You know that Korean documentary that I’ve been talking about since last summer? It never aired in North America — only on the Korean Broadcasting System — and I was told by the filmmaker not to post it online. I’ve made a few copies for my friends who are *in* the movie, but as far as sharing it publicly, the best I can do is show you a bunch of screen shots, so check  it out. . .

The opening scene shows me dumping out (and unzipping) several bags of baseballs in my bedroom:

The documentary is IN Korean. There are no English subtitles — only Korean ones (as you can see above) to translate what I was saying. In the screen shot above, I’m in the process of saying, ”This whole bag is baseballs.”

Then there’s a brief montage of my TV appearances. Here’s Jay Leno talking about my first two books:

That clip was taken from my TV reel, which you can see here in its entirety. And by the way, did you notice that my name is spelled wrong up above? Amazing.

At around the four-minute mark, there’s some footage of me inside Yankee Stadium:

In the screen shot above (taken just after I changed out of my Rays gear and gave a ball to a kid), I’m saying to several on-lookers, ”I’m not a Rays fan. I’m just wearing that crap to get baseballs. Didn’t really work too well today, though.”

By the way, this was the game on August 13, 2011. Click here to read my blog entry about it.

Here I am back at my place, showing some of my favorite baseballs:

(Yes, my kitchen cabinets are ugly. They were like that when I moved in, and I don’t feel like paying thousands of dollars to replace them.)

In the screen shot above, the ball on the left is a Robinson Cano grand slam from the new Yankee Stadium, the ball in the middle is the last Mets home run ever hit at Shea Stadium, and the ball on the right is Barry Bonds’ 724th career home run.

Here’s something odd/funny:

Did you notice what’s wrong in the screen shot above? Look at my Tigers cap. The logo is backwards.That’s because I was being filmed in the mirror (in a hotel room in Detroit). As for what I’m saying, it’s some portion of this: ”He’s 6-foot-4 and weighs about 250 pounds, so the guy is a monster. You watch him in batting practice — he crushes balls where baseballs shouldn’t even be landing.” I’m talking about Ramon Santiago, of course.

Kidding. Miguel Cabrera.

Here are some fancy visuals . . .

. . . and here’s another scene from the hotel room in Detroit:

The filmmaker had asked me to (a) show him how I use Home Run Tracker and (b) talk about my connection to Korean baseball, so naturally I pulled up Shin-Soo Choo’s page and talked about  where his longballs land.

Several childhood photos found their way into the documentary:

That’s me in the red shirt at camp in 1982. You’ll find that image along with hundreds more on my website’s photo page.

The filmmaker got footage of just about everything. Here I am walking along Broadway with an open box of pizza:

“It is my breakfast and my lunch,” I’m telling the camera, “and unfortunately this is how a lot of meals go for me.”

The pizza scene was filmed on the way to my mom’s place. Here she is telling the world (or at least all of South Korea) how weird her son is:

During the interview, my mom mentioned my dad, and as a result, a photo of him made it into the documentary:

That was pretty cool.

Most of my baseballs are still at my mom’s place, so while I was there, I showed a few to the camera. Here I am explaining why the stitches are red and black on the 2000 All-Star Game ball:

(It’s because the game was at Turner Field, and the Braves’ colors are red and black.)

Next up? A road trip to the Hall of Fame. Here I am driving (before my license was revoked) and explaining the circumstances:

In the screen shot above, the Korean is a translation of this: “We’re driving from New York City up to Cooperstown, New York — it’s about a four-hour drive — to visit the Hall of Fame.”

(Is there anyone reading this who’s fluent in Korean? It’d be fun to know if anything got lost in translation.)

Here I am wandering with my camera:

Back at my place, the filmmaker asked me to talk about my books. Here I am holding all three of them . . .

. . . and here I am critiquing my first one, How to Snag Major League Baseballs:

That book is TERRIBLE. You will actually become dumber if you read it. It was written badly, I said some stupid things, and half the stadiums I talked about are now defunct. Avoid the book at all costs. Seriously. This is not reverse psychology. I’m telling this to you as a friend.

