Just got back from Shea Stadium. This pretty much sums it up...

You know how some moms are "cool moms"? They don't nag and worry as often as other moms, they let you stay up late on school nights, they take you to baseball games and let you eat ice cream, etc...

Well, I met a "cool mom" named Gail at Shea, and not surprisingly, her 13-year-old son named Clif (short for Clifton) was awesome. They were my Watch With Zack clients for the day, and the fun started even before the stadium opened.

I'd brought a ball so Clif and I could play catch, and from the moment he reached out and gloved my first throw, I could tell he was athletic. I mean really athletic--the kind of athleticism where it didn't take him a shred of effort to catch anything I fired his way. I knew he'd have no problem snagging baseballs during batting practice.

When we finished throwing, Gail had a surprise for me. Not only did she give me one of her three season tickets, but she also handed over a ticket for the left field bleachers!

Unbelievable.

The bleachers are part of the picnic area, which is closed to the rest of the stadium and normally reserved for groups of 100 or more. There HAVE been games when the section opened to the general public, but there was always one issue or another that kept me away. A few years ago, when the section was called the "Pepsi Picnic Area," the first 800 fans who showed up with an empty Pepsi can or bottle could get in for free--on Wednesdays only. Of course there was a mob every week and the section didn't open as early as the rest of the stadium. This season, there'd been a few opportunities to buy individual tickets for the picnic area, but the Mets found a way to make it difficult. You had to join some web site and get a password and register for the tickets and then pick them up in person on the day of the game at the same time that the gates would be opening and blah blah. The point is...I'd NEVER been in the picnic area before so this was a dream come true. Just look at this glorious section:

By the time I ran into the bleachers and took this photo, I'd already snagged my first ball. There'd been a Shea employee standing around behind the bleachers with a ball in his hand, and before I ran up the steps, I asked him if I could have it and he tossed it to me. Did Clif want the ball? No.

To say the least, he's a big fan of my baseball collection. While he wanted to snag as many balls as possible and try to break his one-day record of three, he didn't want to do anything that would interfere with my snagging. In fact, he wanted me to have a huge day. He wanted to see me in action, and he wanted to witness a milestone. I started the day with 290 balls for the season. He was hoping I'd snag 10 more to reach 300.

"I've only snagged three hundred in a season twice before," I told him. "I did it--"

"I know," he interrupted. "You did it in 2004 when you got exactly 300 at your last game of the season, and then you did it again in 2005."

He said he'd read every one of my blog entries "at least three times" as well as everything on my web site. At one point, when his mom asked me where I grew up, Clif shouted "Manhattan" and quickly apologized (unnecessarily) for answering for me. Later on, when I told him I'd gotten the lineup cards the previous night and made a comment about how tough it is to get them in New York, he reminded me that I'd gotten the lineup cards at Yankee Stadium on the day I snagged my 3,000th ball. And then, just for the hell of it, he told me that I'd also gotten the lineup cards in 2005 in Cincinnati from Felipe Alou on the day that Randy Winn hit for the cycle...and that I got them two days later in Houston from Dusty Baker...and that my record-breaking 20th ball of the day at Chase Field was tossed by Tony Clark...and that when I got No. 21 soon after, the home plate umpire rolled it to me without looking up.

I didn't feel stalked. I wasn't scared. I didn't think it was weird or creepy that he'd memorized so much stuff about me. I can only say that I was flattered.

ANYWAY...
I quickly snagged my second ball by getting Mike Pelfrey to toss one up, and moments later, Clif (aka "goislanders" to those who read the comments on this blog) found a ball sitting in the aisle of the center-field end of the bleachers. For the first 10 minutes, we had the picnic area to ourselves, so when a homer ended up flying down the staircase and bouncing all the way across the picnic area to the edge of the Citi Field construction site, I was able to chase it and pick it up without any competition. Was I dreaming? This wasn't just better than anything I'd experienced at Shea; it was better than anything I'd experienced anywhere.

Gail was still hanging out in the main portion of the stadium, capturing our every move with her digital camera. CLICK HERE to watch a 10-second video in which we're both going for balls. You'll hear her reaction as Clif gets his second ball tossed by Willie Collazo, and at the very end, you'll see me on the right side using my glove trick to knock (what ended up being) my fourth ball closer to the outfield wall.

After several fans had made their way into the bleachers, Clif spotted a ball in the gap behind the outfield wall, and I stood beside him as he set up his glove trick. The ball was half-buried in the weeds, and it was almost too far out for him to reach, but he managed to knock it a couple inches closer, and when he did, we were both disappointed to discover that it was a fake ball. Clif only saw a fraction of the logo, but he instantly recognized it from an entry I'd written two years earlier and knew that it said "Donated by The New York Mets Foundation." I'd found a few of those balls at Shea and decided not to count them, so Clif didn't even bother going for it. He just reeled in his glove, and we kept running around.

Aaron Sele tossed me my fifth ball, and Clif tied his record by getting #3 from a cameraman. I ran over and gave him a high five. Gail, by that point, had made her way into the bleachers, but she'd just missed getting a picture of the celebratory moment so we reenacted it.

Clif deserved the next ball, but in a bizarre (and split-second) turn of events, I ended up being the one who snagged it. We were standing on opposite sides of a fenced-off railing when Clif happened to spot a ball sitting in the front row on my side.

"Hey, there's a ball there," he said, and without thinking, I looked down and picked it up.

"Did you drop one of your balls?" I asked.

He checked his backpack and counted all three of the ones he'd snagged.

"No," he said. "Did you drop one of YOURS?"

I looked inside my bag. I had all five.

Huh?

Turns out it was just a random ball that had been sitting there all along, and no one had seen it. We then had a long discussion about who deserved it. Each one of us wanted the other person to have it, but Clif insisted, and Gail took his side.

"He wants you to have the ball," she said.

I numbered it and stuck it in my bag and felt completely guilty, but Clif seemed to be excited that I was now just four balls away from 300. Thankfully, the day was still young, and when the Nationals took the field, he broke his record by getting a ball tossed to him by Winston Abreu. Then, within a matter of minutes, he added to the record when the 6-foot-11 Jon Rauch saw his Nationals cap and threw him ball #5.

That's when I went on a tear, kicked off with a "ridiculous catch" according to fellow author and MLBlogger Zoë Rice, who posted a pic of us and described a little more of the action in this entry on her blog. Basically, what happened is that a right-handed hitter on the Nationals--no idea who--pulled a long fly ball that was clearly going to fall short of the bleachers. I knew it had a chance to hit the warning track and bounce in, so I raced to my right through the wide aisle, and sure enough, the ball skipped up over the wall. As the ball was about to land in the benches, my path got blocked by a slanted railing, so I stopped short and reached out as far as I possibly could and made the backhand catch. I reached so far (and hadn't quite stopped my momentum) that I began to topple over the railing headfirst. I braced my fall with my glove and dangled over the railing for a good two seconds before I felt someone grab my feet and help me back up.

Five minutes later, I raced to the far end of the bleachers and asked Nook Logan for a ball as he was about to toss it to another fan. That other fan happened to be Gail, and after Nook gave it to her, he noticed that I was wearing a Nationals cap, so he said, "I got you, Dawg," and quickly got another ball for me. (The Nationals were using those awful/cheap training balls.) Nook ended up tossing one to Clif as well, and just like that, my snagging accomplice had doubled his one-game record.

