April 2008

4/29/08 at Shea Stadium

There's one spot outside Shea Stadium that provides a partial view of the field: the elevated subway station of the #7 train. When I reached this station yesterday, I took a peek at the field to make sure the screens were set up for batting practice. Two hours earlier, it had been raining and I had no idea what to expect. This is what I saw:

That's right. No screens.

It was 3:30pm. I hadn't yet bought a ticket. Shea wasn't going to open for another 70 minutes, so I stood there and waited. My plan was simple. If I saw the grounds crew set up the screens before 4:40pm, I'd exit the subway, run over to the ticket windows, buy a cheap seat, and head inside. Otherwise I'd go home.

Finally, after nearly 40 minutes, I saw two groundskeepers slowly roll a big screen into place in shallow center field. I ran out and bought a ticket, but feared that BP might start late, and sure enough, it did. When I reached the seats, no one was hitting. Everything was set up, but the only action (if you can call it that) was half the team jogging in shallow right field:

Fabulous.

Five minutes later, a few guys started throwing...

...and 10 minutes after that, Angel Pagan (standing in the distance to the right of the screen) threw me my first ball of the day.

Because Shea is so lame, I only managed to catch one other ball during the entire Mets' portion of BP, and it was a ball I shouldn't even have gotten. Let me explain...

My girlfriend Jona ended up making a VERY last-minute plan to join me for this game. She arrived at the stadium at around 5:10pm and found me in the right field Loge. After all the Mets pitchers made it clear that they were going to ignore me for the duration of BP, I asked Jona to ask for a ball, and of course the players immediately looked up at her. Before long, Pedro Feliciano (who throws approximately one ball into the seats per season) lobbed one in

her direction. As the ball approached, a 300-pound guy wearing tight sweatpants (who had just given me a speech about how "real men don't wear gloves") tried to reach in front of us and grab it, so I reached in front of HIM, and thanks to the extra few inches that my glove provided, I was able to make the catch. Then, to make Feliciano happy, I made a whole production of handing the ball to Jona, and as soon as he looked away, she handed it back. It had a commemorative logo, and for an instant Shea felt a little less lame.

Hitting coach Howard Johnson tossed me my third ball of the day at the 1st base dugout after the Mets finished BP, and while the Pirates were taking their cuts, I snagged three more balls with the glove trick. The first was about five feet out from the wall along the left field foul line, so I ran down from the Loge and slipped into the corner spot and began by flinging my glove out to knock the ball closer:

Thankfully, the on-field security guard was about 80 feet away and had his back turned, but even if he'd seen me going for it, he might not have said anything. I hate to admit it, but Shea's employees HAVE become nicer in recent years when it comes to the glove trick. Sometimes they'll stop me from using it when I'm going for a ball that's on the field, but usually they have no problem when I'm going for a ball that's trapped in a dead area.

In the four-part pic below (starting on the top left and then going clockwise)...

1) I'm carefully lowering my glove from the Loge Level so that it fits between the metal beams behind the advertising board.

2) Pirates reliever Damaso Marte watches the glove drop over the ball.

3) Marte crouches to get a better view.

4) Marte inspects the glove as I pull it up with the ball tucked snugly inside.

Check it out:

There was a kid, maybe eight or nine years old, standing nearby as I reeled in the ball, and I was thinking of giving it to him until he said of my glove trick: "That's so gay!"

When I took a good look at the ball, I realized I wouldn't have given it to him anyway (I would've given him a different ball) because there was something special on it: a bat imprint. I'd only snagged a handful of these imprinted balls in my life, and you can see four of them here on my web site. The imprint on the ball I snagged yesterday (seen here on the right) was the same as the ball on the lower right (at the link I provided above), which I recognized as the TPX logo. TPX is a type of bat made by Louisville Slugger. For some reason I can't find this logo on a bat, but here it is on a golf club.

As for the third ball I snagged with the glove trick, it was sitting on that sloped grassy area in front of the DreamSeats and I went for it as an usher looked on:

Once I had the ball in my bare hand, I turned around and shouted loud for the entire section to hear: "This ball is for the first kid I see who has a glove and HASN'T already gotten a ball today!" Incredibly, there wasn't ONE kid anywhere near me who qualified, so I gave it to an usher instead--not the usher in the pic above, but rather a nice old man in the Loge who'd asked me for a ball once before so he could give one to his grandson.

I stayed in the Loge for the entire game and didn't come close to a single foul ball, but at least the game itself was entertaining. The Mets won, 5-4, on a bases-loaded, walk-off single by

David Wright in the bottom of the 11th, after which I got another (very rubbed up but otherwise pristine) commemorative ball from home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.

STATS:

• 7 balls at this game

• 94 balls in 9 games this season = 10.4 balls per game.

• 505 consecutive games with at least one ball

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

• 3,371 total balls

Posted on April 30, 2008 at 4:29 PM
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Tags: 7 train, bat imprint, citi field construction, commemorative ball, damaso marte, glove trick, hunter wendelstedt, new york mets, pittsburgh pirates, shea stadium, subway
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10,000th comment (and other stuff)

Every now and then, I like to look at my blog stats: number of entries, number of words, number of photos, number of hits, etc.

Well, I just discovered that there have been exactly 10,110 comments since I posted my very first entry way back in April of 2005...so I looked at the most recent comments and counted backwards to 110 and figured out who left No. 10,000. Want to know who it was? Keep reading and I'll tell you toward the end of this entry. (Ohhh, the suspense!)

In other (media-related) news...

1) I just received a copy of the April issue of "D'backs Insider," the official magazine of the Arizona Diamondbacks, which contains a full-page Q&A interview about my book and baseball collection.

