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.

Look what arrived in the mail the other day:

Many thanks to Alan Schuster, the webmaster of MyGameBalls.com, for making the certificate and sending it to me. (And thanks again to everyone who voted for me.)

Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while. I’ve been busy growing a beard.

As I mentioned last week on Twitter, I’m now working full-time at the Argosy Book Store. Just thought I’d share a few photos of some old/cool stuff that I stumbled upon in the past few days . . .

The first item is a stock certificate from 1914 for “The Tigers Base Ball Club.” Check it out:

Here’s a photo of the back of it:

We’re in the process of researching the certificate in order to figure out exactly what it is; the fact that it says “Chicago” and “Illinois” makes us think that it can’t be the Detroit Tigers, but whatever it is, I think it’s pretty damn special.

Here’s a book that I noticed called What Baseball Means To Me:

Take a closer look at the photo on the half-title page:

Have you ever seen that particular photo before? I hadn’t. And I love it. Based on the number of kids (with gloves) crowding the front row, I’m thinking it had to be taken during batting practice. But where? Looks like the 1980s to me, but I can’t identify the stadium.

Finally, here’s an interesting non-baseball item that found its way to my desk — a newish photography book called Sydney and Flora. Here’s the front cover:

The whole book is filled with trippy/artsy photos of elderly people’s faces. Here’s another:

Whoa.

It was my job to catalog that book, so I had to flip through it to check the condition and see what it was about.

That’s it for now.

Haven’t been blogging or writing much lately. Been spending most of my free time scanning old photos . . . like this one, taken some time around 1994 when I was trying a bit too hard to be cool.

I was roughly (or should I say smoothly?) 17 years old when that photo was taken, and until last week, I’d never seen it.

Speaking of last week (and because my friend “Big Glove Bob” requested it), here’s a photo of my Thanksgiving plate:

Since you probably can’t tell what everything is . . .

1) smoked turkey with gravy
2) squash with shallots
3) mashed potatoes with gravy
4) brussels sprouts (only two because I hate them)
5) cranberry jello
6) salad
7) stuffing
8) cole slaw
9) carrots

You should’ve seen what I had for dessert. But anyway, speaking of Thanksgiving and of mid-1990s photographs, here’s a recently-discovered shot of me with my two half-brothers on Thanksgiving of 1996:

That’s Joe Hample on the left and Henry Hample on the right.

Look closely at my shirt and you might recognize it from my stint with the Boise Hawks.
Look closely at my face and you might notice my pathetic attempt at growing a beard.

Speaking of beards, did you catch the tweet I posted on November 20th? Or the one I posted on November 26th? The beard is still happening (and still itching like a mutha). You know I’ll be sharing photos of it soon.

As I mentioned three days ago on Twitter, I recently found a TON of old photos that I’d never seen before (or that I simply didn’t remember). I’m still in the process of combing through them and scanning them, and there’s one that I have to share immediately:

That’s the original photo that was used for the cover of my first book, How to Snag Major League Baseballs. Check it out:

That photo wasn’t supposed to be THE photo. The story (which has never been told until now) goes as follows . . .

My publisher (Aladdin Paperbacks, an imprint of Simon & Schuster) initially came up with a design for the cover, which, to put it mildly, I didn’t particularly care for. Here’s what they showed me:

Note that the title of the book was different at that point (and while you’re at it, note the 318 different fonts — ouch).

Anyway, when I saw that cover and showed it to my dad, he was like, “Oy gevalt! It’s all wrong. YOU should be on the cover,” and I was like, “Meeee?!” and he was like, “Yeah, YOU. You’re so young that other kids will relate to you. It’d be great for the book.”

(I was 19 when I wrote the book, 20 when the cover photo was taken, and 21 when it was published.)

So yeah, he took a bunch of photos of me with my baseballs, including this one in the hallway just outside my bedroom:

Several days later, my dad and I picked the best photos and sent them to my editor, who passed them along to the art department. I simply wanted the publisher to see how cool it’d look to have hundreds of balls on the cover. I hoped they’d say, “Yeah, okay, you’re right, that’s very cool. When are you free to pose with the balls for a professional photographer?” but instead they were like, “These are great. We’re gonna use the photo of you with the barrel,” and I was like, “Umm, I look like an idiot in that photo, and I’m all hunched over, and could you at least photoshop out my chest hair . . . ?”

. . . and they were like, “Sure, we’ll look into that.”

Bastards.

(To hell with math and science and history and philosophy; “Manscaping 101″ should be a requirement for all college freshmen, although I’m not sure how the final exam would go.)

By the way, did you notice the little photo of me (wearing the “Baseball is Life” shirt) on the test cover? Here’s the original photo . . .

. . . which was taken (by my dad) for this article in Inside Sports, which was written about me when I snagged my 1,000th ball. That article prompted Men’s Health to get in touch with me. They then paid me (two hundred and fifty bucks!) to contribute to this article, which simply referred to me as “Zack, a freshman at Guilford College in North Carolina.” My dad was so pissed off about my last name being omitted that he suggested that I write my own damn book about snagging baseballs. Funny how things work out.

Finally, if you don’t own a copy of How to Snag Major League Baseballs and you’re now suddenly thinking of buying it . . . DON’T!!! Not only is it a terrible book, but it’s out of print, so the few second-hand copies that are floating around out there tend to be insanely expensive. If you want to spend a few bucks on something that’ll teach you how to snag, check out my new book, which is called The Baseball. The final third is called “How to Snag Major League Baseballs,” and that part is longer than my entire first book.