Anyway, moving right along . . .

Here I am (blue shirt, tan shorts) at the softball game during BallhawkFest, which took place in Baltimore on July 23, 2011:

(In the screen shot above, did you notice the time stamp on the video control panel? That was no coincidence.)

Alan Schuster, the organizer of BallhawkFest (and webmaster of MyGameBalls.com), was interviewed:

” . . . about two years ago,” he said of founding his website. “It’s for people who go to baseball games and try to catch balls. We’ve got over 200 members . . . “

Then things got really exciting:

Behold the glove trick:

“That’s what I’m talking about,” I’m saying in the screen shot above.

Then I got a ride to Comerica Park . . .

. . . and ran into my friend Dave Lally (pictured below in the green hat) who asked me to sign his copy of Watching Baseball Smarter:

I snagged five baseballs that day. Here I am crouching down to catch the first one:

Here I am preparing the grab the second:

Here I am using the glove trick for the third:

As you can see, I had to fling my glove out in order to knock the ball closer. While this was happening, my friend Dave took some great photos from above. If you have a couple extra minutes to spare, check out my blog entry about this game. I had a media credential and got to explore some otherwise off-limits areas.

I gave my first three baseballs to kids. The filmmaker wasn’t there for the first two, but got a nice shot of the third one. Here I am getting a high-five after I handed it over:

If you’ve read my blog entry about this game as well as the entry from the following day, then you know about the Joe Mauer home run ball that I snagged. I won’t retell the whole story here, but basically . . .

1) The ball landed on a platform between the outfield wall and the stands.
2) I ran over and tried to knock it closer with my glove trick.
3) I accidentally knocked it into bullpen instead (and felt like an ass).
4) A security guard tossed it to me.

Here I am flinging my glove out at it . . .

. . . and here I am reaching up for the grab through a sea of hands:

The magnified look inside the red circle is not the result of my Photoshop skills. That’s actually in the documentary.

In the final third of the film, I’m shown approaching the Free Library of Philadelphia with my then-girlfriend Jona:

In the screen shot above, she’s pointing at the small marquee. Here’s what it says:

I gave a talk that night about The Baseball and did a signing afterward. Here I am telling the story about Charlie Sheen buying an entire pavilion of seats in order to snag a home run ball:

(It’s a true story, and Sheen failed. See pages 81-82 in the book.)

On my way out of the auditorium, some random guy approached me and showed me something in a random book:

Turns out that How to Snag Major League Baseballs (along with my misspelled name) was listed in the bibliography of a book called The Disciple Making Church: From Dry Bones to Spiritual Vitality.

The random guy showed it to the filmmaker . . .

. . . and explained the connection as follows: “I was reading a Christian book, and I looked in the bibliography, and out of all these Christian books, there was one book that was totally different: How to Snag Major League Baseballs by a guy named Zack Hample. The point that this guy was making was if Christians could be as committed to Jesus Christ and working for the kingdom of god as Zack is to catching major league baseballs, we’d turn the world upside-down in a positive way.”

(Wow.)

Then I signed copies of my books. Here I am talking to a young fan . . .

. . . whose mother was telling me about a foul ball that he’d caught at Citi Field. Cool kid. His name is Max.

Before the book signing, I had visited the Pitch In For Baseball warehouse in Harleysville, Pennsylvania. (This is the charity that I’ve been working with since 2009.) Here I am with Tom Schoenfelder, the operations manager:

In the screen shot above, Tom is beginning to say, “We try to use anything that’s safe and in a playable condition, so when we get stuff donated — this here is perfect. It’s not cracked. It’s not dented. The handle’s still in good shape, but it’s just a little bit old.”

Tom was in the process of boxing up some equipment and uniforms, so I helped for a few minutes:

FYI: I plan to raise money again for Pitch In For Baseball this season. If you’re thinking about making a pledge, hang tight for now. As Spring Training gets underway, I’ll post a separate entry with instructions. Also, Pitch In For Baseball has a new MLBlog, and if you click here, you’ll see an entry that Tom wrote about his experience being in the documentary. Also, Pitch In For Baseball is on Twitter @PIFB_HelpsKids. Also, I wrote a big blog entry about the visiting the charity and doing the book signing, so if you missed it, click here.