2) I did another Q&A interview this month with a guy named Michael Solem who writes a Nationals blog for the Washington Post. The piece just came out earlier today, and here's the link. Keep in mind that I did this interview by phone (as opposed to the D-backs interview which I sent in via email) so my answers are not especially eloquent.

3) On Monday, May 5th at 3:35pm ET, I'm going to be interviewed live for about 15 minutes on "The Jay Thomas Show" on Sirius Satellite Radio. If you don't have Sirius...oh well.

And now, for the presentation of the GCA (Golden Commenter Award)...
The 10,000th comment was posted on April 17th, 2008 by a young man who goes by the name of "twinslove." Here is that fateful comment (which, coincidentally, discusses other five-digit numbers):

Unfortunately, the Nationals are still failing to draw fans despite their brand new park. After failing to sell out the first game in the new park (the listed attendance on the Nationals website is 39,389; capacity over 41,000) they managed to draw 20,487 which is the lowest attendance ever for the second game in a new venue. Since opening night, they are averaging 26,351 which is 64% of capacity. Being a half season ticket holder, I am definitely disappointed in the turnouts.
Washington needs a title badly. The last time a professional team won was the 1991 Redskins.
Go Nats

BTW, the 9,999th comment was posted by "puckcollector," and the 10,001st came from Alex.

I'll be at Yankee Stadium tomorrow if the weather improves in time for BP...

Posted on April 28, 2008 at 10:27 PM
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4/24/08 at Champion Stadium

I brought a secret weapon for my third and final game at Disney, and to make myself stand out even more, I bought an obnoxious/eye-catching shirt on my way to Champion Stadium. Are you ready for this? Hang on tight. Here goes:

Yes, I had the biggest baseball glove that anyone had ever seen. Don't ask me where I got it or how much it cost. I have no idea. All I can tell you is that a friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) sent it as a surprise house-warming gift when I moved last month.

There weren't any other fans around when I pulled out the glove to take this pic, but several stadium employees ended up walking by and asking a bunch of questions: "Where'd you get that thing?" (I don't know. A friend sent it to me.) "How much did it cost?" (Unlike you, I was polite enough not to ask.) "Is that Shaquille O'Neal's glove?" (Actually it's Verne Troyer's chair.) "You wouldn't happen to be compensating for something, would you?" (Ask my girlfriend.) "Is that real leather?" (I think so.) "Can you actually catch with that?" (Probably not.)

And so on. It was fun to get all that attention, and I was hoping that the players on the Rays and Blue Jays would notice me as well.

Shortly before the stadium opened, a 20-something-year-old guy walked over and introduced himself. His name was Brandon. He'd been reading this blog for a while and knew I was gonna be at this game. He'd written to me on MySpace a week earlier (here's HIS profile) to say he'd be there too, but because I'm a slacker when it comes to that site, I hadn't gotten the message...so he summarized it. Basically, he's the photographer for a band called The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. They're on tour. He's traveling around with them. They were playing a few shows at Disney. He had an off day and was spending it here, and he offered to follow me around and take a ton of photos.

He didn't miss a thing. He even got me going through the bag check:

Thankfully, unlike John Adams, the fan in Cleveland who brings a drum into the stadium, I didn't have to buy an extra ticket for my oversized item.

The left field berm was dead as usual, and I don't understand why. For the first 20 minutes, there was not ONE home run that landed there, and as I mentioned before, the slope of the hill and the height of the outfield wall made it impossible to see the warning track. At any regular major league stadium, fans would've been asking for the balls in the pic below, but here at Disney we were oblivious:

I didn't use the big glove at first. I decided to snag like a normal person while the berm was still reasonably empty, and before long, I had a chance to catch one. Someone on the Rays hit a deep fly ball, and one of the pitchers (Edwin Jackson, I think) ran back and made the catch and disappeared from sight. In the four-part pic below, you can see exactly what happened next. Starting from the upper left and then going clockwise, we're all reaching up with our gloves in anticipation of the ball being tossed over. Then, when the ball flies up in the air, we all jockey for position. On the lower left, I'm jumping and reaching unsuccessfully for the ball, and on the lower right, I'm landing and feeling both frustrated AND good about myself. Check out the pics, and then I'll explain why...

Okay, see the little kid wearing blue who's standing on my right? I knew he was standing there before the ball was tossed, so when it started sailing to my right...well, rather than moving in that direction and potentially bumping into him while getting under the ball, I sacrificed my own chance of catching it in order to prevent him from getting hurt. In other words, I didn't move laterally. Instead I jumped straight up and reached to my right, and as it turned out, the ball missed my glove by six inches, but NO ONE GOT HURT. I can't stress enough how important it is to respect the safety of the fans around you, especially when there are little kids involved. One of the reasons why I hate Yankee Stadium so much is that the "grown-ups" there are truly out of control. I can't count the number of times I've been knocked down while reaching for balls just like this.

There still weren't any homers being hit, and the berm was getting uncomfortably crowded, so I finally broke out the big glove:

I got a few laughs from the Blue Jays pitchers in the left field corner, but I realized this wasn't the best time or place to harass them; they were just starting to throw (and therefore needed their baseballs), and the Rays were still hitting (so even if a ball had been hit to the Jays, it wouldn't have been theirs to give away), so I ran around the stadium and found a spot in the right field corner. Dan Wheeler, a former Mets reliever who always used to talk to me at Shea Stadium, was out there and immediately recognized me.

"What's up!" I yelled, holding the big glove up in the air.

"Can you fit all your balls in there?" he asked.

"Not quite," I told him as another player (not sure who) walked over and asked me to toss the glove down.

"Let me try out that glove," said the other player, "and I'll give you a ball."

I didn't have to think twice about it. I tossed the glove over the railing (and briefly got scolded by a security guard until I informed him that one of the players ASKED me to do it), and the player with the glove headed back to straight-away right field and started posing:

Wheeler ended up being the one to reward me with a baseball, and Brandon took a pic JUST as I was about to catch it:

The snagging was underway, and life was good. (If you look closely at the pic below, you can see the mark on my nose where I was hit with a ball two days earlier.)