After I got my ninth ball of the day--and 299th ball of the season--thrown by Joel Hanrahan, Clif and I saw another ball land in the gap. He knew it was going to be #300 so he wanted me to go for it. Even the security guards wanted me to go for it, if you can believe it, because a few of them had heard about my glove trick but hadn't yet gotten to see it in action. Down the steps I went. I set up the rubber band and then the Sharpie. I let out some string to make sure it wasn't tangled and lowered my glove for the easy snag. Then I used the trick again to grab the "Foundation" ball, and I gave it to the security supervisor so she could give it to a kid. Just before I was about to head up the steps, I happened to notice that there was ANOTHER ball, sitting in the aisle right next to me, tucked slightly behind a large plastic garbage can. So I picked it up. And that was my 11th ball of the day. Crazy stuff.

The whole section was buzzing about me. The security guards were in awe. The fans recognized me from TV. No one was annoyed that I'd snagged so many balls. There had been plenty of others to go around. The few kids out there had all gotten balls on their own, and some of the grown-ups had caught balls as well. Everyone was happy. It was a snagging love-fest.

Toward the end of BP, Gail and I were standing next to each other in the aisle when another Nationals righty connected on a deeeeeeep fly ball. The ball was heading about 50 feet to my right, and I knew it had enough distance. All I had to do was start running and make sure that I didn't bump into the few gloveless fans standing in my way. I kept running and looked up at the ball. I kept running and looked <back down to make sure my path was clear. I kept running and looked back up, and before I knew it, I'd reached the end of the aisle and ball was coming in fast. I reached over my head and felt the ball smack the pocket of my glove, and I when I looked back down again, Clif was standing five feet in front of me.

"Whoa!" he yelled. "I didn't even see it coming!"

Throughout the day, Clif hadn't accepted a single baseball from me and even backed off at times so I could snag a few extra. When I offered him the home run ball, he just said, "You keep it."

"C'mon," I said, "You NEED to have an official Zack Hample snagged ball in your collection. Take it."

Finally, he accepted the ball and it felt great--for both of us, I'm sure--when I handed it over. (Gail ended up snagging a second ball and joked that she let me have the home run. At least I hope she was joking.)

After BP, we wandered out behind the bleachers and took a bunch of pics. Here's Clif with the six balls he snagged on his own:

(Damn I'm sweaty.) Here he is with all the balls:

Here are a few shots of the area behind and underneath the bleachers:

Here are a few photos of the construction of Citi Field:

Here's a sneak peek through a fence behind the batter's eye:

And here's a shot of the visitors' bullpen that I took by reaching over an eight-foot wall:

Most of the newer ballparks have been designed to let fans watch the pitchers warning up. For example, there's a concourse right above the double-decked bullpens in Philadelphia, a screened viewing area just behind the bullpens in Seattle, and bleacher seats surrounding the bullpens in St. Louis. At AT&T Park and several other venues, the bullpens are nothing more than benches on the field down the foul lines. Does it cause any harm to have the players and fans sitting so close together? Did I cause any harm by reaching over that stupid fence with my camera? Umm, no, but because it was Shea Stadium, I got scolded by a security guard.

Clif and Gail and I got some bottled water, then some ice cream, and finally headed up to their regular seats in the Mezzanine. Nice view. And here's my Watching Baseball Smarter tip of the day. If you click the pic to make it bigger, you'll notice that neither base coach is standing in his respective coaching box. In theory, there should be some type of penalty for that, but the rule is never enforced. The first base coach is standing on the outfield side of the box to give himself extra time to get out of the way of a line drive. The third base coach is literally risking his life by standing on the home-plate side of the box so that he'll be in a better position to give signs if the runner on second ends up rounding third on a potential run-scoring base hit.

After the first inning, Clif wanted to go for foul balls one level down in the Loge, and Gail had no problem with that. She stayed in her seat while Clif and I ran around and did our thing.

The bad news for Clif is that I ended up being the one who got the foul ball. The good news for Clif is that he got a great view of my snag because he was standing right next to me. I swear I had no intention of catching it. I'd been planning to step aside and let him go for any foul ball that came our way, but here's what happened. It was the bottom of the second inning, Shawn Green was at bat, and we were camped out in a tunnel on the third-base side of home plate. Green worked the count full, and I told Clif to pay extra close attention because three balls/two strikes is a good foul ball count. Green ended up hitting seven consecutive foul balls, and the third one shot back straight over our heads. The tricky part about playing foul balls in the Loge is that when a ball goes over your head, you have to make a split-second decision. Move forward and look for the ricochet off the facade of the press level up above? Or move back for the catch in case it barely falls short of the facade and continues on its path? I've been up in the Loge for hundreds of games, and I still make mistakes, especially on high pop-ups that may or may not clip the facade on their way down. Those are tough. If Shea were going to be around for another 40-something years (God forbid), I still don't think I'd ever master those. But I've gotten pretty good at judging the balls that fly straight back. Clif thought the ball was going to fall short so he moved back, and when he did, I knew he'd just cost himself a chance to catch it so I took a couple quick steps forward to the top of the tunnel, then turned around and looked up as the ball smacked the facade and bounced five feet over Clif's head and into my glove. Everyone oohed and ahhed and gave me high fives for the "great catch" that I'd made. Clif and I secretly made fun of them because we both knew it was about as easy as it gets. The only tough thing about it, as I mentioned, was judging the ball off the bat. I offered the ball to Clif. He didn't take it. Instead he texted his parents and told them what had happened.

After the sixth inning, Clif and I went back up to the Mezzanine and got his mom. Then we all headed downstairs, snuck into the Field Level, and watched the rest of the game from the seats right behind the Nationals' dugout. (Take THAT, Shea Stadium security.)

The Nationals, already winning, 8-3, after seven innings, scored a run in the eighth and another in the ninth to open a seven-run lead. The Mets sent 10 men to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and scored six runs and got Endy Chavez over to third base--but the rally fell 90 feet short.

Final score: Nationals 10, Mets 9.

Most of the fans had left before the ninth inning, but the few thousand that remained made enough noise to fill the cavernous-yet-cramped stadium. At one point, when the scoreboard indicated that the Braves had beaten the second-place Phillies, everyone started doing the Tomahawk Chop. That was pretty cool, and I briefly took off my Nationals cap to join the celebration. Anyway, the Mets' comeback wasn't meant to be, but it turned out for the best. Since I'd gotten the lineup cards the night before and knew exactly when and where and how and who to ask for them, I was able to position Clif at just the right staircase so he'd have the best shot at getting them. Once the final out was made, we rushed down to the front row, and I told him to yell at manager Manny Acta.

"Manny!!" shouted Clif, waiting for a reply. "Manny!!"

Manny didn't look up, and I wasn't surprised. Everyone was yelling his name for different reasons. Some people wanted a ball. Some people wanted photos. Some people wanted autographs. Some people probably wanted his phone number. Simply shouting his name wasn't specific enough to make him look up. I knew he could hear us, and I knew he needed to hear the entire request all at once. My only fear was that he'd remember me from the previous day, but I had to go for it before he disappeared back into the dugout.

