Spheres of Gold
Not until a couple of years ago was I introduced to the concept of arriving at a professional baseball game as soon as they let people in to attend batting practice in the hopes that you could catch or retrieve a ball hit into the stands.
Admittedly, arriving early dramatically increases your chances of going home with an official major league baseball. There are less people in the stands and there are more balls flying your way than in a game.
I have been fortunate enough to come away with several baseballs in my trips to Coors Field, but each time I go it seems to me that the competitive frenzy to capture one of these spherical treasures has increased, and not in a good way.
Grown men, fighting and clawing their way to reach a ball sitting underneath a row of bleachers that, if they tried to sell it on e-bay or something, would be worth maybe $5. The way people chase after these baseballs, you'd think they held the cure to cancer inside.
One instance in particular bothered me...there I was in the left field bleachers and a ball was hit right at me...I had it locked in and just as soon as it was to enter my glove, some yahoo sticks his glove in front of mine and stole it...there should be a common etiquette about this type of thing...maybe I'll develop it someday...but I'm too emotional now to be objective, if you have any input, please contribute.
posted by Dale @ 10:31 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Take a pregnant woman with you-they won't dare knock her over.
Tell the yahoo who catches it that you were trying to get the ball for your sick kid who is at home dying of cancer.
this tory is longer than it should be but worth telling:
in 2000 (back before the inevitable "sell-off" began) i was sitting with some friends at kauffman stadium for the last home game of what was an atypically exciting year. my firend's tickets were about 10 rows behind the royals dugout and i had sat in them many times before.
well, this game was special because, though they didn't make the playoffs, the royals were young, a fun team to watch and had 4 future all-stars on the team. it was the end of a great season.
they beat the tigers soundly, and as they were coming in from the field everyone left was standing and screaming for the team. i noticed johnny damon start to slow up as he reached the dugout. he looked as though he knew he had just played his last game as a royal (really, we ALL knew it.) he stopped, looked up, and threw his hat into the crowd. then his glove. people went crazy.
the other players started to catch on and pretty soon, they were all throwing out souvenirs to the crowd. hats. batting gloves. jerseys. it was the most unbelievable thing i had ever seen.
quickly we ran down a few rows to see if we could get anything. a friend that i was with, is, shall we say, rather attractive, and had the added bonus of actually knowing first baseman mike sweeney. so, of course, she saw him throwing things as well and yelled out "mike!" he looked over and saw us. smile and tossed a ball right to us. i mean, i may as well have been playing catch with him. that's how "right to me" it was.
needless to say, the ball gets withing a few feet of me...and the next thing i remember was seeing the under side of one of the seats there in section 112 and hearing my friend screaming "that's ours! come back here, you jerk!"
yes, i was mauled from behind by a 14 year-old kid and never had the chance to even beat the crap out of him before he took off.
i looked back to the field and sweeney was no where to be found.
a pregnant woman would certainly rouse sympathy from players (especially those who have children in several cities)
also, little girls from ages 4-7 seem to get a lot of baseballs thrown their way, since I have one of these, I should try taking her next time
Cade-sorry about the dude who stole your Sweeney ball, that's not cool...in fact, rule number one in baseball aquisition protocol should be...'If a ball is obviously being thrown from a player to a specific person, if anyone other than the intended recipient catches said baseball, that person must immediately hand over said baseball to the intended party or receive a verbal attack.
Rule 2 should be, if you're over 15 and you catch a ball, you should think very seriously about giving it to that 6 year old kid standing next to you
verbal attack? oh no no.
Knowing how crowds of people act these days, you're better off laying into someone verbally than acting like you're going to hit them...you never know what kind of Ron Artests might be there...
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