Results tagged ‘ rick gold ’
8/21/12 Braves at Nationals: Nationals Park
Less than fifteen hours after saying goodbye to him in the morning, Rick Gold and I met up at the gates of Nationals Park for our 10th and final game together in 2012:
If you haven’t read the entry, Rick and I were on a bus together close to 2 o’clock that same morning. It was one of those times for a sarcastic “Long time no see”, since both of us had woken up pretty soon before that.
Speaking of people sleeping, that’s what the Nationals players were apparently doing, because they didn’t take batting practice:
Since it was my last day at Nationals Park for this year, I I used this time to say goodbye to most of the ushers I knew.
Eventually, the Nationals pitchers came out to throw, so I headed over there. Here is where a season full of pretty much not asking pitchers for baseballs came in handy (in that they probably would have recognized me if I had). I yelled out to Ryan Mattheus as he finished throwing and he tossed me the ball:
I was on the board!
I then just hung around until the Braves started hitting. When Juan Francisco’s group came up first, both Rick and I moved up to the second deck in right field:
As I said about Francisco in the last entry, dude hits BOMBS. I mean look how far I look how far away from home plate I was:
Unfortunately, he took probably less than twenty swings before finishing for the day.
I headed down to the lower level for the Braves group of lefties and Dan Uggla. There, two other ballhawks (Rick and a guy whose name I don’t know) took the two best spots in right, so I was forced to just stand in a middle spot and hope I could judge the ball better than them/ jump in front of them. When Jason Heyward hit a ball to my right, the ballhawk I didn’t know ran straight to his right. Meanwhile, I knew the ball was falling short of that. I ran into the row and made the running, backhanded catch:
As soon as I caught it, I searched for a kid and gave it away. I soon there after got Jonny Venters to toss me a ball and gave that too away.
That would be it for snagging. As for the game, I headed out to left field:
Stephen Strasburg was pitching, so I figured the righty-dominant Nationals would be more likely to go yard. I was right, but it was an inning *before* I got to my seat there. Oh, and there was a rain delay where it absolutely poured. It was my third rain delay in as many days. So it really was no big deal. The most notable part of it was before the delay started, it was raining at least three times harder than it was during the rain delay the game before.
During the rain delay, I got soaked, walked through the seats looking for tickets, got soaked, said goodbye to the ushers in the ballpark, got soaked, tried to get a ball from Alan Butts, got soaked, talked to Eddie Perez. Oh, and did I mention I got soaked? I don’t think I did. It was raining pretty hard. Do you remember when I said it was raining three times harder than the previous game DURING the game? Well during the rain delay, it rained about ten times harder. The rain would step up to “next level”, and then when you thought it couldn’t rain any harder, a burst of even harder rain.
Anyway, for the game, Stephen Strasburg and Paul Maholm managed to survive the rain delay to pitch again afterwards (the rain delay was in the second inning). Maholm went seven innings while Strasburg went six. Unfortunately for Maholm, it’s not how long you last, it’s how many runs you give up. Strasburg allowed just one run while Maholm allowed four.
STATS:
- 3 Balls at this game (1 pictured because I gave 2 away)
Numbers 384-386 for my “career”:
- 164 Balls in 39 Games= 4.21 Balls Per Game
- 3 Balls x 33,888 Fans= 101,664 Competition Factor
- 48 straight Games with at least 1 Ball
- 4 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
- 2 straight Games with at least 3 Balls
- 124 Balls in 28 Games= 4.43 Balls Per Game at Nationals Park
- 20 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 1 Ball
- 4 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 2 Balls
- 2 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 3 Balls
- Time Spent On Game 3:32- 11:22= 7 Hours 50 Minutes
7/18/12 Mets at Nationals: Nationals Park
Oh, another frustrating day at Nationals Park. Except this time, I knew it was going to be frustrating before I even entered the gates. Thus, this was me waiting for the gates to open:
Rick Gold, who had been with me at the prior game, alerted me to the fact that Jayson Werth had already taken batting practice, which meant the Nationals as a whole had probably taken batting practice. With the impending thunderstorms, I could see from the gate that the cage wasn’t even up (one of the reasons Nationals Park is better than either of the New York Parks). I also didn’t know it at the time, but this was the 100th ball I had ever snagged at Nationals Park, which also marks the first time I’ve ever snagged 100 balls at any given stadium.