"Manny!" I yelled. "Can we get the lineup cards for this kid right here?!"

Manny looked up and saw that we were both wearing Nationals caps, so he pulled the cards out of his back pocket and slid them across the dugout roof. I grabbed them before any other fans had a chance to reach in, and I handed them to Clif.

Oh, and by the way, Clif also got the ball that had been used to make the final out of the game. Austin Kearns, who had caught Paul Lo Duca's fly ball in right field, tossed it to him on the way in.

What an outstanding day. I've always wished I had a little brother, and for a few hours, it felt as if I did.

STATS:

• 303 balls in 37 games this season = 8.19 balls per game.

• 492 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 320 consecutive games at Shea Stadium with at least one ball

• 111 lifetime game balls (107 foul balls, 3 home runs, 1 ground-rule double)

• 17th time snagging a game ball in back-to-back games

• 73 lifetime games with at least 10 balls.

• 3,264 total balls...moves me ahead of Eddie Murray (3,255) and into 12th place on the all-time hits list. Next up is Willie Mays (3,283).

Kelly and Jen are from Chicago. They have season tickets at Wrigley Field and travel quite a bit to other stadiums--but they'd never been to Shea so they flew to New York City to Watch With Zack. Jen (wearing the white shirt) is not a collector. Kelly (wearing the blue "Zambrano is Money" shirt) most certainly is, and my job was to help her snag baseballs and get autographs.
When Shea opened for batting practice at 4:40pm, we headed up to my usual spot in the right field Loge. Within the first few minutes, we shouted at Paul Lo Duca for a ball, and when he turned to throw it, I backed off and let Kelly go for it. "Please don't miss it," I thought, and when Lo Duca put some velocity on it, the only thing that went through my mind was, "Please don't get hurt."

Kelly didn't get hurt. She didn't miss it either. Instead, she reached out and caught it effortlessly with one hand. I was impressed, and no, I'm not being sexist; I never assume ANYone can catch.

Soon after, we saw the not-too-friendly Aaron Heilman down below, and Kelly told me that she went to college with his wife.

"Do you know her name?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "Think he'd throw me a ball?"

"Maybe. You should say something like, 'Hey, Aaron, I know [wife's name] from [college's name], and she said you'd give me a ball.'"

The wife hadn't promised a ball, but so what. I knew Heilman wouldn't know the difference, and sure enough, when Kelly shouted at him and dropped the appropriate names, he turned around and smiled. It didn't hurt that Kelly also mentioned the name of his wife's dorm.

Heilman then went out of his way to get a ball, and just before he was about to toss it up, Kelly shouted, "Hey! Can you autograph it for me first!?"

I thought she might've just ruined her chances at getting the ball by making such a brazen request, but Heilman wasn't phased. He walked into the bullpen and got a pen from a security guard and signed the ball. And then he tossed it. And Kelly caught it, making a nice over-the-railing snag.

Lo Duca started signing autographs in foul territory. Kelly ran downstairs and got there just in time to have him sign the ball that he'd thrown to her. I got Mets catching instructor Tom Nieto to throw me a ball, and since it was brand new and Kelly wanted more autographs, I gave it to her.

When the Nationals took the field, we headed to the left side, and I immediately saw a ball drop into the "triangle." That's the small area of dead space just beyond the end of the fancy blue seats down the line. I ran down the steps, slipped into the front row, swung my backpack out to knock the ball closer, and began my careful balancing act over the railing to try to reach the ball. I didn't have time to set up my glove trick because a fellow baseball collector named Greg (aka "gregorybarasch" to those who read the comments) was hurrying over with his cup trick. Before I had a chance to reach the ball, the on-field security guard climbed over the outer wall and grabbed it. I was sure he was going to hand it to the kid on my right, but he ended up flipping it to me. Then I learned two things: 1) the ball was originally tossed to the kid, and 2) the kid was the younger brother of a guy named Gary (aka "gjk2212") who's been regularly reading this blog and leaving lots of comments--and whom I'd just met in person for the first time. It was a no-brainer. I gave the ball to the kid. His name is Trevor, and he's nine years old. (FYI, I didn't used to count balls in my collection when I gave them away, but now I do, so this was my second ball of the day.)

I headed up to the left field Loge after positioning Kelly and Jen in the corner spot on the Field Level. I didn't get a single ball for the rest of BP, but Kelly got one from Winston Abreu, and then of course she convinced him to sign it. Three balls for her...all autographed by the players who tossed them...not bad.

Kelly and I went to the Nationals' dugout at the end of BP, and I got three training balls tossed to me within a one-minute span. The first one came from first base coach Jerry Morales, the second from manager Manny Acta, and the third from pitcher Saul Rivera. (Rivera is not Jewish; his first name is pronounced "sah-OOL," which is to say that it rhymes with "Raul," as in Raul Mondesi.)

Kelly had never snagged a training ball, so I gave her the one from Morales, and she asked me to sign it, along with a copy of my book.

Before the game, we headed to the right field foul line to try to get an autograph from Jose Reyes and/or David Wright. No luck. Kelly had to settle for Carlos Gomez's sloppy autograph--in Sharpie--on the brand new ball. She tried to hand him a ball-point pen, but he didn't take it and instead used the marker that another fan had given him. What a putz.

We had great seats for the game, just behind the main aisle on the first base side of the Field Level. It was the perfect spot to run for foul balls hit by righties, and in the bottom of the second inning, I got my chance. Mets pitcher Mike Pelfrey was at bat and swung late on a 1-0 fastball from Matt Chico and sliced it in my direction. I jumped out of my seat, darted 10 feet to my right through the aisle, turned left and raced down a few steps, and when I looked back up, the ball was coming toward me. Not right to me, but several feet over my head and a few rows in front. At the last second, I lunged down the staircase and made the backhand catch high over my head while simultaneously banging the crap out of my right calf on the corner of an empty seat. (I now have a nice big bruise, and it was worth it. The pain will go away. The ball will last a lifetime.)

Kelly and Jen had been sitting in the row directly behind me and had a great view of my "web-gem"-worthy catch. They didn't ask for the ball. They were just happy to have seen me in action, and they rewarded me with a slice of pizza and an ice-cold bottle of water as we made our way up to the Loge.

We watched the next few innings from a good foul ball section on the third-base side of home plate, but there wasn't much action. After the seventh inning, with the Mets trailing, 8-3, we headed back down to the Field Level and watched the rest of the game from a spot just behind the Nationals' dugout.

Jose Reyes grounded out to end the eighth, and I got first baseman Robert Fick to toss me the ball--my seventh of the day--as he jogged toward the dugout. That was nice, but the Mets' performance wasn't. Pelfrey took the loss, giving up seven runs--six earned--in 5 2/3 innings. Guillermo Mota allowed three runs in the eighth, and Dave Williams surrendered three more in the ninth as his ERA ballooned to 22.85. Final score: Nationals 13, Mets 4.

After the game, I got my eighth and final ball tossed to me by Justin Maxwell, but the best news of all is that I got the lineup cards from Manny Acta--my first lineup cards EVER at Shea Stadium!

