September 2017 Pickups

[wsohlcano]

Late addition to the September thread..

Strawberry Yankee 1996 Bat.

[seanbaseball]

Picked up the nicest Medwick signed baseball ive ever seen and the only one with his nickname!
also picked up 2017 Molina gold chest protector to go with the mask

[GoCrazyFolks76]

Picked up the nicest Medwick signed baseball ive ever seen and the only one with his nickname!
also picked up 2017 Molina gold chest protector to go with the mask

Some pretty amazing pickups Sean!

[BernBabyBern]

Late September addition.
1999 Tino Martinez game use bat. PSADNA graded 10.
Thanks Jim!
Pablo

[sox83cubs84]

My birthday visit to Comiskey Park netted me one final pregame baseball. My 2017 total was embarrassing, by my standards (3), but with financial and health issues, as well as my wife's recuperation from knee replacement surgery, I only got to 4 games (all Chisox). Season's end total (career): 1,714

Dave Miedema

[joecoco]

That just makes them more special Dave! Congratulations. I miss catching the old American League baseballs. Remember those? There was just something great about opening up your glove and seeing the blue lettering. New balls are too corporate, if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't!

[sox83cubs84]

That just makes them more special Dave! Congratulations. I miss catching the old American League baseballs. Remember those? There was just something great about opening up your glove and seeing the blue lettering. New balls are too corporate, if that makes any sense, which it probably doesn't!

Your point is a good one, Joe, and I liked the old AL and NL baseballs better for similar reasons. Of course, there were the two times I caught MINOR LEAGUE baseballs at Major League BPs, but that's another story for another time.

Dave M.

[joecoco]

Minor league balls at a major league game!!! Yeesh. At the risk of sounding spoiled/elitist, that stinks. Looking forward to hearing that story.
On a somewhat similar note, I am a 44yo man with the This Week in Baseball theme song as my ringtone. Having said that, I have trouble identifying with this whole Ball Hawk Community thing. They have a right to do whatever, I get it, but it just seems regressed. Don't get me wrong, if I go to a game and accidentally catch a ball with my son I am ecstatic because I'm sharing that experience with him. I just do not feel the need to film catching every ball I catch and post it on Twitter. Or maybe I'm just getting to be an old fuddy-duddy, which is probably the case....

[sox83cubs84]

Minor league balls at a major league game!!! Yeesh. At the risk of sounding spoiled/elitist, that stinks. Looking forward to hearing that story.
On a somewhat similar note, I am a 44yo man with the This Week in Baseball theme song as my ringtone. Having said that, I have trouble identifying with this whole Ball Hawk Community thing. They have a right to do whatever, I get it, but it just seems regressed. Don't get me wrong, if I go to a game and accidentally catch a ball with my son I am ecstatic because I'm sharing that experience with him. I just do not feel the need to film catching every ball I catch and post it on Twitter. Or maybe I'm just getting to be an old fuddy-duddy, which is probably the case....

The Ballhawk Community, as you phrase it, has good and bad points. Most of the regulars are pretty sociable with each other, and sometimes hang out together away from the ballpark. Occasionally, 2 or more will take a road trip to nearby ballparks, or independently travel to Florida for spring training and meet up. All of 'em are solid baseball fans, and most are more than adequate at baseball history. Some play in pick-up leagues.

The biggest drawback is that a few of the guys (not all, but more than 1 or 2) take their status as a Ballhawk WAY too seriously. Rules are comprised by some as to what constitutes a catch you can count in your totals, some will berate others if they're seen asking (begging, in Ballhawk-speak) for a baseball, and generally will act is if being a Ballhawk is on a par with being a member of Seal Team 6 or the Green Beret. One a number of years ago (no longer active) asked me to help him sell a lot of 100 BP catches he made for $1,000. When I informed him that you could buy smaller lots on eBay for less than half his per-ball price, he (seriously) said that his should be worth more because they were caught by a Wrigley Field Ballhawk. The one Waveland Ave. shagger who posts on GUU occasionally, Dave Davison, is a decent guy who doesn't get too full of himself.

On the minor league baseballs, I had it happen twice: One was thrown to me by Ellis Burks of the White Sox that I tracked down, and was an Official Midwest League ball (the Sox had a Midwest League team in South Bend, IN at the time). The other was a tailing Dave Henderson foul ball that I made a nice catch on in the aisle not too far from the LF corner at County Stadium that was a PCL ball.

Dave M.