Toward the end of the documentary, there’s some footage of my writing group . . .

. . . and of me on the subway platform (one stop away from Yankee Stadium) . . .

. . . and of my yellow-shirted companions at BallhawkFest. Here we are waiting for Camden Yards to open . . .

. . . and here I am getting my ticket scanned:

The final scene of the documentary shows me back at my place, summing it all up:

In the screen shot above, I’m beginning to say, “My dad was a ballboy for a minor league team way back in 1939, and he told me that after games, the teams would give him all the old baseballs, and he must’ve had hundreds of them — and when I was little, I said, ‘Well, alright, where are they? Let’s go play with them. Let’s DO something,’ and he said, ‘Well, I didn’t SAVE them. I didn’t know I was gonna have a kid someday who was gonna be obsessed with baseball,’ so it was just like, UHHH!!! So maybe in some subconscious way, my whole collection is, like, making up for that loss in childhood.”

That’s some pretty deep self-analysis, folks.

Just before the final credits, there’s a montage of clips that hadn’t made it into the main portion of the film. Here’s one of my favorites:

Check out the photo that was used during the credits:

It was a still shot that the filmmaker grabbed at the top of my leap while I played with my No. 24 sign at Comerica Park. I didn’t end up using that photo in my 30-stadium collage. I picked this one instead. Here’s the whole thing.

(한국, 감사합니다. 난 당신을 사랑 해요.)

THE END.

I need to start this entry by showing you a screen shot of a tweet:

That tweet, as you may have noticed, was posted more than five months ago. Life was pretty busy at the time. I never got around to blogging about the Hall of Fame, so I’m doing it now.

Quick context: I’d only been to the Hall one other time, and I was too young to appreciate it. I always wanted to go back, so when the Korean filmmaker said he wanted to get some footage of me there, I rounded up some friends and made a mini-roadtrip of it. Here we are outside:

In the photo above, from left to right, you’re looking at Bassey, Jona, me, Leslie, and Mike.

Here’s a photo that I took just inside the entrance:

This is the ramp that leads to the gallery . . .

. . . and here’s the main area with all the plaques:

Two things happened wherever I went:

1) I photographed everything.
2) The filmmaker filmed me.

Check it out:

The filmmaker’s name is James Lee. The first time he’d filmed me, he had a big fancy camera. Now, evidently, he was traveling light, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Was his little rinky-dink camera going to get good footage? What about the sound? Would he even follow through and complete the documentary? Would it turn out to be any good? I had no idea what to think, but whatever. If nothing else, I was having a fun day with my friends at the Hall of Fame; if some random Korean dude wanted to follow me around and get footage, so be it.

There was one plaque that jumped out at me when I first saw it: Henry Chadwick:

Chadwick, a mid-19th-century writer, might not be a household name, but he’s one of the most important baseball men of all time. You know how strikeouts are designated by the letter K? That was his idea. He also invented the box score and played a role in the very first juiced-ball controversy; way back in 1862, he denounced the ball as being “overelastic.” When I started doing all my research for The Baseball, I kept seeing his name and reading about all the cool things he did. Way back in the day, for example, when ONE ball had to last the entire game, the players actually had to stop playing and go looking for it indefinitely if it went missing. In 1876 (the first year of the National League), Chadwick suggested a five-minute time limit, and two years later the rule took effect. So yeah, I officially love Henry Chadwick.

Here are two other guys whose plaques caught my eye:

(Whenever I see Cal Ripken Jr.’s name, I think of this.)

There was SO much to see at the Hall of Fame. This was one room that we passed through on our way to the bookstore:

I was hoping to see my books at the store — that certainly would’ve been a good shot for the documentary — but all the copies had sold out. At least that’s what the lady there told me. You can see her on the right in the following photo:

I was bummed at first, thinking that my potential moment of glory had slipped away, but then I saw this:

It was a copy of The Way of Baseball, written by former major leaguer Shawn Green (with Gordon McAlpine). Here’s a closer look at the front cover . . .