See the circles with the numbers inside? Those are scribbled throughout the game to keep track of who made the third out of each inning. Moises Alou (who extended his hitting streak to 28 games with a leadoff double in the sixth) has a "1" and "3" written just above his name because he made the final out of both the first and third innings. The ball I got from Fick was the ball that caused the "8" to be written next to "REYES." Cool, huh?

Once again, Kelly and Jen generously let me keep my prized possession. I offered Kelly the ball I got from Maxwell. She refused. I insisted. It was the least I could do.

After the game, Kelly and Jen and I hung around outside the stadium and went for Nationals autographs. I got Dmitri Young and Wily Mo Pena to sign my "SEPT 24" ticket stub, and I got several other guys to sign some older Nationals-Phillies stubs that I'd brought from home: Brian Schneider and Tim Redding, Christian Guzman, Winston Abreu, and Ronnie Belliard who signed it upside down. Kelly got all those guys to sign her brand new ball, and Jen collected a second set of autographs for her on her ticket.

As I parted ways with the ladies, they asked if I'd be interested in coming out to Chicago for the NLDS. Hmm, yeah, I guess I could do that, I mean, if I really had to. Fingers crossed that the Cubs win the NL Central. They're two games ahead of the Brewers with five games remaining...

STATS:

• 290 balls in 36 games this season = 8.06 balls per game.

• 491 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 319 consecutive games at Shea Stadium with at least one ball

• 110 lifetime game balls (not counting game-used balls that were tossed to me, like the one from Fick)

• 16 balls from Manny Acta since 2003

• 3,251 total balls

The story of this game began 14 hours early, in the middle of the night...

I was in my room at the Super 8 Motel, hanging out with my friends Brad and Kevin, reading the latest box scores, watching "SportsCenter," checking email, eating junk food from Circle K, and showing them the photographs I'd taken the day before. I forget which one of us spotted it, but in one of the pics from the the upper deck, it appeared that there was a loose baseball sitting in a place that no one could see or reach--no one but us, that is.

Here's the pic. See if you can find the ball...

In case you're wondering, the random white speck on the warning track is not the ball; that's just a piece of trash that had fallen out of the bleachers. THIS, we believed, was the ball...

...and we instantly started scheming about how to snag it.

The platform was below the air conditioning vents. The vents were below the terrace at Friday's Front Row Sports Grill. Friday's was open all day to the public, so at the very least we knew we'd have time to make an attempt before the stadium officially opened. The challenge was that the platform didn't jut out beyond the terrace. Instead, it was tucked directly underneath so we had to come up with a way to see it.

After eating a huge lunch at Bill Johnson's Big Apple and taking a quick drive to the outskirts of Phoenix to check out the Oakland A's' Spring Training practice fields, we still didn't have a plan. I suggested reaching over the terrace railing with my digital camera and taking some pics of the platform. Kevin told me that the platform was too far down, and that we still wouldn't be able to see the ball.

Hmm.

I suggested lowering my camera on a string. Kevin talked me out of it. I suggested buying a small mirror and lowering THAT on a string. Kevin and Brad and I all looked at each other. We were getting somewhere, but still, even if we lowered a mirror ten feet down to the edge of the platform...then what? The mirror would be dangling straight down, and we'd be looking straight down at it. We still wouldn't be able to see anything. We needed the mirror to be lowered on a 45-degree angle.

On the way to Chase Field, we went into an auto parts store and got ourselves a "blind spot mirror." Didn't weigh more than a few ounces. Only cost about three bucks. And best of all, it was curved.

We continued to the ballpark, headed up to the Friday's terrace, and got to work. I had some extra string in my backpack, and Kevin conveniently found a piece of duct tape on the ground. We left the mirror in its packaging and used a pen to poke two holes on the bottom corners. Then we ran the string through all three holes--the third hole at the top was already there--and pulled it tight at just the right length so that the mirror would drop down at an angle. Then we taped all three parts of the string together and hooked the pen onto the back to give it a little extra weight. (We needed the weight because the air from the vents was causing the contraption to spin and sway.

We were all set to make our big attempt. Brad grabbed my camera. I grabbed the string and the mirror and began to lower it.

Brad, not too keen on heights, wanted no part of the operation from this point on, but Kevin had no problem standing next to me and helping me look for the ball.

Long story short: We got a great view of the platform, but for some reason, we were never able to see the ball.

Later in the day, we heard from Tony Dobson (a fellow ball collector and Chase Field regular) that indeed it WAS a ball that we were going for and that it had been there for months.

Alas, our MacGyver-esque attempt fell short, but we had a helluva good time trying, and really, that's a big part of what snagging baseballs is all about...having fun and being creative.

At about 3:25pm, I hurried out of Friday's and ran to the ticket windows and once again overpaid for a seat on the first-base side of home plate (which I never ended up sitting in). By the time I made it back to the terrace, the entire Diamondbacks team had formed a loose circle in left-center field for a lame attempt at stretching, and soon after, batting practice was underway.

Two days earlier, there weren't any other fans on the terrace. Now there were more than half a dozen (maybe they'd been reading this blog?) with gloves but it didn't stop me from getting off to my best start of the trip.

Diamondbacks pitching coach Bryan Price started off by tossing me a ball that fell short and hit the terrace facade and plopped into the bleachers down below. For a couple minutes, it seemed that he wasn't going to give me another shot, but eventually he did and I moved up a few rows before he threw it. His second throw fell short as well, but since I'd moved back, it fell short into the empty seats just below me, and I had ball #1.

Now that I think about it, the story of this game actually began about 16 hours early. Remember when I saw Bob Wickman the night before in the players' parking lot and asked him if he'd throw me a ball the next day if I called out to him from the Friday's terrace? Well, I called out, and Wickman handed ball #2 to bullpen catcher Jeff Motuzas and had HIM throw it to me.

Over the next 10 minutes, several home run balls landed in the bleachers, and at one point, some random high-school-aged kid with an iPod and a red hooded sweatshirt scurried through the rows of benches and grabbed a few.

"Hey!" I yelled down at him from the center field end of the terrace. "Can you please toss one of those balls up here?!"

"Just come on down!" he yelled nervously.

"I can't!" I said. "I'm not an employee!"

He looked over his shoulder, then looked back up at me and mouthed the words, "Neither am I."

"What?!"

"Take the elevator!" he said.

"Can't you just toss up ONE ball? There's one over there that you missed."

The kid saw where I was pointing and quickly found the ball, then walked it over to the area directly below me and made a perfect throw. That was ball #3.

Ball #4 was thrown by Livan Hernandez. (Livan gave me a ball each of the three days I was in Phoenix.) The ball fell a couple feet short, and I leaned over the railing to save it from dropping into the bleachers.

"You're good!" yelled a kid on my right who'd been shrieking at the players from the moment he barged onto the terrace--and was old enough to know better.

"Thanks," I said, "but the only good thing about it was that I held onto the ball while you crashed into me."

