At least he gave the kid something of value. Back in the 1990s at Wrigley Field, one Ballhawk of the era used to hang buy the bullpen areas, as home runs that were thrown back were tossed to the closest bullpen once they were retrieved by the outfielder. This guy would run down and ask the kid excitedly to "see" his home run ball. The parents were almost always distracted by the game, cell phone calls, or whatever, so the kid would hand this Ballhawk his home run ball. The 'Hawk would examine it, but would use sleight of hand to pull a switch and give the kid a relatively worthless BP ball back instead of his home run. The guy once bragged to me about his switcheroos, and was proud that no kid had ever caught on to the deception. Pretty lame way to gyp a kid out of a home run ball.

Dave Miedema