. . . and here’s a look at the back:

OH YEAH, BABY!!!

Given the fact that my name is on the book, and given the fact that the book is in the Hall of Fame, I could argue (in a pathetically juvenile way) that I’ve made it to the Hall of Fame. That was always my dream as a kid; perhaps, when blowing out all those birthday candles, I should have been more specific.

My friends and I passed through the gallery . . .

. . . and saw this:

I love how the usher is reaching for the ball from the cross-aisle. Or maybe that’s a doorman who showed up at the game in uniform? Regardless, it’s an outstanding scene. As baseball fans, reaching for souvenirs is part of our DNA. (Steve Bartman is vindicated!)

Did I mention that there was lots to see? (This blog entry doesn’t even cover one-tenth of it.) Here’s a striking display of the old Yankee Stadium:

(I really really really REALLY miss that place.)

Here’s a collection of early baseballs . . .

. . . and here’s one of my favorite displays in the entire museum — something that I remembered from 20-something years earlier:

The colored rectangle of baseballs represents Ted Williams’ strike zone. The number on each ball indicates what Williams’ batting average was when he swung at a pitch in that location. So you see? Pitching to him was easy. All you had to do was keep the ball down and away, and he was a .230 hitter.

Not surprisingly, there’s an entire room devoted to Babe Ruth. Here I am absorbing as much of it as possible:

From that point on, I did a lousy job of documenting things. I got a photo of a Latino player display . . .

. . . but beyond that, I pretty much had to hurry around and look at stuff quickly.

Back outside, I took a picture of the Hall of Fame from across the street . . .

. . . and then took a picture of the street itself:

Cooperstown is a cute little place — and the pizza was better than I expected:

(I had the spaghetti and meatballs, but got to sample all the goods.)

In conclusion . . .

Just kidding. I don’t have anything profound to say — just that the Hall of Fame is rad, and I’ll post some screen shots from the documentary in my next entry.

A friend mailed me some baseballs the other day . . .

. . . and you’ll never guess why.

No, seriously, you will absolutely NEVER guess . . .

. . . but they sure are fun to look at, no?

I’ll explain this randomness someday, but for now it must remain a secret. All I can say is that something big and absurd and (nearly) impossible is in the works.

My application is done! Check out my final video for the 2012 MLB Fan Cave:

In case you missed it, I posted a funny/stupid outtake two days ago. That one was more eye-catching, but I’m thinking that the new one is pretty solid. I’m always down for making fun of myself, but sometimes it’s good to be direct and sincere.

It’s official. I’m applying for the MLB Fan Cave, and it’s taking a long time.

In addition to writing a pair of 500-word essays and attaching my résumé, I also have to submit a short video. According to the rules, the video must not be longer than two minutes. With that in mind, check out my failed (but funny) attempt to showcase myself.

In case you didn’t notice, I nearly cracked up at the 37-second mark because my friend Andrew (who was filming me) and his girlfriend Dorkys (who was also in the room) were dying of laughter. You can barely hear Andrew laughing throughout the video.

What I learned from this experience is that:

1) Wearing 31 t-shirts all at once makes it hard to breathe.
2) Removing the shirts is rather difficult and provides quite a workout.
3) My Brewers shirt is much smaller than I thought.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do for the final video, but I’m thinking of going in a totally different direction. I might take it down a notch (or ten). Sometimes less is more, you know?

As some of you already know, I’ve been doing silly things with my facial hair. Earlier this month, I tweeted a photo of my Brian Wilson impression. Here it is in case you’re too lazy to click the link:

And now?

Rollie Fingers, baby. Check it out:

At some point in the fairly near future, I’ll post a few photos of the transition from beard to ‘stache.

One of my favorite websites in the world is Reddit, and one of my favorite categories on Reddit is /r/baseball. While scrolling through it the other day, I saw a post titled, “I want to be a baseball fan.”