When the gates opened, Rick tried to go to right field to use his retriever on a home run ball that had landed behind the scoreboard. I, meanwhile took advantage of the information Rick had half-knowingly given to me. I went to the Red Seats and found a ball Jayson Werth had hit there earlier:
For the record, Rick couldn’t find the ball. It was a mystery to both of us where it had gone, though, since we thought if anyone picked it up, it would be a person cleaning behind the scoreboard, but it was still filthy.
After I got my ball, the Nationals kept everyone under cover, because of the lightning storm passing through. NO one was allowed into the seats that weren’t covered. See for yourself:
That last picture was the spot I was when Jon Rauch and his throwing partner warmed up. I had to watch in despair as they finished throwing, because I know I could have easily gotten him to toss me a ball had I been allowed to go down there.
Eventually, the Nationals did let everyone down into the seats. Pretty much everyone rushed to the Mets’ dugout:
I’m not going to lie; I did too:
The only difference is: I wasn’t a zombie about it. I figured I would have a better shot at getting a ball from the Mets, but when Jayson Werth came out to throw with a trainer, I ran over to the other side of the stadium, changed into my Nationals shirt as I went over there, and got this from him:
Weird way to get two balls from the same player in one day, huh? Also, this was a minor milestone in that it was my 350th ball ever. It’s a pretty obscure milestone, so I’ll leave my elaboration at that.
During the game, this was my view of the action:
There were two righties pitching, so I figured I would camp out there. I had a pretty good amount of room to work with, even with Rick in right field too, but I forgot to get a picture of it. Sadly, the only home run in those seats came when I had already gone over to the Mets’ dugout. Rick told me I might have gotten it had I stayed. Oh well, I got this instead from a Mets ball boy:
So I ended my day at three baseballs. That’s pretty good for me for a day without batting practice, so I was happy.
STATS:
• 3 Balls at this game
Numbers 349-351:
•129 Balls in 28 Games= 4.61 Balls Per Game (12 Balls under 500)
• 3 Bals x 31,660 Fans= 94,980 Competition Factor
• 37 straight Games with at least 1 Ball
• 13 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
• 102 Balls in 22 Games at Nationals Park= 4.64 Balls Per Game
• 15 Games with at least 1 Ball at Nationals Park
• 15 Games with at least 2 Balls at Nationals Park
• Time Spent On Game 3:40- 11:22= 7 Hours 42 Minutes (exactly one minute more than I had the previous day)
7/17/12 Mets at Nationals: Nationals Park
After two games at Yankee Stadium, it was off to the magical land of Nationals Park…where the home team doesn’t hit for whatever weird reason:
Obviously, I tried to get a ball from the Nationals warming up:
but given I go to a bunch of Nationals games, I thought it would be in my best interest to maybe not draw as much attention to myself as I could, so the Nationals wouldn’ty recognize me or potentially recognize me at a later game. Therefore, I didn’t get a ball from them.
I waited and waited. Finally, after what felt like hours, the Mets started hitting. You would think that meant I would get a bunch of baseballs, right? Nope. The Mets aren’t exactly the most powerful lineup. They really didn’t hit anything within fourty feet of me. The only ball I got from Mets batting practice was tossed to me by Chris Young in the Red Seats:
That was it. After Young tossed me the ball, I wanted to just catch a few home runs before I started asking the Mets for more balls. I wanted to set up myself for success the next day. I was thinking, “Hey, if I don’t ask that many Mets today for a ball, I can maybe hit double digits tomorrow.” Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the Mets are power-hitter deficient, so I would end batting practice with one baseball.
