You guys wouldn't know anything about this, would you?

[David]

It would be the ultimate in Karma if Scott Boras started offering negotiation services to fans who catch home run balls. Would players complain that "Boras demands are totally unreasonable" and "All he cares about is money."

[sox83cubs84]

The idiotic practice of "Throw It Back" did, indeed, begin at Wrigley Field in the 1980s, and has grown to the point of it being a borderline personal safety risk for bleacher fans who don't want to go along with the idiocy.

Since I began Ballhawking in 1991, I have seen a "9+" female pelted with garbage; two older men badly intimidated by the chanting crowd; a semi-regular Wrigley Hawk literally chased out of the bleachers, and kids having legitimately-earned home runs snatched out of their hands and thrown back by adult drunks, all to enforce "honoring the tradition".

In 1994, a fan was tossed from the bleachers during the 7th inning stretch for pouring his deceased grandfather's ashes onto the warning track. I fired off a letter to the Cubs, asking why pretty much harmless ashes were a cause for ejection, but not whipping back home run baseballs, far more likely to cause injury? The first letter was ignored; I sent a second, stronger-worded one and finally got a reply from the security boss, Mike Hill. His explanation; that the home run baseballs being thown onto the field (technically cause for ejection) were ignored because the players expected them to be thrown back, and were alert for them...i.e., a typical non-answer. Hill is still the security boss, and, 15 years later, I am still on his fan S**t List for daring to question the team's policies.

The Cubs care only about the money-hemmorhaging fans (season-ticket holders and premium seat buyers) and the frat boy bleacher drunks...other fans are of little or no worth to them, and they market accordingly. Most of this started when John McDonough (now Blackhawks team president) was the Cubs marketing director. Many fan-unfriendly policies were implemented during his time there...he got away with them because the local media kisses his AQQ in the same manner that the networks and newspapers kiss Barack Obama's.

I'm waiting for the day when a fan who declines to "honor the tradition" is physically attacked by the drunken morons in the bleachers and sues the team and its security force for gross negligence. The prospect of this is not an "if"...it's a "when", and when it occurs, the Cubs will deserve every black eye and flesh wound to it's PR image that it receives.

Dave Miedema
Chicago area

[joelsabi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsF0mPONeZc

this dude snagged a baseball for over 400 games.

"Great. Way to use your elbow sir"

[godwulf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsF0mPONeZc

this dude snagged a baseball for over 400 games.

"Great. Way to use your elbow sir"

"I like to feel special." Uh huh.

I am reminded of nothing so much as that one teenaged boy in 'Trekkies'...if you've seen the film, you know the one I mean. I was surprised that this guy didn't mention knowing how to say, "Please, may I have that ball?" in Klingon.

I snag one to four foul balls nearly every time I go out to an Arizona Fall League game, but only because at the stadiums I normally go to, I'm the only one sitting out in the direct sunlight (which can be brutal here, even in October) and at one ballpark in particular, all the balls roll down to the bottom, to the fence in front of the first row of seats, regardless of where they hit on that whole side of the field. You don't even have to run for it...just wait for it to roll down to you.

Last year I got fifteen balls in fifteen games, and then had them signed by the player who hit them, but the only ball I ever actually caught in the air was two years ago. A ball came over the third base dugout, hit a rail, and then bounced past my face; I stood up, took one step to the right and snagged it with a bare hand, for which I got a small smattering of applause, no doubt in recognition of my advanced years. Every other one I've ever gotten, I had to scrounge around on the ground for.