“Hmm,” I thought, “I wonder if it’d be appropriate for me to leave a comment and recommend my own book.” Then I started reading the comments and saw that someone else already had! Here’s a screen shot:

That’s all. Just wanted to share.

In case you haven’t noticed, this blog now has a new URL. For the last seven years, it’s been snaggingbaseballs.mlblogs.com, but now, as you can see . . .

. . . it’s zackhample.mlblogs.com. You can still access this blog from the old URL (you’ll automatically be redirected), but you might as well update your bookmarks.

My 2012 season is officially in jeopardy:

As of this moment, I’m officially forbidden from driving. Here’s how it happened:

1) While driving back from Citizens Bank Park on April 15, 2011, I had to stop at a police checkpoint in Times Square. “This’ll be easy,” I thought. “They’re obviously looking for drunk drivers, and I don’t drink.”

2) I was given a ticket for (supposedly) not having insurance. The fact is . . . I actually DID have insurance; I just didn’t have the paperwork to prove it. It was my mom’s car. The insurance card in the glove compartment had expired FOUR DAYS EARLIER, and we’d neglected to replace it.

3) The officer wrote my old address on the ticket because THAT was the address on appeared on my driver’s license.

4) New York State mailed me a summons to appear in court, and whaddaya know, I never received it. (My court date, BTW, was September 16th. Look where I was instead. Heh. Oopsie.)

5) New York State got very angry when I didn’t show up in court; governor Andrew M. Cuomo decided not to let me drive.

6) $1,500 lawyer fee.

7) Hample Jinx for New York State?

Good thing I don’t need to drive to the Opening Series in Japan, but seriously, if this doesn’t get resolved soon, it’s gonna be tough for me to get to Camden Yards and Nationals Park.

If you’ve been reading my blog for some time, the name Ben Weil might sound familiar. Ben is a fellow ballhawk. We’ve ended up at lots of the same games. We’ve become really good friends. And I’ve mentioned him often. See if this rings a bell . . .

Here we are at Game 3 of the 2011 World Series in Arlington.
Here we are after Game 5 of the 2011 ALDS in New York.
Here we are at a regular-season Marlins game at Nationals Park.

Do you remember this photo of Ben at Camden Yards or this one at Citi Field? Do you know what all these photos have in common?

One word: JERSEYS.

Ben has an insane collection, which is already somewhat legendary. Obviously, word has been spreading among the fans who always see him wearing different jerseys, but I’ve also been dropping hints on my blog about the enormity of his collection. Just how many jerseys does he own? Twenty? Fifty? One hundred?! I’ve never given an actual number, prompting some people to get competitive and claim that they have more jerseys than Ben. If you’re one of these people, settle down. You and all your friends combined don’t have as many jerseys as this guy. This blog entry will finally settle the dispute. Just last week, I went to Ben’s place — he lives with his mother in Queens — to see his collection with my very own eyes, and wow. Get ready for it.

Let’s start with a photo that shows the area just inside the front door; there aren’t any jerseys visible, but it’ll give you an idea of things to come:

Like I said . . . wow.

Here’s a photo of Ben in the hallway outside his bedroom . . .

. . . and here’s a shot of him in his room:

Here’s a closeup of something funny that you probably didn’t notice in the previous photo:

In case you can’t tell, that’s a Chipper Jones Bobblehead, dangling from the window with a miniature noose around its neck.

As it turned out, there was SO much stuff to see that I failed to photograph most of it. I did, however, film a nine-minute video inside Ben’s apartment, so I can at least share some screen shots. Here’s one that shows just a few of Ben’s jerseys bulging out of his closet:

In the screen shot above, did you notice the Garfield stuffed animals on the closet shelf? What about the Garfield calendar on the wall? As you’re about to see, Ben collects lots of stuff beyond jerseys, including anything/everything related to Garfield. Here’s a four-part photo that shows some more items . . .

. . . and by the way, the cat in the first photo (sitting on the table and looking at the camera) is named . . . yeah, you guessed it.