With two lefty pitchers- Ross Detweiler and Jonathan Niese- this game, I just sat out in left field pretty much the whole game. I had ushers on both the right field and left field sides who were letting me into their sections, so I made it to right field a few times (or maybe I’m getting this mixed up and I stayed mostly in the right field seats and made it occasionally to the left field seats), but in the dead space between the end of batting practice and the first pitch (usually about 50 minutes from 6:20 to 7:10) I didn’t know this, so I had some time to kill sitting in the left field seats. I filled such time by yelling out the correct answers to people playing trivia games, shown on the jumbotron, since the place they were getting filmed from was only a few feet from me in real life:
If you’re wondering, I got all of the answers right. I can’t remember what the questions were about, but I have also learned a pattern in the correct answers of the Nationals no matter the question being asked.
During the game itself, I saw no action at all. At the end of the game, though, I made my way over to the Mets’ dugout. I asked the umpire for a ball, but got rejected. By the time I got back over to the dugout itself, all of the Mets had entered the dugout from a way-too-drramatic loss. What had happened was: the Nationals had been leading 2-0 pretty much the whole game. Then, in the top of the ninth, Jordan Valdespin hit a three-run home run. It looked like the Mets had just won the game, but the Nationals tied the game in the bottom of the ninth at 3-3. As we headed to extra innings, the Mets scored again, but the Nationals came right back in the bottom of the tenth and scored two runs to win the game 5-4. It was the most back-and -forth game I have ever been to. I ran down the stairs three times to get an umpire ball, since I was convinced the game was over.
Anyway, my last hope was the people coming from the bullpen. When they arrived, I asked bullpen coach, Ricky Bones, for the lineup card. He said no, but reappeared from the dugout right after he went down and tossed me a ball before then proceeding into the clubhouse:
That was it. A long, full day of boringness that I didn’t think was noteworthy enough to include in this entry. That’s why this entry is so short.
STATS:
- 2 Balls at this game
Numbers 347 and 348 for my “career”:
- 126 Balls in 27 Games= 4.67 Balls Per Game (9 Balls under 500)
- 2 Balls x 26, 342 Fans= 52, 684 Competition Factor
- 36 Games with at least 1 Ball
- 12 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
- 99 Balls in 21 Games at Nationals Park= 4.71 Balls Per Game
- 14 Games with at least 1 Ball at Nationals Park
- 14 Games with at least 2 Balls at Nationals Park
- Time Spent On Game 3:37- 11:18= 7 Hours 41 Minutes
7/16/12 Blue Jays at Yankees: Yankee Stadium
Finally, it was my “game to survive at Yankee Stadium before I get back to Nationals Park”, and look who joined me for the occasion:
That would be me on the left and Ben Weil on the right. In fairly usual “Ben” fashion, he came running down the hill at which Yankee Stadium is at the bottom of and met me at the front of the line with five minutes to spare until the gates opened.
When said gates opened, it didn’t take long until I botched my first ball of the game:
I was in the lower-right hand comer of the section trying to get a Yankees player to toss me a ball. Just then, a Yankee lefty hit a ball. Off the bat, it looked like it wasn’t even going to make it to the warning track, but it just kept carrying and carrying. Eventually, it hit the railing perpendicular to the fourth row of seating, where it then floated right to Ben, standing in the back row of the section.
My ventures then took me to the left field foul line, where I asked for a ball from, and got rejected by, nearly the whole Blue Jays pitching staff. Okay, so maybe I only asked like two of them, but it was still frustrating. I then headed over to the left field seats… just to see that the right field seats had pretty much cleared up, and were better for snagging than where I now was:
Do you notice the guy in the lower-left corner of the picture? That would be Rick Gold. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Rick, prior to this game, had been at three of the same games as I had this year at Nationals Park. However, this would be the first time we would attend a Yankee game together since 2010 (before this blog existed and Rick had snagged his 1,000th ball).
In addition to Rick, Ben was standing on the same staircase with me. To be more specific, he was standing right behind me when I took the picture. Eventually, though, things would change so Rick would be in front, Ben in the middle, and me in the back. Then there was a ball hit. Rick, as he usually does, broke after the ball as soon as it was in the air. Ben, meanwhile, knew it was coming right on our staircase, so he did the smart thing and waited as long as he could to make a break on the ball ( as to not give me time and space to get in front of him and use my height advantage). The result of all of this was five gloves went up in the air for the ball- our three and two others- and mine came up with the ball:
I think the best way to described the way I caught the ball is that my glove was in the position a first base man scoops a ball in, but the glove was above my head. Truthfully, it was a stupid decision. With all of the gloves in the air, the chances of me getting smacked in the face with the ball vastly outweighed the chances of me catching the ball. But, I caught the ball, so chances are I’ll probably make the same mistake again and get hit in he face before I learn my lesson.