Ball #5 was a perfect throw from Eric Byrnes, and ball #6 came from Brandon Medders. The Medders ball, however, had been intended for the kid, but it was thrown over his head and I ended up with it. I thought for a second about what to do and then gave it to him, in part, I suppose, because I was hoping he'd calm down and give me some space. Didn't work. But the move still paid off. Medders saw me hand it over, and he fired up ball #7 as a reward. His throw sailed over my head, skipped off an empty table, hit the back wall of the terrace, and bounced back over my head. I had to jump and reach up and make a bare-handed grab to prevent it from flying back over the railing.

It was 4:15pm. The gates were going to open in another 15 minutes, so I left the terrace and got on line at the left field gate. I wasn't thinking about breaking any records. I was just hoping to reach double digits, and I was glad to be just three balls away.

I ran inside and headed to the left field foul line and found ball #8 lying in the seats. Another fan, who must've entered from a different gate, made it down to the front row at around the same time and found a second ball one section over, and of course I was pissed that I hadn't been running faster.

My next destination was the bleachers in straight-away left field, and I started by plucking ball #9 off the warning track with my glove trick. I raced to the Diamondbacks' dugout as their portion of BP ended but didn't get anything, then hurried back out to the bleachers as the Giants took the field. Ball #10 was a home run that I caught on a fly. Ball #11 was thrown by Dan Giese. (Who?! Exactly.) Ball #12 was tossed by Daniel Ortmeier. Ball #13 was flipped up by Scott Atchison after I got scolded by an usher for trying to get it with the glove trick. Ball #14 was a homer by Omar Vizquel that I caught on a fly after reaching two or three feet over/below the left field wall.

I snagged so many balls in such a small amount of time that I lost track for a few minutes and forgot how many I had. Baseballs were bulging out of every pocket. I didn't have time to label them. I was falling behind on my notes. I had to try to remember how I got them all, and when I realized how many I had, it occurred to me that I might have a shot at my one-day record of 19 balls.

Several lefties were now taking turns in the cage, so I sprinted through the concourse behind the batter's eye and ran down the steps behind the pool in right-center. After about five minutes, someone on the Giants--possibly Ryan Klesko-- launched a deep fly ball in my direction which hit the stone deck surrounding the pool, bounced five feet over my head, ricocheted off the dark green wall behind me, flew back over my outstretched glove, and landed on the small gravel-filled ledge in the front row. I felt like I was trapped in a pinball game and got completely twisted around, but I managed to grab ball #15 with my glove as the nearest fan's bare hand was inches away.

I was hoping to snag more than one ball in right field, but it wasn't meant to be. The competition was pretty tough, and the batters weren't hitting much.

There was one more round of BP. Three of the four hitters were right-handed, so I hurried back to left field. No luck whatsoever, but during the last couple minutes, I saw a line drive skip over the outfield wall and disappear into the bullpen. Naturally, I ran over, and when I got there, I saw THREE balls nestled on the grass. Ball #16 was sitting two inches out from the back wall, and I snagged it easily with the glove trick. The other two balls? Not an easy task. They were both about 10 feet out from the wall, so I was going to have to fling my glove out and knock the balls closer. I knew I could do it, but I knew I was being watched by stadium security. If I hadn't been going for a record, there's no way I would've tried to get those balls. I just KNEW I was going to get in trouble. And you know what? I didn't care. The glove was old. If security confiscated it, they would've been doing me a favor. And if they ejected me, I would've bought another ticket and gone right back in (and stayed on the right field side). So whatever. I had to go for it. I didn't want to have to snag four balls during the game to break the record. That would've been asking for a lot, especially at Chase Field where it's nearly impossible to sneak down to the dugouts. Quite simply, I needed a boost toward the record.

I managed to knock the first ball a few feet closer, and that's as far as I got. The on-field security guard (wearing the tan shirt) immediately started walking toward me, and another guard began marching down the steps behind me. The guard down below tossed the first ball to some fans near the foul pole and then, miraculously, he flipped up the second one--ball #17--to me. I couldn't believe it. I thought I was about to be arrested and instead I took another step toward ball-snagging heaven.

When the other guard made it all the way down the steps, he told me that my "gadget" was "very innovative" but that he was "going to have to take the string." (Oh noooo!! Not the string!! God forbid!! I only have two other extremely long pieces of it in my backpack!!)

I gave him the most sincere insincere apology I could muster and assured him it wouldn't happen again. Then he asked for my glove and began trying to untie the string. (Yeah, good luck with that, pal.) He had no chance. I'd made about a dozen tight knots to make sure the string would withstand all kinds of tugs and jerks.

"Here," I said, pulling out a nail clipper, "let me help you with that."

"Thanks," he said.

"You're not gonna confiscate this too," I said, "are you?" and we both forced a laugh.

To break the awkward silence that followed, I told him that security in some ballparks has no problem with fans bringing in all sorts of ball-retrieving devices.

"Really?" he asked.

"Really. But again, I apologize. I'm from out of town, and I didn't know that the rules here were so strict."

"No problem," he said. "Enjoy the game."

I had a little time to kill, but not that much time. The field was only going to be empty for about half an hour, so I quickly knocked the last two items off my "to-do" list. First I bought a couple Chase Field postcards at the team store, and then I took some pics of the rotunda on the left field side. Gorgeous. I mean, dazzling. The type of splendor you don't often see inside a major league stadium--or even in the same zip code as Shea or Yankee. And then it was time to snap back into ball-snagging mode.

Two pairs of Diamondbacks were playing catch in the left field corner, and I needed another ball. The difference between starting the game with 18 instead of 17 would be huge. Motuzas, the bullpen catcher, finished throwing first, and when I asked him for the ball, he said, "I already gave you one today. In fact, I saw you get two!" I had no comeback. I was busted. I just hoped that the other two guys hadn't heard him.

Those other two guys were Chris Snyder, the starting catcher, and Glenn Sherlock, the bullpen coach. I waited until the instant that they finished throwing--I could tell by their body language when that was about to take place--and then I asked Sherlock for the ball. He turned right around and made eye contact with me and lobbed it gently to me. There were a few other fans with gloves in the front row. Being in laid-back Phoenix, I didn't expect any of them to reach in front of me and snatch the ball, but just to be sure, I jumped up and reached up for ball #18 at the last second in case anyone dared to interfere. My God. Just two more balls to go, and I'd have a new one-day record. Being so close brought an extra layer of excitement and urgency to the game that I'd never felt.

I got Chris Snyder's autograph on my ticket and then established my plan for the game. If I hadn't been going for the record, I would've actually sat near my assigned seat and gone for foul balls--but foul balls are much harder to predict than those third-out balls that get tossed over the dugouts every half-inning. Security at Chase Field was too tight for me to run back and forth from one side of the ballpark to the other and play both dugouts, so I had to pick one or the other. Clearly, it had to be the visiting team's side, so I embarked on a 20-minute maneuver that I hoped would get me down to the Giants' dugout.