The Rays player (can anyone tell who it is?) tried fielding a few batted balls and then flung the glove back up to me:

I reached out and made another clean catch:

Shortly before the Rays' wrapped up their portion of batting practice, I told Wheeler that if he got another ball and put it on the warning track below me, I'd show his teammates the glove trick and then give the ball to a kid of his choice.

Less than 10 seconds later, there was ball in place, but unfortunately, as soon as I started setting up my glove, the players had to run off the field and make way for the Blue Jays.

"Make sure you give it to a kid!" shouted Wheeler as he ran off.

"Don't worry, I will!" I yelled and we both waved goodbye.

For some reason, my string was more tangled than ever before, but the trick still worked, and I reeled in the ball with ease:

There were a few kids to my right who asked for the ball, but they weren't wearing gloves so I kept scanning the section. (I never give balls to kids without gloves. When I was a kid, I ALWAYS brought my glove to games and I remember how badly I wanted a ball. Even when I was starving and got my first hot dog of the day, I'd wait until the third out to eat it, and in the meantime, I was often standing on my chair and holding my glove high over my head and shrieking, "Hit it heeeeeeeeere!!!" so whenever I see a kid without a glove, it tells me he [or she] doesn't care THAT much about getting a ball, and when I see a kid who IS wearing a glove, it reminds me of myself.) The smallest kid around happened to be wearing a glove, and even though he was wearing a Braves cap, I called him over and started walking down the steps. The kid started climbing over the benches, and his father was smiling in the background. It was a pretty cute scene:

I put on my Blue Jays cap and ran back to the berm. Not only was it still dead out there, but now I had to battle the sun:

Eventually there was a little action, but it just wasn't happening for me. Jason Frasor threw me a ball and missed. Then another ball was tossed over my head, and I raced up the hill for it...

...and lost:

It didn't help that I was carrying my backpack and the big glove, so I put them both down just behind the outfield wall, but that didn't help either as I lost another race:

It was time once again for some Big Glove Love:

All the Blue Jays pitchers immediately spotted me and started cracking up. B.J. Ryan tossed me a ball (my third of the day) which I managed to catch IN the glove. This was quite an accomplishment. The glove was so big and heavy that it was impossible to close all the way. It was also a bit stiff, as new gloves tend to be. How am I supposed to break it in? Rubber-band it around a basketball and stick it under my mattress?

Moments later, Jeremy Accardo called me over to the foul pole, and when I got there, he said he wanted to use the big glove for a few minutes, and he offered me a ball in exchange. I couldn't believe it. He'd already thrown me a ball each of the last two days, and now here he was asking ME for something and handing me another ball. Incredible.

We made the trade...

...and he took the glove into left field:

I was wearing my regular glove when he ran over and threw the big one back to me:

I made two jumping catches in the next ten minutes. The first was a ball that landed in the fenced-off gap next to the berm and was tossed up by a random employee. The second was a ball that rolled onto the warning track along the left field foul line and was thrown by Blue Jays bullpen catcher Alex Andreopoulos. Then I snagged two more balls from the bullpen with my glove trick, and I want to thank Jim from St. Louis (the guy wearing the Cardinals cap in the pics below) for pointing out the first one. It was about eight feet out from the wall, so before I rigged the glove with the Sharpie, I flung it out and tried to knock the ball back toward me:

It took longer than it should have...

...and I was almost certain that stadium security would appear and force me to stop, but they didn't, and before long, I'd moved the ball close enough to lower the glove straight down over it:

The second bullpen ball (number eight on the day) was much easier. It was already sitting right next to the wall, and I had it in my glove within seconds:

Everyone stared as I headed to the dugout toward the end of BP...

...and as soon as I got there, the on-field photographer swung his camera around and started taking pics of me instead of the players:

My one complaint about Brandon is that he didn't tell me that the tag was sticking out of my hat, but I suppose he was just doing his job. As a photographer, he's probably just supposed to document history, not change it.

I ended up getting my ninth ball tossed at the dugout by some random kid who happened to be standing on the warning track. (Hey, it counts.)

I didn't have any luck during pre-game throwing along the left field foul line...

...so I hurried over to the Rays' dugout:

Did you notice the Rays smiling at me? Here's a close-up of the pic above:

I didn't think I was going to get a ball there because Carlos Pena, the Rays 1st baseman, was one of the last two guys throwing. First basemen rarely toss their pre-game warm-up balls into the crowd because they use them again when they actually take the field...but Pena couldn't resist. If you look closely at the pic below, you can see him smiling too as he walked toward the dugout:

Look closely again at the following two pics and you can see the ball in mid-air. Here it is in front of the police officer's right elbow...

...and here it is about to enter my glove. There are four holes in the pocket, and you can see the bottom half of the ball through the upper right hole:

I should've used two hands to squeeze the glove shut, but I didn't and the ball popped out, so I had to grab it with my bare hand. Jonny Gomes (the player standing on the left, watching intently) was disappointed when I bobbled it and made me give the ball back to him so he could toss it again. He probably thought I was a complete klutz, and I don't blame him because I *did* look shaky with the big glove, but I doubt he had any idea just how hard it was to use. Anyway, he's not even a good fielder with a normal glove, so whatever, and for the record, I got the ball to stay in the glove when he tossed it back to me.

I ran into the Rays' cheerleaders and let them be in a photo with me...

...and then I walked with Brandon to the open-air concourse along the right field foul line. I'd snagged a foul ball there during each of the previous two games, but it was dead for Game Three. It was so dead that I went outside the stadium for half-an inning, hoping that the hard-throwing Dustin McGowan would induce a few monstrous foul balls, but no. Still, I have two things to say about being out there:

1) Big thanks to Andrew (who also reads this blog) for letting me go out there. He was about to head outside as well but then generously changed his ball-snagging plan and let me go outside by myself.