After this, I headed over to right field just as they were clearing the seats. Why? Thanks to Ben, I had a ticket for section 104, which meant I could stay there for all of batting practice. Just look at how empty it was once they cleared the seats of all other people:
Even better was the fact that the Blue Jays group of power lefties was up. I got two balls from this group. Both of which I will explain using the next picture:
My first ball was hit by Adam Lind. It hit off the metal strip above the guy yelling (as shown by the arrow), with a hand to his mouth. The second ball I wasn’t sure if I should count. It was hit by Cody Rasmus, and rattled around in the seats. Do you see the guy in the gray shirt and “NYPD” hat? That is Tak, a very friendly guy who is pretty starting to ballhawk this season. He was right on the ball, but didn’t catch it, so when the ball hit the ground, I picked it up. Tak, then just seeing a ball being taken, instinctively grabbed it through his legs. The combination of him being a friend and the awkward position we were now in made me let go of the ball. I initially wasn’t going to count this ball, but Tak talked me into it after batting practice ended. Also after batting practice ended, Tak and I got a picture together:
After we got the picture together, I showed Tak the “Mike Harkey” snagging opportunity that is always available at Yankee Stadium. We headed up to the top of the batter’s eye, where this was our view:
I left Tak in that spot with the advice “Act animated” and moved closer to the bullpen, so we wouldn’t be getting in each other’s way. When Harkey did throw his ball to the batter’s eye, it whizzed right past me. Initially, I was pretty upset. That was, until I saw who caught the ball:
I’m always happy when another ballhawk snags a ball, even at my expense. Even more so when said ballhawk catches 4 balls less than you per game according to his mygameballs.com account (that’s the link I attached to his name when I first introduced Tak in this entry).
As for the game, I was in left field, where this was my view of the game:
Do you see the right fielder in the picture? That would be Jose Bautista. In the first inning, he turned around with his warm-up ball in hand. I then got up and waved my arms around. He looked at me and tossed the ball, but he missed me and the ball sailed about 15 feet to my right (or at least I think he was aiming for me. I can’t be sure, but as you saw in the picture of myself and Tak, I was wearing a very attention-grabbing Blue Jays shirt.), but I had picked an empty row to sit in:
so I was able to get right behind the ball as it sailed towards my row. As it neared my glove, though, a twenty-something in front of me reached up and tipped the ball right into my row. He then dove into my row, but I tapped the ball just out his reach and picked the ball up.
As for the game itself, I saw some action, but it was just frustrating. Adam Lind hit a ball I could tell was going to clear the wall, but I also knew it was going to be in the middle of a packed row, so I went down my staircase just as a formality. Here is a screenshot:
The arrow on the left is where the ball landed and the arrow on the right is me running down the steps. After this, miraculous, but semi-tragic happened: the ball bounced within inches of my glove. Actually, the ball bounced right at my glove, but…well, let me put up another screenshot and then I’ll continue explaining:
You can see me in the attire I was in when I took the picture with Tak earlier. Then in front of me, there’s the kid/guy in the burgundy shirt bending down. As I said, the ball bounced and was headed RIGHT at my glove, but this guy deflected the ball away from me. The guy in the Yankee hat (in the screenshot) then tried to get down for the ball at the same time as me, but even though I take up virtually no space, both of us couldn’t fit through the narrow opening, so we both got stuck and the guy in the burgundy bent down and picked up the ball. If you’re at all counfused by my explanation of this, here’s the video:
Anyway, that was pretty much it for things of note for this day. The only other thing was it was now the second game where I had seen a pitcher with an innings total that was the same four digits repeated:
If you don’t know why I’m posting this, the explanation is in my last entry. Just scroll down, or, if you’re reading just this entry, go to the bottom of the page and click the “Previous Entry” thingamajig.
