...moves me ahead of Lave Cross and Jimmie Foxx and into 65th place on the all-time hits list. Next up is Ted Williams with 2,654. (Again, if you're new to this blog and have no idea why I'm comparing balls to hits, click here.)