2) Since I couldn't see the batters or hear the PA announcer, and since the game wasn't on the radio, I had no way of following the action, so Brandon stayed on the inside and called my cell phone and gave me the play-by-play. ("Here's the pitch...NOW.") Even though nothing came over, it was fun just to have an accomplice and make an attempt. And by the way, this was my view as I stood outside the stadium, looking up at the sky:

The game itself was fine. Nothing spectacular. (The highlight was hanging out with Brandon.) The Rays won, 5-3, to sweep the series and improve to 6-0 all time at Champion Stadium. McGowan took the loss. Andy Sonnanstine made a quality start to pick up the win. Carl Crawford went 3-for-5 with two stolen bases. Evan Longoria was 2-for-2 with a double and a triple. Troy Percival worked a scoreless ninth to earn his 328th career save, and that was pretty much it.

I'll leave you with a few more pics that might be of interest. First, here's a shot that Brandon took mid-game from the first base side...just a nice look at the stadium:

Here's a pic I took of a table in the concourse that was loaded with free stuff, including magnetic schedules (on the far left) and vouchers for free tickets at Tropicana Field (on the right). If there's anyone reading this who wants some vouchers, leave a comment or send me an email. I took a whole bunch of them to give away. (Do they give these out AT the Trop?) It's nice of the Rays to give them out, but it's also sad that a major league team literally can't give away free tickets. FYI, you have to redeem them at the Rays' box office, and they're only good for weekend games in May and June.

Here's a pic of the nine balls I kept:

I didn't get anything after the game except a pack of sunflower seeds at the Blue Jays'

dugout and a free ride back to my hotel from a father/son snagging duo named Paul and Michael. So...another thanks to them. I can't believe how many people I met on this trip who read this blog...Leigh from San Diego (aka "padreleigh"), Paul and Michael, Andrew, Jim from St. Louis, and Brandon. Am I forgetting anyone? Hope not.

I'm not sure when my next game will be. I might go to Shea on Monday. (Anyone else planning to be there?) I'll probably (unfortunately) be going to Yankee Stadium Tuesday through Friday as long as the weather's nice. I might head up to Boston for Manny's 500th home run. I might go to Shea for Griffey's 600th. I'm now officially planning to go to Coors Field this season (I have a few friends out there now, and there's also a Denver-based writer who wants to do a story on me). I've also been offered a free trip to Wrigley Field. And has anyone heard about the Mets and Marlins playing in Puerto Rico later this season? Details, please! I might need to go and raise my stadium total to 45. Oh, and another random thing...I haven't had time to answer comments for the last few days, but I'm planning to catch up very soon, so if you're waiting for a response, keep an eye on my recent entries.

Last thing, I promise...

STATS:

• 10 balls at this game

• 78 lifetime games with at least 10 balls

• 87 balls in 8 games this season = 10.875 balls per game.

• 504 consecutive games with at least one ball

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

• 801 lifetime balls outside of New York (The ball from the kid at the dugout was No. 800.)

• 3,364 total balls

Posted on April 26, 2008 at 9:17 AM
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Tags: big glove, brandon sloter, champion stadium, cheerleaders, disney's wide world of sports, glove trick, red jumpsuit apparatus, tampa bay rays, toronto blue jays
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4/23/08 at Champion Stadium

Day Two of the Tampa Bay Rays' three-game series at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex was not quite as good. I should've had another double-digit performance but ran into some bad luck early on.

Once again, the berm was nice and empty for the first five or ten minutes of batting practice...

...and then things got insane. Just like the day before, I didn't catch any home run balls, and part of the reason why is that many other fans were being aggressive, and I wanted no part of it. The pushing and shoving that ensued nearly every time a ball sailed over the wall was

downright scary. I'd never seen anything like it. During one scramble in which half a dozen fans were tumbling and rolling down the hill on top of each other, a little kid got kicked in the face by an old man and immediately started shrieking as blood began gushing out of his nose. Paramedics rushed over and took care of him, but it was an ugly scene that left me feeling bad for a while.

On top of that...ready for this? Not one, not two, but THREE different players threw balls to me and missed. All three went over my glove. James Shields missed by two inches. Shannon Stewart missed by two feet (and shrugged when he saw someone else get it). A.J. Burnett missed by ten feet. I don't know what he was doing other than teasing me. I had gotten his attention by running up the hill to the back of the berm. There wasn't anyone behind me...just some bushes and a fence and a few trees. Well, he fired the ball into the trees, and that was that.

Thankfully, with the help of my friend Leigh and the string tied to my glove, I was able to swing the glove out and knock a ball back toward me that had landed in the fenced-off gap (which you can kind of the see in

the pic above) beside the berm. That was the only ball I got during the Rays' portion of BP, and I only managed one more--courtesy of Jeremy Accardo--when the Blue Jays were on the field. I wasn't even able to get any of the players to toss me a warm-up ball when they first came out to throw.

I had exactly two baseballs when BP ended, by which time I was standing in the front row behind the Jays' dugout on the third base side...and let me tell you, it wasn't easy to get down there. The staircase leading to the dugout was backed up six rows deep with fans, and the entire front row was full, except for a little one-foot space where I squeezed in. I got a few dirty looks from the fans around me, but whatever. None of them had a glove. They were all yelling for autographs and taking pictures, and as a result I got two balls tossed to me within a minute. The first ball (which I later gave away to a young mother for her child) came from some random coach-type dude that I couldn't recognize, and the second came from Alex Andreopoulos, the bullpen catcher. This made me feel a little better.