STATS:
- 4 Balls at this game (2 pictured because I only kept two)
Numbers 343-346 for my life:
- 124 Balls in 26 Games= 4.77 Balls Per Game (or 6 Balls under 500)
- 4 Balls x 42,819 Fans= 171,276 Competition Factor
- 35 straight Games with at least 1 Ball
- 11 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
- 81 Balls in 21 Games at New Yankee Stadium= 3.86 Balls Per Game
- 21 straight Games at New Yankee Stadium with at least 1 Ball
- 6 straight Games at New Yankee Stadium with at least 2 Balls
- Time Spent On Game 3:38-10:44= 7 Hours 6 Minutes
7/6/12 Rockies at Nationals: Nationals Park
My third game at Nationals Park in the same week, and look who was at the gates waiting with me:
Left to right, that would be:
1. Me.
2. Rick Gold- A ballhawk originally from the Oakland area, but who now operates from New Jersey. As of this game, he had snagged 1,354 balls, which is impressive considering he doesn’t try to get players to toss him baseballs. Of those, 45 have been game home runs.
3. Greg Barasch- In addition to being a friend and fellow ballhawk, Greg also happens to be my next-door neighbor. As of this game, he had snagged a total of 1,216 baseballs.
While we awaited the gates opening, Greg and I played a little catch. Here are a couple of pictures of it, courtesy of Rick:
There I’m just winding up. Neither of us threw anywhere close to as hard as we could, since there were other people around us.
It’s pretty much the same time in a different throw, from a different angle.
This picture was taken on a very awkward looking follow through. From this angle, you can see Greg further down the sidewalk.
Eventually, there were enough people walking by that we just stopped and took the picture you saw at the beginning of the entry.
Once I got in the stadium, I almost immediately got my first ball of the day:
It was a ground-rule double that the kid in blue hat and shirt reached up to grab, but in doing so, he only deflected the ball into my glove. Also, if you zoom-in on that last picture, you can see Rick (in red) patrolling the Red Seats, and Greg (in black) working the Nationals players in right field.
I then headed over to the Red Seats, where it was cup trick day. First, here is Rick pulling up a ball with his ball retrieval device:
Notice the groundskeeper laughing behind the Direct TV satellite dish. Then I got to see Greg pull a ball out of the bullpen (two pictures):
As Greg reeled in his ball, I headed over to the right field seats for Bryce Harper’s group. I didn’t get anything for Harper or the rest of his group, but Craig Stammen (the guy on the left of the group of three Nationals in the outfield):
Threw a ball to a kid, but missed him, so I caught the ball and then gave it to the kid (in the orange).
I believe that was it for Nationals B.P. At that point, the ballhawk scoreboard was Greg: 8 Rick: 4 Mateo: 2. It was a pretty frustrating day at that point, because two of the balls Rick snagged would have easily had been mine had he not been there. Even Greg’s dad, who showed up just before the gates opened because he had to park, had more baseballs than me at five. Also, at this point, Greg told me he wanted to get 15 on the day (his record for one game).
Then a bunch of righties came up, so I headed over to the Red Seats, but both Rick Gold and a latecomer, Steve Miller, were there. Steve is in the blue shirt at the back of the section, and Rick is in the red in the front. So after “checking in” on Rick and saying, “Hi” to Steve, I made my way back to right field. It should be noted, Steve writes a Marlins blog, and has already published an entry about the game, which you can check out here. After my “hello”s, I headed back to the right field seats.
There, a ball was hit into the seats right in my row. I ran towards it and grabbed the ball:
As I grabbed the ball, the kid in the orange in the row behind me in the picture (looking at the camera with a ball in his hand), grabbed the ball. I had it first, so I could have easily yanked it away from him, but I decided to let go of the ball. For the record, I do count these balls, because if I don’t, I’ve created a scoring system that incentives taking balls away from other people: For my sake, I just have to have possession, and the ball counts. As I see it, I’m giving this ball away to the person by not making things get ugly, and competing with that person.
