Catching a Ball at a Game

I recently took my 10-year-old son Holden to a couple baseball games at the worst stadium in the Major Leagues, the Metrodome, and we came pretty close to getting a foul ball.  By the way, I think I speak for a few million Twins fans when I say that I can’t wait until Target Field opens next year! My wife and I have already ordered our season tickets — lower level, just past third base. Anyways, back to the story… Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira hit one that landed about eight feet from us and was caught on the rebound off a lady’s shoulder by some guy two seats in front of me.  Holden is now more obsessed than ever with the possibility of catching a ball at a game. He’s never been lucky enough to get one.

I completely get the fascination with catching a ball at a game. Granted, the excitement of getting one is completely disproportionate with the actual value of the object you are getting nine out of 10 times.  The exception would be a milestone home run by a famous, non-steroid using player…I wonder what Barry Bonds’ record home run ball would have fetched on E-bay were he not a juicer.  Regardless, a value cannot be placed on a game-caught ball to the person that catches it. Everyone–young and old–wants one. Admit it, so do you.  For some reason it’s like the Holy Grail of going to a game.

I almost caught one when I was a kid. It was during batting practice prior to the Twins home opener against the A’s back at old Metropolitan Stadium.  It must have been the late 1970s. We were sitting in the left field bleachers (thanks for letting us skip school, Mom and Dad) and somebody hit one that made a splash landing in the beer cup of a guy right in front of me.  That’s the only time I came remotely close to getting one as a kid.

As an adult, I once got a foul ball off the bat of Darryl Strawberry when I was in the parking lot of a St. Paul Saints (Northern League) game, but that doesn’t really count because I was not in the stands, nor was it a big-league game.  I was having too much fun tailgating to go into the game and Straw just happened to hit one over the roof of the stadium and it rolled to me. It’s not the same grabbing a ball from under the bumper of a car as it is snaring one hit into the stands.

Then a few years ago I got a ball at a Twins game that was fouled down into the visitor’s bullpen at the Metrodump when the ball boy flipped it into the stands. It just happened to come right to me. Immediately upon catching it, however, I was surrounded by a horde of kids yelling in unison, “Can I have the ball?! Can I have the ball?!” There was no “please;” it was like I was expected to hand it over…which I did to one of them.  It was the easy way out. Not only would I have been called names by a gang of angry elementary school kids, I would have been called worse by the adults around me.  I had the ball in my hands for less than five seconds; I didn’t even get to really look at it. But flipping it to a kid was easier to do than explaining to the other 30,000 in attendance that I wanted to take the ball home and give it to my son.

Even though it would not have been quite the same as catching one himself, in retrospect I hope that wasn’t Holden’s last good chance of getting a ball at a game. It probably wasn’t, but I’ve never caught one and I’ve been to a bazillion big-league games.

My advice to my son or to any other kid (or kid at heart) looking to catch that elusive game-used ball is to keep your fingers crossed on one hand and your glove on the other. Keep your eye on the ball… and don’t get your hopes up.