Two entries ago, I tried explaining how the seats and ushers are set up, but I realize that it'll make no sense here, so I drew a cheap diagram to show you what I did:

Just after the national anthem, I used my overpriced ticket to get past the first set of ushers in the concourse. (The first set of ushers are represented by the red exes at the bottom of the diagram, and as you can see, there was an usher at every staircase.) Then I cut to the right and headed through the empty seats past the end of the dugout, just beyond the spot where the aisle ends. It was essential to go past the aisle because there was a second set of ushers there as well. Once I got past it, I turned left and headed down the steps and slipped into one of the first few rows. There were also a few guards standing on the warning track in front of the dugout, looking up into the seats to catch people like me, so I had to move really slowly and calmly. Often, I moved one seat or one row at a time, waiting for the right moment when all three of the nearest ushers and guards were simultaneously looking the other way. But I couldn't let them see that I was looking at them. Other times, I'd wait for a group of fans to walk down my staircase, and when they squeezed into a row behind me and were all briefly standing up, I used them as a shield and inched a little closer to the promised land. One false move and I was done. I was totally stressed...but in a good way, if that's possible...and my systematic movements continued through the first inning.

Eventually, after climbing over a few more seats and creeping though partially empty rows, I reached the staircase behind the outfield end of the dugout--the perfect place to be for third-out balls at Chase Field. (Nice view, eh?)

The first two-thirds of the game were a waste. Mark Reynolds struck out to end the first inning, and catcher Bengie Molina tossed the ball over the far end of the dugout. Doug Davis grounded out to end the second, and first baseman Scott McClain kept the ball. Augie Ojeda grounded into a fielder's choice to end the third, and second baseman Kevin Frandsen rolled the ball back to the mound. Justin Upton flied out to end the fourth, and center fielder Rajai Davis tossed the ball to the kid on my left. Miguel Montero grounded out to end the fifth, and McClain gave the ball to the kid on my right. AAHH!! I was so close to tying my record, but it just wasn't happening. I figured I'd at least have a shot at tying it by getting a ball from the ump after the game, but I didn't want a tie. What good would THAT do other than add one more ball to my lifetime total? I needed ONE third-out ball, and then ONE ball from the ump, and that was it. Why was it so difficult?! Chris Young grounded out to end the sixth, and McClain tossed the ball to another kid. Good for the kids. That's how it should be. But it was still frustrating.

Then I found a ticket stub on the ground. This wasn't just good. It was great. It was incredible. It meant I could leave that section and try to play the other dugout and then come back. It meant that my chances of getting a third-out ball had just doubled.

I raced over to the third base side and waltzed past the usher in the concourse while he was looking the other way. Then I moved down a few rows, waited for the first out, and walked confidently toward the usher in the aisle. When she looked at me suspiciously, I looked her right in the eye and gave a slight smile and a nod as if I owned the place, and she didn't say a word as I kept walking down the steps behind the middle of the dugout. WOW! Molina grounded into a fielder's choice to end the top of the seventh, and shortstop Stephen Drew tossed the ball one section to my left. GAH!!! But another miracle took place: I found a ticket stub in that section as well! I now had complete access to both dugouts.

I ran back to the Giants' side and strutted back down to my original spot. Snyder and Drew led off with back-to-back singles. Ojeda bunted into a force out. Pinch hitter Jeff Cirillo grounded into a fielder's choice. Byrnes lifted a routine fly ball to center field, and I took off down the steps with the crack of the bat. I was crouching in the front row by the time Davis caught it, then kept my eye on him as he threw the ball toward the infield. Omar Vizquel caught it on a bounce, and kept it in his glove as he jogged in. Everyone else in the section thought Davis had the ball and waited in anticipation for him to approach. I yelled "Omar!" and flapped my glove a couple times, and the future Hall of Famer flipped ball #19 directly from his glove to mine.

My heart was racing. I'd tied my record--a record that had taken 15 years to establish, and which had stood since 2004.

I only had nine more outs to work with, and I realized that my next trip to the Diamondbacks' dugout would be my last. One more inning, and there wouldn't be a third-out ball. There'd only be a game-ending ball, and I'd already made up my mind to stay on the Giants' side and go for an umpire ball.

McClain singled to start the eighth, and Klesko followed by flying out to Byrnes. Pedro Feliz then flied out to Justin Upton, and Ray Durham stepped up the plate. I needed him to make contact. If he struck out, Snyder was going to end up with the ball and toss it over the wrong end of the dugout. And I needed Durham to make an out in the middle of the field. I couldn't have him fly out down one of the foul lines because the outfielder who made the catch would toss the ball to the nearest section. What I needed was a...GROUND BALL!!! Ojeda fielded it at second base and fired it to Tony Clark who'd just replaced Conor Jackson at first base. Clark started jogging in with the ball, and I thought back to his days with the Tigers in the 90s. Somehow, somewhere, I'd once heard that he liked being called by his initials, so I started shouting "Tee-Cee!!!" before he even crossed the foul line. I kept shouting and started waving. I'm sure everyone in the section thought I was a complete nutjob, and I didn't give a ****. Clark approached the dugout and flipped the ball...to me...and I reached out and caught it!

BALL #20!!!

A new record!!!

Holy Mother of God!!!

I don't even remember running back to the Giants' side, and for all I know, I might have actually been flying. All I can say is that Reynolds struck out to end the eighth inning, and Molina took the ball back to the other end of the dugout.

The Diamondbacks were winning, 6-4. I was hoping the Giants would tie it up and send the game into extra innings, but Jose Valverde nailed down his 46th save of the season. By the time Molina flied out to end the game, I hadn't yet made it to the home plate end of the dugout. That's where the umps enter and exit the field in Phoenix. I didn't think this would be a problem because the home plate ump--on this night it was Ted Barrett--usually waits at the plate for the other umps to walk over, and then they all exit the field together. But for whatever reason, Barrett immediately rushed toward the dugout. I started hurdling seats and people and everything that was in my way--no, I didn't bump into anyone--and barely reached the end of the dugout as he was stepping onto the warning track.

"Mister Barrett!! Mister Barrett!! By any chance could you please spare an extra baseball? Please?!"

He didn't even look up at me. He just kept walking, and at the last second, he reached into the pouch on his hip and rolled ball #21 to me across the dugout roof.

STATS:

• 282 balls in 35 games this season = 8.06 balls per game.

• 490 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 104 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball

• 733 lifetime balls outside of New York

• 56 balls in 5 lifetimes games at Chase Field = 11.2 balls per game.

• 72 lifetime games with at least 10 balls

• 8th time snagging 10 or more balls in three consecutive games

• Competition Factor of 899,955 = new record.

• 21 balls at one game = new record.

• 35 balls in two consecutive games = new record.

• 47 balls in three consecutive games = new record.

• 4,489 words in this blog entry = a new record.

• 3,243 total balls...moves me ahead of Nap Lajoie (3,242) and into 13th place on the all-time hits list. Next up is Eddie Murray (3,255).

And then I had to pack.

Back home in New York City, it was all about the "balligraphy."

(In case you're wondering, there are only 20 balls in the photo above because I gave one away.) Chase Field might have to be my new favorite stadium.

The day began with a late-morning drive to Scottsdale Stadium--the Spring Training home of the Giants. My friends Brad and Kevin wanted to show me how fun and easy it is to collect baseballs there, so we started by peeking through the fence at one of the adjacent practice fields.

Then we walked around the outside of the stadium...

...and discovered that one of the main gates was wide open, so we headed inside.