My next ball was also hit. It bounced off the lady partially occluded by the string dangling from my glove, where it went right into my row, and I picked it up:
Towards the end of Rockies batting practice, I headed over to third base foul ground. My rationale for this was things had been going SO slowly that I wasn’t missing much by getting a head start to the dugout when Rockies did end their batting practice. The first of the balls I got in foul ground was hit by a Rockies lefty:
It bounced off the guy in red in the right part of the picture and landed a couple of rows below him, where I picked it up.
Just as batting practice ended, I was planning to go to the dugout, but someone I can’t describe as anything other than “a random Rockies guy” was holding up a ball, and gesturing as if he were going to toss it into the crowd. I started waving my arms in the air like crazy to try to get him to toss it to me. He didn’t, but he *did* throw it over me. It was the a semi-foot race to the spot the ball landed between myself and the other kids who had seen where the ball landed. I say “semi”, because to them it was simply a foot race, but I knew they were going to beat me to that spot, so I stopped a few rows under the spot, since balls usually roll down a few rows. I then saw the ball rolling down the steps, so I ran over and picked it up, much to the chagrin of the kids who realized what had just happened:
The place where I snagged the ball is the section just to the right of the glove, and the guy who threw it was on the field by the right-most part of the picture.
I then sat by the dugout for a few minutes after batting practice to catch up on notes and such. There, I noticed a weird defect on one of the balls:
I’ve seen plenty of balls with the “practice” stamped upside-down, but this was the first one I’ve seen completely miss the sweet spot of the ball. Also while I was there, I rendezvoused with Steve. The last time we had met at a game, I think we both thought we should have gotten a picture together, so this time we gave my phone/camera to a random fan, but all of the pictures turned out like this:
So when I saw Greg’s dad a few seats from us, I asked him to take a picture of us, which came out a lot better (unless you’re into the artsier silhouettes):
At the end of batting practice, the full ballhawk scoreboard was as follows:
Greg- 13
Rick- 6
Mateo- 6
Shelly (Greg’s dad)- 6
Steve- 4
35 balls isn’t bad for 5 people at a game.
Here is a picture Rick took of me in the right field seats with the balls I had kept:
In reality, I had only kept 4 baseballs, but I had my 80th career ball to play catch with Greg with, so I included that in the picture for “effect”.
I think I stayed in those seats for maybe three innings, but I didn’t like my chances with Stephen Strasburg on the mound. Even if he had just given up two home runs, I believe they were only his fifth and sixth of the year.. So I headed over to the Rockies dugout, where this was my view. *I* didn’t snag anything, but I was able to watch Greg put on a dugout clinic.
By the time I had gotten there, Greg had already snagged a third out ball from Tyler Colvin, and a Will Nieves foul ball, which tied him for his personal record. While the game was still in session, I managed to see him snag a third out ball from Nieves, and then a Jonathan Herrera foul ball.
At the end of the game, I, along with Greg, headed over to the umpire tunnel to try to get a ball from Jim Joyce:
He was sitting at 17 balls at that point, so we were going through scenarios in our minds with which he could get twenty baseballs. Unfortunately, all of these involved a ball from Jim Joyce, the home plate umpire, and Joyce didn’t give either of us a ball. The Rockies had won the game, though. So their players and coaches were still coming back to the dugout by the time we moved over there. It was then that both of us got a ball from Glenallen Hill. Then I believe a ball boy tossed Greg another ball (I know SOMEone tossed Greg another ball, but I’m not sure who it was). Joyce had handed a ball to a kid just to the right of Greg, so I thought the second ball he got had been his twentieth ball of the game, so I took a picture of Greg with it:
When in reality, that had been Greg’s nineteenth, which Greg explained to me right after he got the ball. Greg also had a plan to get his twentieth of the game. Earlier in batting practice, there had been a ball that landed in the flowers o the left field bullpen. Greg’s plan was to go over there and either cup trick it, or have someone toss it up to him. I left the dugout soon after him, so I could see him waiting by the bullpen, and I was going to try to get a picture of him, but by the time I got over there, he was gone. I called him to see where he was, and if I could get a picture of him with his baseballs. I learned two things on that phone call: 1. He was in a car already on his way back to New York. (His dad wanted to leave. I don’t blame him; it was nearing 11:00 PM, and it’s a 4-5 hour drive back to New York.) 2. He had gotten a member of the grounds crew to toss him the ball. Oh. My. Goodness. I had just witnessed a “twenty” game!