In the four-part photo above, the Garfield item on the upper left is a piggy bank. On the upper right, you’re looking at a Garfield clock and lamp. On the lower left, you can see a couple of Ben’s original Garfield drawings taped to the wall outside his bedroom, and on the lower right, there’s a bottle of Garfield hand sanitizer.

Here’s another screen shot of one of Ben’s collections:

Can you tell what he’s holding? Those are credit cards. He was approved for all of them at one time or another.

And then there are the caps. In the following screen shot, the stack of cardboard boxes is filled with them:

Here’s a number for you: Ben owns more than 900 caps, all of which are fitted.

Want to see more jerseys? Take a look at the stacks on top of the dresser in the hallway:

Wanna guess what’s inside the dresser?

Here’s a hint:

And oh, hey, look, here’s another closet FILLED WITH JERSEYS:

And what’s this over here? Why, it’s ANOTHER DRESSER FILLED WITH JERSEYS:

Before Ben closed the dresser drawers, he pulled out two different jerseys of Albert Belle:

In the screen shot above, do you see the stack of cardboard boxes on the right? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but those are filled with jerseys too.

Here’s one of Ben’s favorites.

Here’s where he stores the baseballs that he’s snagged at major league games:

Here’s Ben wearing a “cheesehead” hat, which he plans to bring to Green Bay next year:

That’s right, Ben is a fan of football too. And basketball. And probably croquet. And bowling.

Actually, I’m being serious about bowling. Here’s a rack of bowling balls in his mother’s room:

Ben owns THIRTY-SIX BOWLING BALLS and once bowled a perfect/300 game. He even wears a ring to commemorate it. Ask him to show it to you next time you see him.

Now, speaking of Ben’s mother, here she is in the living room, graciously allowing me to take photos and not yelling at me for blocking her view of the TV:

In the photo above, do you see the colorful stack of stuff in the far right corner of the room? Those are foam fingers. See the life-sized cardboard cutout of Mike Piazza, just to the left of the lamp? See the stacks of clothes in front of Piazza? Those are jerseys. You know what you can’t see in the photo above? The 250,000 baseball cards that are boxed up and tucked under the couch or the 70-plus Mike Piazza jerseys that Ben owns.

Yeah.

Ben and his mother (yes, they’re in this together) also collect Bobbleheads. In the following photo, you can see some of them stacked up in their boxes on the right:

They also collect souvenir soda cups from various stadiums. Behold!

Here are some of Ben’s hats:

As you’ve probably gathered, Ben kinda likes Mike Piazza. Check out the light switch in the following photo:

Here’s a photo of Ben’s mother’s room. There are jerseys everywhere, and they don’t belong to her:

Ben and I hung out at the apartment for about an hour. Before we left, I got a photo of him with his mom:

Her name is Paula, and hey, did you notice his cap?

Then he and I drove to an Italian restaurant in Howard Beach. This was my view during dinner:

(Nice shirt, Ben. Stay classy.)

As for the number of jerseys that Ben owns, he estimates the grand total to be over 1,600. And some people think his blog URL contains “jerseyboy” because he’s from New Jersey? Ha. Ha. Ha. Not quite.

If you have any questions for Ben, fire away. He reads this blog (as well as all the comments), so you’ll get an answer directly from him.

Finally, in case you care, you can follow him on Twitter @Benny_Bang_Bang, and while we’re at it, you can follow me @zack_hample.

Actually, no, wait. One more thing. It’s easy to make fun of people who are obsessed with stuff — I’ve certainly taken my share of heat for my baseball collection – but let’s not be too quick make judgments and hurl insults. I wouldn’t want to live with my mother, but Ben has a specific/personal reason for living with his. I wouldn’t want to live in an apartment with so much clutter, but Ben and his mother don’t seem to mind. I also don’t give a damn about Garfield or football or foam fingers or jerseys. But if there’s one thing that I love and respect, it’s passion; Ben has as much of it as anyone I’ve ever met, and since he’s not hurting anyone with his hobbies and collections, I say ROCK ON, BROTHA! Keep doing your thing, and thanks for being an inspiration.