I grabbed a seat a few rows back and caught up with a 14-year-old baseball collector named Michael who had emailed me last week to say he'd be attending all three of these games at Disney.

He had snagged a few balls earlier in the day during BP, and we were talking about it when another guy who looked to be in his 40's walked over and asked me if I was Zack. I said I was, and he introduced himself as "Jim from St. Louis" and said he loved my blog and had been reading it for quite some time. He then pulled out a Ziploc bag with a brand new baseball and asked me to sign it on the sweet spot. Jim said he didn't know about these games at Disney until he read about it on my blog. He knew almost everything about my collection, and he apologetically asked a bunch of questions and kept saying he didn't want to bother me. I didn't feel bothered at all. It was great to meet someone who shared my passion. That's all there was to it, and we kept running into each other throughout the night.

I still had a little time to kill before the game, so I went to the upper deck and took some pics of the stadium. Here are two of them which I Photoshopped together to make a cheap panorama:

I tried to get a ball tossed to me before the game, but had to settle for a little comedy instead. I don't know, this might be an old joke, but I'd never seen it. Basically, the Rays' mascot

snuck up on Blue Jays catcher/first baseman Rod Barajas and imitated all of his stretches. Just about every fan along the foul line was cracking up during the first minute or so because Barajas (who had been lying on his side) had no idea that the mascot was behind him. Eventually Barajas rolled over and flinched. He wasn't acting. He literally jerked back in fright, then jumped up and chased the mascot who taunted him from a distance with semi-crude gestures. It was hilarious. And it kept going. When Barajas continued stretching, the mascot lay back down and kept imitating him.

With Roy Halladay pitching for the Blue Jays and the wind blowing from left to right, I figured there'd be a lot of foul balls heading my way on the open concourse along the right field foul line. I know I already shared two pics of this concourse in my last entry, but I need to show another because it was THAT awesome:

With two outs in the bottom of the first inning, B.J. (not Justin) Upton sliced a foul pop-up in my general direction. I ran 20 or 30 feet to my left, never taking my eye off the ball. A few

gloveless guys standing behind the last row of benches took a step back and reached up. The ball missed their hands by two feet and landed in the pocket of my glove.

"You made that look easy," said a voice from behind.

Umm, that's 'cause it was.

A few innings later, there was another foul ball that I easily would've caught on a fly, but some bozo reached up with his hat at the last second and deflected it. Other than that, the only action on the concourse consisted of a father of one of the kids on a little league team recognizing me from YouTube. During one of the inning breaks, I walked over to the kids and had them gather around me while I demonstrated the glove trick. You could say that they loved it.

Matt Stairs hit two home runs--a bomb to right-center in the second inning (which Leigh predicted) and an equally long blast to straight-away right in the sixth--and when he came to

bat in the eighth, there was NO mention on the jumbotron of what he'd done earlier in the game. All we got was a mug shot, and that's how it was for every player all night. Sorry but that's lame. Disney World or not, the people who run a stadium should keep the fans informed of who's done what. Some of us, after all, are too busy running around for foul balls to follow all the action.

Despite Stairs' two dingers and a solid eight-inning performance by Halladay, the Jays were losing, 5-3, when Troy Percival took the mound in the ninth for the Rays. Gregg Zaun led off and ripped a foul line drive into the right field corner. I ran to the back of the concourse, pretty much to the spot where I took the pic of the jumbotron, and when Rays right fielder Nathan Haynes jogged over to retrieve the ball, I got him to toss it up to me. That was my sixth ball

of the day and I got one more after the game from home plate umpire Mike Everitt. It was funny...there were a few cheerleader-type girls dancing on the dugout roof and Everitt had to wait for them to dance out of the way so he could toss me the ball. Oh, and I also got a lineup card.

STATS:

• 7 balls at this game

• 77 balls in 7 games this season = 11 balls per game.

• 503 consecutive games with at least one ball

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

• 791 lifetime balls outside of New York

• 23 lifetime game balls outside of New York (not counting game-used balls that are thrown into the seats)

• 114 lifetime game balls

• 3,354 total balls

Posted on April 24, 2008 at 10:02 AM
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Tags: alex andreopoulos, berm, champion stadium, crazy old man, disney's wide world of sports, foul ball, lineup card, mascot, mike everitt, tampa bay rays, toronto blue jays
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4/22/08 at Champion Stadium

Major League Baseball at a Spring Training ballpark...really, does it get any better than that?

In case you haven't heard (or if you're reading this ten years from now and don't remember), the Tampa Bay Rays moved three of their regular season home games from ugly/indoor Tropicana Field to beautiful/outdoor Champion Stadium, located in Disney's Wide World of Sports complex. The stadium holds about 9,500 people. It normally functions as the Spring Training home of the Atlanta Braves. I don't count Spring Training balls in my collection, but I decided that if the games and stats count in the Major Leagues, then the balls should count for me.

This was my first of the three games. The first pitch was scheduled for 7:10pm, so naturally I arrived at the complex shortly after 12pm:

I wanted to scope out the place and hopefully find a few balls lying around in the bushes outside the stadium. The Rays hadn't played the day before, so there was a chance they'd been there, perhaps scoping out the place themselves. Who knows if they did? I didn't find anything, but I got a good look at the outside of the ballpark...

...and when I walked up the stairs way in the background in the photo above, I noticed that one of the gates was wide open. What to do...hmm. I figured that since I already had a ticket for the game, I couldn't be arrested for sneaking in. Yes...I'd just play dumb and say I was from New York...no, bad idea...I don't know. I just had to wander inside and take a peek...just a little peek at the concourse:

But then I noticed a sign for the lawn seating...

and decided it wouldn't cause any harm if I took a little peek at that as well:

That's when a group of stadium employees walked over...and smiled at me...and asked if I wanted them to take my picture. Seriously?! I felt pretty safe after that, so I kept wandering and I inspected the grassy area (aka the "berm") from several angles:

I couldn't WAIT for batting practice to start, but I was also afraid that it'd get pretty crowded out there. Anyway, there was still more wandering to do, so I checked out the upper deck...

