Minor League game-used

[godwulf]

I have a son in the Army in Alabama, and I was there for his wedding last Saturday...so since I was in the state, anyway, I thought I'd stay a couple of extra days and drive over to Mobile for some BayBears games. The fact that admission is free with my retired military ID is a nice bonus.

Much to my delight, what I'd hoped for, and had actually been fantasizing about, was reality - they sell cracked bats in the Team Shop for twenty bucks, and they're even signed. I picked up a half dozen, including one of the Diamondbacks' top prospects, Matt Davidson, who was dazzling at Third in Sunday's game and hit two home runs, including a tenth inning walk-off. It cost me a bit over fifty bucks to ship the bats Priority to Arizona. This all makes me very, very happy.

Oh, yeah, the wedding was okay, too, I guess.

In the bottom of the third, on Sunday, a BayBears player hit a very high pop foul into the second deck behind first base, and I stood up, took one step forward and tried to do a barehanded basket catch; I was about four inches off. It hit the base of my right thumb and bounced away, and a kid sitting a few seats down picked it up. I offered the kid five bucks for the ball, but it was no sale. I should have gone twenty. Oh, well.

[sox83cubs84]

Look at it this way...you saved the kid the trouble of running over with his hand out to beg for the ball if you had held on to it.

Dave Miedema

[godwulf]

Yeah, that's true. If I had it to do over again, though, I think I'd have tried to catch it in my cap. That won't get you near the applause if you pull it off as catching it in your bare hands would have, but I think you've probably got a better chance at actually holding onto it that way. All you get from the crowd when it bounces off your hand, I've discovered, is a pained and marginally sympathetic "Oooh!"

When I go to Fall League games now, I've started carrying some old BP ball that I found in the stands or on the outfield berm, of which I have a small supply. I keep it handy in a pocket, and if a kid comes begging for a foul ball that I've caught or chased down, I can do a switch - make the crowd happy and still get to keep my ball and get it signed later by the hitter.

[sox83cubs84]

Yeah, that's true. If I had it to do over again, though, I think I'd have tried to catch it in my cap. That won't get you near the applause if you pull it off as catching it in your bare hands would have, but I think you've probably got a better chance at actually holding onto it that way.

Not necessrily. The best-remembered and most celebrted home run catch at Wrigley Field in 2011 was by a guy in the back of the bleachers who was in the path of a Reed Johnson home run that was headed for Waveland Avenue and the ballhawks outisde when he used his cap to snare (and hold onto) the hard-hit ball).


Dave Miedema

[godwulf]

I remember seeing Bobby Witt in the Diamondbacks bullpen, during an out-of-town game in 2001, catch a Luis Gonzalez home run ball in his cap.

I also recall seeing Byun-Hyung Kim accidentally (?) throw his cap at a rolling ball in play, and how they hustled him back onto the mound to make a pitch before somebody on the other team remembered the rule that makes a player doing that something like a three base penalty.