I headed back to my apartment, and although the Metro was more jam-packed than ever:
I couldn’t care less. I had a small grin on my face the whole time, and it wasn’t even I that had done anything special.
-Keep reading past the stats to see a few pictures I took of Greg with his baseballs (in a couple of minutes)-
STATS:
• 7 Balls at this game (5 pictured because I gave 2 away)
Numbers 327-333 for my career:
• 111 Balls in 22 Games= 5.05 Balls Per Game
• 7 Balls x 28,951 Fans= 202,657Competition Factor
• 31 straight Games with at least 1 Ball
• 7 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
• 6 straight Games with at least 3 Balls
• 6 straight Games with at least 4 Balls
• 90 Balls in 18 Games at Nationals Park= 5 Balls Per Game
• 9 straight Games with at least 1 Ball at Nationals Park
• 9 straight Games with at least 2 Balls at Nationals Park
• 7 straight Games with at least 3 Balls at Nationals Park
• 5 straight Games with at least 4 Balls at Nationals Park
• Time Spent On Game 3:13- 11:17= 8 Hours 4 Minutes
So, as promised, here are the pictures of Greg at his apartment the next week. This first one are the “only” 13 balls he kept broken up into groups. The biggest group is just the “rest” of the baseballs.The top two are his two foul balls (a personal best). The middle two are his 18th and 19th balls of the game. The one to the right of those two is his 20th ball of the game:
One of said balls had an interesting mark on it:
If you can’t tell, it is the logo of another baseball that probably got there from that other baseball being squished against it.
I then combined the five balls I kept with his, and we re-took the picture:
For the record, us five ballhawks ended up combining for 43 baseballs on the day. Not bad, eh?
I then got a picture of Greg with some “balligraphy”:
The final picture I took was of Greg with his two foul balls against the background of his baseball “stuff”:
7/5/12 Giants at Nationals: Nationals Park
Yay for free tickets!
Boo W.B. Mason trucks:
Let me explain myself a little further. The man holding water in the first picture is friend and ballhawk, Rick Gold. Rick works for mlb.com, so he gets into games for free. Not only that, but he can get an extra ticket. Instead of paying my usual $13, Rick hooked me up with a free ticket. Like I’ve mentioned before, there is an usher in right field who lets me sit there every game, so it doesn’t really matter where my ticketed seat is, just as long as I can get in the gates. My thumbs-down to the W.B. Mason truck is because that was the giveaway. Not the actual, giant truck, but here’s the first picture once I got in the gates:
I actually got two of these since Rick’s bag was stuffed and he didn’t want carry it around with him.
I was in left field for this picture and all of pitchers batting practice, but I didn’t get anything until the third group of hitters in right field. The third group is that which contains Adam LaRoche and Bryce Harper. One ball, LaRoche hit a bit over my head and to my right. I moved right into the exact spot where the ball was going to land, but for some reason, even though it was going straight towards my glove, the ball tipped off it and I picked it off the ground. I know it may sound shallow and stupid, but I was pretty mad with myself for dropping such an easy ball. Sure I still got it, but I also realize that the ball would have probably been someone else’s had I been in New York. Here is the spot where I dropped/snagged the ball:
I then almost caught what would have been a pretty cool ball. I believe it was LaRoche again, but it might have been Harper. Anyways, one of the two lefties hit a ball I could tell was maybe going to barely make it to the seats. I went all the way down the steps, reached out as far as I could and felt the ball hit my glove. I then had my glove pressed against the wall. I couldn’t tell, but people to my side cheered like I had caught it, so I carefully lifted my glove as to not drop a ball if it was in there, but the ball had probably dropped onto the warning track since it wasn’t in my glove as I dragged it up the wall. Here is the spot I almost caught it in:
I was leaning over the raised part of the glass, so I actually would have probably caught the ball had I went over to the railing and reached over that instead.
After that, there wasn’t much action in right field. The most interesting thing that went on was I got to see Rick using his device in the Red Seats:
I don’t have a picture of it, but it’s a cup trick of sorts. Like one you would see in either Atlanta or in San Francisco.