...and the view from the inner concourse on the lower level...

...and the drool-inducing, open-air concourse along the right field foul line:

I didn't know where else to go at that point. I considered running onto the field and making naked snow-angels at shortstop (I guess those would've been "dirt-angels") but thought that might be pushing it, so I just grabbed some bench and watched the batting cage get towed into place:

Then the groundskeepers started watering the infield dirt and players started walking in. Can you identify the two guys in the pic below?

I could've easily run down to the front row and asked them to sign, but it didn't seem right. I wasn't even supposed to be there, and since I'm more interested in getting baseballs than autographs, I decided it wasn't worth it. I was just thrilled to BE there:

I voluntarily walked out of the stadium at around 2pm, and soon after that, I ran into a guy from San Diego named Leigh (aka "padreleigh" for those of you who read the comments) who had told me he was gonna be there. We'd been emailing for months. He was actually the one who first informed me that the tickets for this series were on sale...and this was the first time we'd ever met in person. Very cool guy. It was great to have an instant new friend.

The stadium didn't open until 5pm (ugh!), by which time there was a disappointingly long line of fans waiting to get in:

At least I was one of the first fans to run inside and THE first fan to reach the berm. Look what was waiting for me:

Less than ten seconds later, B.J. Upton smoked a line drive over the left field wall and I picked up that ball too. Not a bad way to start, but then the berm started filling up.

Before long the berm was packed, and to make matters worse, the Rays and Jays weren't hitting much over the wall, so I had to use other methods...like the glove trick. I used it to pluck a ball out of the bullpen near the foul pole, and as soon as I held it up to show Leigh (who was at the far end of the berm), a security guard marched down the hill and said, "Give me the ball."

I had no choice but to hand it over.

"Thank you," he said condescendingly before flinging it back into the bullpen.

I wasn't sure whether or not to count this ball in my collection, so I consulted Leigh (who's snagged about 700 lifetime balls). He felt I should absolutely count it. "You had it in your hand," he said, then added that when you go fishing and catch a fish and throw it back, it still counts. So I counted it.

Back in my early days of ball-snagging, I only counted balls that I actually brought home, but once I started giving away balls on a regular basis, I decided that the number of "balls snagged" was more important than "balls owned."

I got my fourth ball of the day when some pitcher lobbed one high into the air toward a bunch of us on the berm. We all jostled and jumped and booted it. The ball plopped onto the grass beside me and I snatched it. Pretty simple. I have no idea who the pitcher was because the left field wall was a foot too high. This was my view when I stood directly behind it:

Not only was it a challenge to identify the players, but it was just as hard to get their attention when they walked onto the warning track. I got my fifth ball thrown from a distance by Scott Downs--that was easy--but then when Blue Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg walked over to retrieve a loose ball, I had to jump up and put my right arm on the top of the wall and support all my weight with it while keeping my head above the top of the wall and reaching out with my glove hand. The padding sagged and the tips of the chain-link fence dug into my forearm. Not fun. But at least I got the ball, and thankfully security didn't confiscate it although a different guard walked down the hill and told me not to climb up there. (Well then don't build a seven-foot wall that fans are obviously gonna want to see over, geniuses.)

I was getting baseballs...that was good...but I still hadn't caught a home run. It was tough. The berm was steep and the grass was slick, and there were fans all over the place, including a bunch of guys my age/size with gloves. At one point, when a homer was coming right toward me and I tried to take a step back, someone pushed me forward. And whenever a ball was heading for the berm 20 or 30 or 50 feet away, there were already people right there. It was not a good situation and things took a sudden turn for the worse toward the end of BP. Another home run was coming right toward me, and as I reached up to make what should've been an easy catch, some jerk cut in front of me and stuck up his glove at the last second and deflected the ball right into my nose. CRACK!!! I heard the scary sound of the ball meeting my face, and I nearly fell over from the sheer surprise of getting hit. Blood started dripping out of my right nostril, and everyone gathered around. My first thought was, "[Expletive deleted], I hope it's not broken." My second thought was, "This is really [expletive deleted] embarrassing. People are going to think that *I* missed the [expletive deleted] ball and let it hit me. My third thought was, "[Expletive deleted] this, I don't want to miss any BP," so when the same guard who'd scolded me walked back down the hill and asked me if I wanted to go to the first aid room, I wiped the blood away and said I'd wait until the end of batting practice.

Jeremy Accardo saw what had happened and got my attention and threw me a ball (my 7th of the day), and as soon as I caught it, some guy behind me started claiming that the ball had been intended for a little girl with a glove directly behind me (soooooo not true) but whatever. She hadn't yet gotten a ball, so I gave it to her.

BP ended moments later. Leigh caught up with me as I was escorted to the first-aid room and told me my nose was already looking bad. (Thanks.) I got some gauze and held it against my nose until the bleeding stopped, then got a cold pack and held it there for the next 20 minutes, during which I probably cursed about 813 times. I went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and my nose did indeed look bad. (I had been told that in addition to possibly having a broken nose, I might wake up the next day with two black eyes. Thankfully that didn't happen; the dark circles I now have under my eyes are merely the result of exhaustion.)

I got a buffalo chicken sandwich (with ranch dressing). My nose hurt when I chewed. I stopped eating and realized it still hurt, so I kept eating.