We entered on the first base side of home plate, then walked through the seats toward the right field foul pole and climbed the steps to the huge party deck above the bullpen. Brad showed me a specific spot on the deck which was about 400 feet from home plate--on two different fields! There was a practice field on the left, and Brad said he'd once experienced a double batting practice there during which home run balls were flying at him from two directions. Can you imagine that?! I took pics of both fields and stuck them together in Photoshop to make a panorama, and here's what it looked like:

After drooling over the possibilities, we walked around the outfield to the third base side and cut back toward home plate.

TIME OUT...

Experienced baseball collectors are always among the first fans to enter a stadium because of the chance to find "Easter eggs." That's what you call baseballs that are hidden in the seats. When balls land in the seats before the gates open, ushers are supposed to retrieve them and toss them back onto the field. But sometimes the ushers are lazy and leave the balls there. Sometimes the ushers can't even find them. And sometimes there are balls that land in the seats right before the gates open, and the ushers don't have time to get them.

TIME IN...

As we approached the dugout, our eyes lit up and we jumped out of our shoes and started drooling again and nearly fainted because of this:

Yes, you counted correctly, there were TEN balls sitting on the dugout roof. Just sitting there. Were we hallucinating in the desert heat? Was this a joke? A trick, perhaps? One of those hidden-camera TV shows? Fifteen minutes earlier, we'd seen a lone groundskeeper drive a golf cart along the warning track and off the field through an opening below the batter's eye--and that was it. Once he disappeared from sight, there was NO ONE else around, and we didn't know what to think. My first instinct was to grab the balls (if you'll pardon the expression) and run like hell. But I didn't. They were minor league balls. I only collect major league balls, and besides, I had two more days of snagging at Chase Field, and my luggage was already going to be getting a lot heavier--or so I hoped. As for my friends? Kevin decided that the right thing to do was to leave the balls there. "Good karma," he said, explaining that the balls couldn't even be considered "Easter eggs" because they HAD been found. Ten balls obviously hadn't landed on the dugout roof and rolled into a tight cluster; someone had clearly retrieved them and placed them there (for what reason we didn't know), and since we probably weren't supposed to be inside the stadium in the first place, we all agreed the balls should stay.

Then, as if the Easter Bunny itself was tormenting us, we spotted three more balls on the way out.

We left those balls behind, too.

As for the Main Event at Chase Field, we got to the Friday's terrace again at 3:30pm, and I snagged three more balls from Diamondbacks pitchers before the gates opened. The first was thrown from the bullpen by Edgar Gonzalez. The second came from Brandon Medders, and the third was tossed by Dana Eveland. I gave that one to a kid and discovered later that it was my 250th ball of the season.

At about 4pm, Diamondbacks third base coach Chip Hale walked along the foul line with three balls in his glove, and just before he entered the bullpen, he tossed the balls into the empty seats. I had no idea why. At first I thought it was a random act of frustration, but then I wondered if the balls were old and if he just wanted to be nice and dump them where the fans could find them. But it was so early! The gates weren't going to open for another half hour, and I didn't think there was any chance that the balls would still be there when I ran inside. I'm not sure where Brad was at that point. I think he had already headed out to hold a spot at the right field gate. Kevin, meanwhile, had moved to the other end of the terrace and apparently hadn't seen the balls get tossed into the seats, so I waited a minute and walked over and casually told him that I was considering entering the left field gate.

"You might want to get down there early," he said. "That's one of the main gates, and the line is usually longer."

I didn't want to leave Friday's too early. Batting practice was still taking place, and I had to keep my eye on the section in foul territory. Every few minutes, an usher strolled into the bleachers directly below to collect the home run balls that had clanged off the metal benches. Whatever. I didn't care. All that mattered was my special spot down the line. At around 4:10pm, I had a scare when two members of the cleaning crew wandered down to the front row in foul territory and started sweeping, one section away from my hidden treasure. I was paranoid that they'd stumble upon it. But they didn't. And for the time being there were no ushers in sight.

It was 4:15pm...fifteen minutes until the gates were going to open. I was sure that someone would find those balls before I got inside, but I had to go for it. I told Kevin I'd see him later, and then I ran up the steps, hurried through Friday's, took the elevator down to the Street Level, sprinted around part of the stadium to the ticket window, overpaid for a seat on the first base side of home plate, and ran back to the left field gate. There were only five people waiting there, and when the stadium (officially) opened, they all hurried to the bleachers while I made a mad dash for the foul line, and this is what I saw:

Good karma indeed! To hell with the balls at Scottsdale Stadium. These three Easter eggs at Chase Field counted. I just had to make sure that I remembered which ball I picked up first, second, and third so I could number them properly. I looked over my shoulder, and there were a couple of fans slowly making their way down the steps. Crap! I snatched the first ball and stuck it in my front right pocket. Then I went for the second one, and as I stuck it in my left front pocket, I spotted a fourth ball down a few steps in the front row!! I grabbed the third ball (back right pocket) and then the fourth (back left pocket) and it occurred to me that there might be more. I scrambled back up the steps and scanned the empty seats on both sides and spotted a fifth ball!!! OH MY GOD!!!!! I grabbed that one and stuck it in a little pouch on the side of my backpack, and 20 seconds later, Livan Hernandez walked out of the bullpen and tossed me another!!! Are you kidding me?! I'd just gotten six balls in half a minute, and I had to take a break and sit down and label them all, and just a few minutes after I finished, the Diamondbacks wrapped up their portion of BP, so I ran to their dugout on the third base side and got yet another ball from Doug Slaten. It was 4:40pm. The gates had been open for 10 minutes, and I'd snagged 10 balls.

Naturally, when the Giants took the field, I was already thinking of breaking my one-day record of 19 balls. I was more than halfway there with almost a whole day of snagging still remaining, but I didn't feel confident. If I'd been in Philly or Baltimore, I would've broken the record. Easily. Guaranteed. Those two ballparks are phenomenal. But Chase Field? Not great. Remember what happened the day before? Yeah, I snagged 12 balls, but it was somewhat of a struggle from start to finish. I hadn't caught a single ball that was hit during BP, and then during the game, it had taken me six innings to sneak down to the Giants' dugout for third-out balls, of which I didn't end up getting any.

But back to the task at hand...
I started out in left field for the Giants' BP and didn't catch a thing. Then, when a bunch of lefties began hitting, I ran to right field and managed to snag a Ryan Klesko homer that landed in a section of mostly empty benches deep down the line. Then I ran back to left field and caught a Scott McClain homer on a fly after judging it perfectly and climbing up on a bench at the last second. And then I got Randy Messenger to throw me a ball a minute later. With five minutes remaining in BP, I abandoned left field and ran halfway around the stadium to the Giants' dugout on the first base side. What happened next? I stood there and watched helplessly as half a dozen homers landed right in the section where I'd just been. Batting practice was done, and I was stuck on 13 balls...not that I'm complaining, but there was no way that I was going to snag an additional seven balls from that point on to break my record. The good news is that I got Barry Zito's sloppy autograph at the dugout. (Is that a backwards 'K'?) The bad news is that he signed it upside down (on an extra ticket I'd collected the night before).