When I say it wasn’t interesting, that doesn’t mean the players weren’t hitting home runs. It just means those home runs weren’t near me. There were a bunch going into the second and third decks in right field. Those seats were closed until 5:30. So at 5:27, I lined up here expecting a big “payday”:
There were so many balls hit up there in fact, I spent my time waiting trying to figure out how I could keep track of what order I snagged the balls in, expecting to need to use four of my backpack’s pockets. When I got up there, though, there was nothing. The ushers had cleared out all the balls they could find in the seats. That’s the only explanation I have. No one I saw found a ball and there were at least 5 hit in the second deck and two in the third deck. Of course, one in the upper deck had been hit far enough to evade the usher’s sweep of the section. The problem was, myself and the two other fans searching the section had not seen where that ball landed, so it was Rick, after batting practice who found it and kindly (read: cruelly) took a picture for me:
Let’s get back to batting practice, though, shall we? Dejected, I walked over to third base foul ground to try to get a ball from the Giants pitchers warming up:
Like the last game I went to, they didn’t even throw a ball into the crowd while I was there. I then headed over to left field to try to catch a home run from the Giants hitters. I failed at doing this, but I got a ball from Santiago Casilla by the bullpen. At least I think that’s who it was. It was a pitcher, and he’s the person that looks most like the person who tossed me the ball on the Giants roster.
I then went over to the Red Seats where I got Shane Loux to toss me ball. Here’s a diagram of it from a picture I took in right field right after I got the Loux ball:
The black arrow shows where Loux had to move to field the ball, and the orangey arrow is the path of the ball. I then asked who hadn’t gotten a ball. A kid raised his hand, but he didn’t have a glove, so I kept on searching. Usually when this happens and I say why I didn’t give him the ball, the parent(s) react negatively. In this case, though; when I said, “Well, where’s your glove?” the father said, “I told you, you need to have your glove on all the time.” After I gave the ball away to another kid, I talked to the father briefly about experiences sitting in the upper deck with a glove on at all times as a kid.
I then moved over to foul ground to try to get a ball from Barry Zito, since I wasn’t having any luck with hit baseballs:
Of course when I got there, batting practice ended with me at three balls on the game.
I started off the game in right field, where this was my view:
For those wondering: yes, that is Rick’s head in front of me in that picture.
Tonight’s game was turn back the clock night. That meant both team’s would have their 1924 uniforms on. It would be the New York Giants versus the Washington Senators:
It also meant the stadium’s employees dressed up like it were 1924. Take this picture from the end of batting practice. Can you spot the three different employee outfits?
I didn’t like my chances of getting anything in right field with Matt Cain on the mound, though. My mom grew up in the bay area, so she was raised a Giant fan. Normally she doesn’t go to games much, but with the Giants in town, she and my step-dad decided to go to the game. I used one of their tickets to move over here:
While I was there, I saw the second coolest sky I’ve ever seen at Nationals Park:
By the way, did you notice the “1924″ scoreboard they had going?
Anyway, the Giants got beat by the “Senators” 5-6 in a thriller. The Giants were winning 5-1 in as late as the seventh, I believe, but once Matt Cain came out, the Nationals came back to make the score 5-4. Then they scored 2 runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game. The game ended on a tailor-made double play ball that just got botched. After the game, I went to the umpire tunnel, and got Gary Darling to toss me a ball:
STATS:
• 4 Balls at this Game (3 pictured because I gave 1 away)
Numbers 323-326 for my life:
• 104 Balls in 21 Games= 4.95 Balls Per Game
• 30 straight Games with at least 1Ball
• 6 straight Games with at least 2 Balls
• 5 straight Games with at least 3 Balls
• 5 straight Games with at least 3 Balls
• 83 Balls in 17 Games at Nationals Park= 4.88 Balls Per Game
• 8 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 1 Ball
• 8 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 2 Balls
• 6 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 3 Balls
• 4 straight Games at Nationals Park with at least 4 Balls
• Time Spent On Game 3:24- 10:27= 7 Hours 3 Minutes
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