I finished the sandwich just before the singing of the national anthems and went down to the Rays' dugout on the 1st base side. A few guys were playing catch. Jason Bartlett ended up with the ball just in front of me, and when I asked him for it, he scanned the entire front row for someone younger/cuter to toss it to, then reluctantly flipped it to me after he failed to spot a more deserving recipient. Meanwhile, the competition for a warm-up ball on the other side of the stadium was truly insane:

Okay, so there were only 8,269 fans at this game, but since the stadium only holds 9,500...well, let's do the math. It means the stadium was 87 percent full. If Shea Stadium were 87 percent full, there'd be about 48,000 fans, and that's what this felt like. The point is...it wasn't nearly as easy to snag at Champion Stadium as I'd hoped. In fact, it was harder to snag here than at most major league stadiums which are huge and have nooks and crannies and which provide a variety of opportunities. This place? As far as BP was concerned, it was boring and crowded and challenging.

The game, however, was much better. I went back to the concourse on the right field side:

David Eckstein was first batter of the game, and on the fifth pitch from Rays starter James Shields, the little man sliced a foul ball about 30 feet to my left. I raced over, got right behind

it, watched it skip off the bare hands of a man just in front of me, and bounce into my waiting glove. Mwahaha. I suddenly felt a whole lot better about life, although I was bummed that the ball was not commemorative. Wouldn't it have been cool if there was a little Mickey Mouse in place of the standard MLB logo? Oh well.

It might've happened in the bottom of the first inning, or maybe it was the top of the second, but regardless, some right-handed batter hit a foul ball that cleared the grandstand behind the plate and flew out of the stadium. As soon as I saw this, I headed out there myself (thumbs-up to Disney and the Rays for having a re-entry policy) and tried going for foul balls, but it wasn't meant to be. First of all, the game wasn't on the radio so I couldn't follow the action on the walkman (yes, a walkman, don't laugh too hard) that I'd borrowed from someone who shall remain nameless, and on top of that, I couldn't even hear the public address announcer saying the hitters' names, so I didn't know if there were righties or lefties up at bat. I got bored really fast and headed back inside to the right field concourse.

Leigh wandered over (from his spot on the berm) and hung out with me for an inning, and we re-enacted my injury:

That, unfortunately, was the extent of the action for the rest of the game. I couldn't believe how few foul balls were hit to the right side, but at least I broke double digits by getting a ball at the Rays' dugout after the game. (Oh yeah, the Rays won, 6-4.) I think it was tossed by J.P. Howell but I'm not sure.

I'll be heading back to Champion Stadium in about an hour...

STATS:

• 10 balls at this game

• 77 lifetime games with at least 10 balls

• 70 balls in 6 games this season = 11.7 balls per game.

• 502 consecutive games with at least one ball

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

• 784 lifetime balls outside of New York

• 22 lifetime game balls outside of New York (not counting game-used balls that are thrown into the seats)

• 113 lifetime game balls

• 4 lifetime trips to the First Aid room

• 44 major league stadiums with at least one ball

• 17 stadiums with at least one game ball

• 3,347 total balls

Posted on April 23, 2008 at 9:32 AM
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Tags: berm, champion stadium, disney's wide world of sports, embarrassing injury, glove trick, power-hungry security guards, tampa bay rays, toronto blue jays
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Off to Orlando...

It's 4:21pm. My flight from NYC to Orlando leaves in two and a half hours. First of three games between the Jays and Rays at Champion Stadium is tomorrow. I'll be blogging about it as soon as I find some free time...

Posted on April 21, 2008 at 4:19 PM
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Updated books

My publisher just sent me a few updated copies of my book, Watching Baseball Smarter. Not sure when they'll actually hit stores or be available on Amazon, but at least they now exist. (Back in December, in case you missed it, I posted an entry about the update itself and all the work that was involved.) Check out the new cover...

In other news:

1) No games for me this week despite the fact that both the Mets and Yankees were playing at home in perfect weather. The Red Sox series was sold out; I wanted no part of it. And as for the Nationals series across town, I just didn't feel like going. Shea is lame. That's pretty much what it came down to.

2) In five days, I'll be flying to Orlando for three games at Disney World, so get ready for a few more monster blog entries.

3) Several months ago, a writer with the LA Times Magazine got in touch and asked a bunch of questions about snagging baseballs at Dodger and Angel Stadiums. (Remember?) Well, the piece finally came out, and of course nearly all the info I provided got cut, but that's just how it goes with these things, and actually, that's a big part of what motivated me to write my first book. Anyway, if you want to see the piece, click here.

Posted on April 17, 2008 at 9:13 PM
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4/10/08 at Nationals Park!

I wasn't planning to attend this game. I wasn't even planning to visit Nationals Park for a few months, but when I woke up on April 10th and...

a) realized I was free all day
b) found out that my parents weren't using their car
c) learned it was supposed to be warm and sunny in Washington, D.C.
d) saw that the previous night's attendance was only 23,340

...I knew I had to be there. My girlfriend Jona was also free, so we went together--not exactly the most romantic getaway, but hey, we did end up spending a lot of quality time together in the car.

The 231-mile drive from New York City was relatively painless, and the stadium was easy to find, but the parking situation was a nightmare. Yes, there were parking lots all over the place, including several that were tucked into the stadium itself, but they all required permits. It literally took 45 minutes to find the ONE garage that would take us, by which time it was too late for me to wander and take pics. Very disappointing. It's one of my rituals whenever I'm at a stadium for the first time, but it wasn't meant to be at Nationals Park. Jona and I pretty much had to buy our tickets and get right on line at the center field gate, but at least we were able to buy tickets in the first place. That's the reason I wasn't planning to go to D.C. until later in the season. I assumed every game through the All-Star Break would be sold out, and I was

waiting for the crowds to shrink. This game, however--only the fourth regular-season contest in the brief history of the stadium--was so sparsely attended that I was able to buy two seats in the third row behind the visiting team's dugout. This was huge. I didn't know how strict security would be, and I absolutely needed access to that section; the Nationals were using commemorative balls during games, and I had to snag at least one. That was my goal for the day, and when I walked away from the ticket window, I knew I had a great chance.

