As the professional baseball season slides into its late stages, I have to make a confession. Like Bill W. before me, I may have to start a 12-step program for an affliction of my own. “Hello,” I’ll say, “my name is John C. and I will do anything to get a free baseball at the ballpark.”
I have been taking my sons to ballgames for over two decades. We used to go to Veterans Stadium in
Slugger Field, like most Triple-A parks, is small and cozy and you can engage the players up close. There are some great seats for utilizing that intimacy. I prefer the left field bleachers. The first row there is not much more than about 20 feet from the left fielder. Home team member and visitor alike, I immediately try to strike up a rapport. “Nice at-bat last inning,” I’ll offer, or, after reading about the kid in the program, I’ll say, “My folks grew up in (fill in the name of his Podunk hometown). That’s your hometown too, isn’t it?” This patter will continue throughout the game, never once letting either player in on the fact that I’m doing the same thing to his counterpart. This seldom fails to yield a free ball. Somewhere by the seventh or eighth inning, a lazy fly-ball third out will make its way to my mark. He’ll make the grab and turn around and toss the ball the 15 feet over the wall into my grateful hands. Some 20-year-old from Podunk doesn’t stand a chance against a 55-year-old raised in South Philly.
We have been doing this for years and have quite a collection of balls and broken bats (cadged from bat boys after the game and easily fixed with a screw and some tape). When I say a “collection” I do not mean that they are cached away, awaiting the perfect time to be put on eBay. These items have been put to good use on sandlot fields. I have ingrained this practice of not purchasing souvenirs into my sons since they were little. They would rather feign some debilitating disease to elicit a sympathetic response from a ballplayer than ever ask their dad for money to buy a ball.
Here’s a story from a few years back involving John and Mikey. We were seated in that premier foul-ball section down the first-base line. In a middle inning a ball became wedged between the rolled-up tarpaulin and the wall. My sons raced down the aisle and, without speaking a word of planning to each other or even sharing a knowing glance, Mikey leapt headfirst over the wall while John grabbed his ankles (thus creating a Mikey wheelbarrow). They retrieved the ball, much to the delight of other fans but also to the consternation of an usher who, thankfully, used his better judgment and let this minor transgression onto the field pass. One inning later another foul landed in the same place. John and Mikey repeated their performance, but this time the usher started down the aisle, motioning with his thumb that they were about to be tossed out of the park. The fans jeered and booed until he sheepishly gave them a warning and backed off on the ejection.
These two balls are the only ones that have never seen a sandlot pickup game. The boys each signed and dated them and have kept one each as a memento. We call them the “Mikey Over the Wall Balls.” As I said, there ’s no greater souvenir in sports than a
free baseball.