I hardly saw Brad and Kevin during the game. They stayed in the outfield and went for home runs. I stayed behind the plate and went for foul balls. Check out my view:

Sadly, my snagging highlight during the game was NOT getting a foul ball, but rather when the Diamondbacks' mascot (a peppy bobcat named Baxter) threw me a tee-shirt between innings.

The game itself was a thing of beauty. Rookie Micah Owings pitched a two-hit shutout, facing just one batter over the minimum, as the first-place Diamondbacks won, 5-0. After the game, I got my 14th ball of the day from home plate umpire Derryl Cousins (who names their kid Derryl?), then collected a few dozen tickets stubs and went back out to the players' parking lot with Brad and Kevin.

In the four-part photo above, you can see the parking lot on the upper left, Stephen Drew in his obnoxiously large truck on the upper right, Pedro Feliz looking dapper on the lower left, and Bob Wickman on the lower right.

Instead of getting Wickman's autograph, I asked him, "Is there any chance you might be able to throw me a ball tomorrow if I call out to you from the Friday's terrace at about 4pm?"

"I don't know if I can throw it that far," he joked. Then, as he walked off, he gave me a friendly smack on the left shoulder and added, "I'll see what I can do."

STATS:

• 261 balls in 34 games this season = 7.68 balls per game.

• 489 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 2,900 balls during the 489-game streak streak = 5.93 balls per game.

• 103 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball

• 712 lifetime balls outside of New York

• 71 lifetime games with at least 10 balls

• 15th time snagging 10 or more balls in back-to-back games

• 3,222 total balls

That's right. I went to Arizona. And now I'm back. There's lots of catching up to be done, so let's get started...

I woke up on September 17th with four and a half hours of sleep, left for Newark Airport at 9am, took off for Phoenix at 11:50am, met two friends at the airport at 2pm (after gaining three hours by changing time zones), got a ride to the Super 8 Motel, dropped off my stuff, and made the 15-minute walk to Chase Field.

The two friends were baseball collectors from San Francisco named Brad and Kevin. Brad, you may recall, is the guy who helped

bring me to the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game. Kevin, who's attended over 130 major league games this season, is the guy wearing the orange shirt in my 8/14/06 at PETCO Park entry. Both he and Brad were familiar with Chase Field, and they shared the greatest ball-snagging secret of all: There's a restaurant built into the ballpark called Friday's Front Row Sports Grill. You enter on the outside, and you can walk right through it and exit out the back onto a terrace inside the stadium in the second deck in deep left field. I'd like to think that if I were there by myself, I would've discovered this trick on my own, but I'm glad I didn't have to.

Check out the view as I walked out the back of Friday's and headed into the seats:

Game time was 6:40pm. The gates were going to open at 4:30pm. Brad and Kevin and I went into Friday's at 3:30pm, just as the Diamondbacks were starting to take batting practice. I was stunned. I

mean, I literally couldn't believe it. There weren't any other fans there. We had the whole stadium to ourselves, and really, I had the whole stadium to MYself. That's because Brad decided not to go for balls until the gates opened, and Kevin was only interested in catching home runs. This meant I was the ONLY fan asking for balls.

A pitcher on the Diamondbacks threw me my first ball. I have no idea who it was, and it doesn't matter. I was just psyched to get one so early in the day. There've been a few other times when I snagged a ball before the stadium opened (Friday's in Miller Park, Waveland Avenue outside Wrigley Field, the portwalk outside AT&T Park) and it's a great feeling...getting on line at the gate and already having a ball. Or three.

Livan Hernandez tossed me a second ball, and Dustin Nippert fired up another. I felt lucky that all three throws were right on the money. The Friday's terrace is about 40 feet high--not to mention 450 feet from home plate--so it took some skill for the guys to make accurate throws that didn't fall short. (According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the ball from Nippert was the 1,500th Allan H. Selig ball of my collection.)

While I was busy snagging, Brad went outside and bought me a ticket for the special gap section directly behind the right field wall. Then, after he returned to Friday's to deliver the ticket, he went back outside and held a spot in line at the right field gate. It was really nice of him to do that, but as it turned

out, it didn't make much of a difference. Unlike Shea and Yankee Stadium, where there are hundreds of people waiting to get inside for BP, there were only SIX fans waiting on line as late as 4:20pm.

I'd started the day with 3,196 lifetime balls, so my next ball was going to be No. 3,200. As I ran inside, I tried to pay extra close attention to all the action taking place so I'd be able to identify the source of my milestone. I headed into the right field bleachers and scanned the section for balls as I made my

way down to the front. I didn't plan on staying in the gap section (which is officially known as Section 105-W), but I wanted to check it out briefly. Brad introduced me to the friendly usher, and when she saw coach Kirk Gibson ignore my polite request for a ball, she reached into a cup holder and pulled one out that had landed in the gap a few minutes earlier, and she handed it to me. And there it was: Ball No. 3,200. Not too exciting, but it counts. I never counted the few balls that were given to me by other fans, but I decided long ago that balls from stadium employees would count. Why? Because security guards at Shea and Yankee Stadium used to (and still occasionally) go out of their way to prevent me from getting balls. At Shea, the on-field guard down the left field line used to run over and kick ground balls away during BP as I was leaning over the wall to scoop them up, and at Yankee Stadium...don't even get me started. The worst offense took place in the early 90s when I got Royals pitcher Hipolito Pichardo to throw me a ball along the left field foul line. The on-field guard darted to his left and reached out with his bare hand and slapped the ball out of the air and deflected it to another fan as I was reaching out to catch it. And let's not forget all the times I've been stopped from using the glove trick. Security guards have probably cost me 300 balls over the years, so at this point, if I'm on the road and a stadium employee doesn't know me and feels like handing me a ball...yeah, you bet it counts. The usher's name, by the way, is Annie Schock. I had to get her name, not just for ball-snagging documentation purposes, but because I wanted to let management know how great she was.

I sprinted from right field to left field (which only took a minute thanks to the concourse that runs behind the batter's eye) and was surprised when the Diamondbacks' portion of BP ended at around 4:40pm. The home team always takes BP first, and usually they wrap up about 90 minutes before game time. Luckily, the D'backs occupy the 3rd base side so I was able to race through the seats and make it to their dugout just as the last few guys were coming off the field. That's when I got my fifth ball of the day from a guy who looked like he was the team's strength and conditioning coach, and if that's who it was, then his name was Nate Shaw.

The Giants took the field, so I switched into my orange and black "SF" cap and got my sixth ball of the day from pitcher Noah Lowry along the left field foul line.

I'd heard that security at Chase Field is strict and that they don't like people using ball-retrieving devices. That's how it was when I was there for two games in 1998, but this was a new decade, and when I saw a ball sitting in the left field bullpen, I had to go for it. The ball was about eight feet out from a 15-foot wall, so I had to let out quite a bit of string and then fling the glove out and tug the string at just the right moment in order to knock the ball closer. I nailed it on the first try, then quickly pulled up the glove and set up the magic marker and re-lowered it for the easy snag. Moments later, a security supervisor walked down the steps and stood behind the bullpen and visually stalked me as I disappeared into the left field bleachers.

At that point, I realized that there were more lefties than righties taking turns in the cage, so I ran