Twenty minutes before the gates opened, two guys walked over and introduced themselves, and you can see us in the pic on the right. Doug (beard and glasses) was friends with Alex (Nationals jersey), a fellow baseball collector who'd recently been leaving a bunch of comments on my blog. He had told me to let him him know when I was coming down for a game. I emailed him that morning. He wrote back and told me what he'd be wearing, and voila, here we were. At first I was a bit concerned about competing with him. And then Doug pulled out a glove. Great. Would they be going for commemorative balls at the dugout as well? Did either of them have a glove trick? What about a Marlins cap? No, no, and no. I was relieved, of course, but then I felt guilty about invading their otherwise mellow snagging sanctuary. Alex didn't mind. He wasn't gung-ho about snagging every possible ball, and anyway, he wanted to see me in action. Doug, meanwhile, was even more laid-back about snagging. He was just hoping to get a ball or two, and if it didn't happen, it wasn't a big deal.

The gates opened five minutes late, and I was okay with that. It was still only 4:45pm--nearly two and a half hours until game time. I ran in ahead of Alex and Doug, and Jona followed me with her camera. I was so excited to be inside my 43rd major league stadium that I completely spaced out and forgot to look everywhere for potential easter eggs. Instead, I ran directly to the corner spot next to the left field bullpen, and sure enough, Alex ended up finding a ball in the flower bed between the wall and the first row of seats. Duh.

Thankfully, the people who designed this stadium never considered the fact that I'd be there someday with my glove trick. (Or maybe they DID consider it and decided to make it easy for me.) The front row behind the left field bullpen actually overhung the space down below. How perfect is that?! There was nothing (i.e., an extra flower bed or double railing) preventing me from lowering my glove, so when a Nationals righty hit a home run that landed there, I went to work. In the four-part pic below (going clockwise from the top left), you can see me lowering my glove, swinging it out to knock the ball a little closer, dropping the glove over the ball, and lifting it up:

Props to Jona for her excellent camera work, and check THIS out...Alex was able to dig up some photographs taken by a couple of construction cams mounted high inside the stadium. In the shot below, you can actually see me using the glove trick while Jona (wearing a pink jacket) leans over the railing with her camera:

Of course, the ball was one of those cheap, made-in-China training balls. The Nationals have been using them for a few years. You don't even have to look too closely at this one to see that it's lopsided. If I were going out to Central Park to

play ball with a few friends, *I* wouldn't even use these balls. I truly don't understand how major leaguers put up with them. These balls don't even feel the same as regular balls. The surface is slick like plasticky leather. Real balls are a bit grainier and feel softer and more genuine. I really wonder if there's a correlation between the quality of the BP balls and the success of the team that uses them. Two days earlier, the Tigers were using minor league balls during BP at Fenway Park, and whaddaya know, they started the season 0-7. The Nationals, meanwhile, were stuck in the middle of a losing streak that ended up lasting nine games. Attention general managers (and equipment managers): if you want your players to play like All-Stars, consider circulating a few All-Star balls into the practice bins. If you want your team to play well enough to reach the World Series, let the players see and feel and throw and hit a few World Series balls. Give 'em a taste of what lies ahead. It would certainly make us baseball collectors happier as well.

Even though the left field seats were still mostly empty, I could sense that that whole area was temporarily dead so I ran over to the "Red Porch" seats in left-center. Beautiful. All the seats had extra thick cushions, and there was a decent amount of space to run around. But best of all, there was a glorious

gap between the outfield wall and the first row of seats. It's like it was custom-made for my glove trick. I only stayed out there for a couple minutes, during which time nothing landed in the gap, but I did get two more training balls tossed to me. The first came from Nationals first base coach Jerry Morales, and as for the second, I asked pitcher Ray King for it when he walked over to pick it up off the warning track in straight-away center field.

"Didn't you just get one?" he demanded.

"Yeah," I said, "but I was really hoping to get another for my girlfriend."

It was the only thing I could think of, and as soon as the words left my mouth, I cringed at how lame it must've sounded. But it worked. King nodded and flipped me the ball, and I ran over to Jona and pretended to give it to her. She didn't care, and in fact, she was able to snag a ball on her own several minutes later. The construction cam, which according to Alex takes one photograph every ten minutes, had excellent timing. Check it out below. Jona is standing in the corner spot, holding up her arms to get the player's attention while I'm watching proudly (and wishing I were a girl) from a few rows back:

I got my fourth ball of the day (another effin' training ball) tossed by Luis Ayala near the left field foul pole, then quickly moved to straight-away left field when a righty started taking cuts. Less than a minute later, he launched a deep line drive right at me. I froze, then moved down one row as the ball was approaching, and reached up for the easy one-handed catch. I stuck the ball in one of my many cargo pants pockets and waited for a little break in the action so I could label it and drop it in my backpack. When I pulled it out for another look, I nearly did a double-take. It was a commemorative ball:

I wasn't satisfied. The logo was worn. I needed another, and the snagging continued.

Another home run landed in the bullpen, and I was all over it. Another training ball. GAH!!! At least Jona was able to take more pics:

While I was coiling the string, John Lannan walked onto the warning to retrieve a couple balls. I didn't expect anything from him because I'd just gotten one, and there was a kid with a glove right next to me (he got a ball soon after, don't worry), and I wasn't even wearing mine. But I still called out out to him (I was the ONLY fan who called out) and made a polite request, and he threw me the ball:

Did you see the ball? Here's a close-up of the same pic. Note the string from my glove trick wrapped around my right hand:

The Baseball Collector

Zack Hample has snagged 3,820 balls from 44 different Major League stadiums. Find out how and see what else he's been up to...