. . . but that didn’t stop me from driving down from New York City. Wanna know why? Because the Astros were in town, and I wanted one of their commemorative baseballs.

As you might already know, six teams are using special baseballs this season — the Mets, Orioles, Dodgers, Marlins, Red Sox, and Astros — and my goal is to snag at least one of each. Last month, I checked the Mets and Orioles balls off my list . . . and now here I was in Philly, on a soggy day without batting practice, hoping for some love from the Astros. Of course, since I was seeing the Astros on the road, there was no guarantee that any of their baseballs would even be commemorative. But what the hell was I supposed to do? Wait for the Astros to visit Citi Field in late August? Spend $500 traveling to Minute Maid Park? No and no. I had to go for it HERE at Citizens Bank Park, even if it meant staring at this for the first hour of the day:

At around 5:15pm, a small group of Astros wandered out of the dugout:

In the photo above, pay no attention to the player grabbing his crotch. (Oops, too late.) Instead, take a look at the guy who’s wearing shorts. See the black thing that he’s carrying? That was the ball bag. I just *knew* (or at least suspected, or at least hoped) that the bag contained at least ONE commemorative baseball, and dammit, I was going to snag it.

This was the scene five minutes later:

In the photo above, do you see the players near the right field foul pole? Those were Phillies pitchers, and as far as I was concerned, they meant nothing. This day was all about the Astros, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get any closer to them until 5:35pm. Do you see the yellow chain in the photo above? It’s barely creeping in from the right edge. That chain extends all the way back to the concourse. It’s there to prevent fans from spilling prematurely into the rest of the seating bowl, and for a little while, I was concerned that the Astros would finish throwing while I was trapped in the left field corner.

Thankfully that wasn’t the case:

That made a huge difference because I was able to attempt to see the logos on the baseballs that were being used. Brandon Lyon and Brett Myers? It was hard to tell at first with them. Lyon was about 30 feet away, and every time he transferred the ball from his glove to his throwing hand, the logo was facing the wrong way — or he just did it too quickly and I couldn’t tell. Eventually, though, I was able to determine that they were *not* using a commemorative ball.

Then there was Wilton Lopez — the player wearing No. 59 in the photo above. I had a tough time seeing the logo on his baseball until he failed to catch an in-between hop. The ball scooted right between his legs and trickled near me on the warning track. IT WAS COMMEMORATIVE!!! There was a big “50″ on it. That’s all I needed to see. My God. I had to have it. I mean, I seriously HAD to have that ball.

Before Lopez even had a chance to pick it up, I asked him (politely and in Spanish) if he’d give it to me when he finished. He didn’t say anything, and I had no idea what to think, but my mind was racing. Meanwhile, when Lyon and Myers finished throwing, I made sure *not* to ask for their ball because I knew what would happen. Lopez would see me catch it, and then he’d decide to give the commemorative ball to someone else. There’s no way that I was going to allow that to happen, so I just stood there quietly and waited to see which other fan Lyon was gonna toss it to. Wanna guess what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Lyon spotted me in my Astros gear and threw the damn ball to me! It was probably the only time in my life that I *didn’t* want to catch a baseball, but I had no choice. If I hadn’t caught it, it would’ve hit me. I quickly glanced at Lopez to see if he had seen me catch it, but he gave no indication. He was half-facing me at that point, still in the process of getting loose, so there was no telling if he’d noticed. DAMN!!!

Finally, after several excruciating minutes, he and his teammate finished playing catch. Lopez ended up with the ball, and at first it appeared that he wasn’t going to give it to anyone. He took a couple of steps toward the infield, but then when I called his name, he looked up. What did he do next? He scanned the crowd for a moment, presumably to see if there was anyone younger or cuter, and my heart sank. What if this was my only opportunity? What if I’d never see another one of these commemorative balls again? Would the Astros still have some of these balls next year? Should I book a flight to Houston instead of going to the Home Run Derby in Kansas City? My thoughts were becoming more negative by the nanosecond, and then it happened: Lopez turned and faced me and threw me the ball. Here it is:

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-HAW!!!

And yeah, okay, fine, so the logo was a bit messed up, but whatever. I had my ball, and I could tell what it was supposed to say. If I could get a better one that wasn’t so scuffed . . . awesome. But if I never saw another one . . . to hell with flying to Houston. I was all set.

I gave the first ball that I’d gotten to a little kid, and then I got another ball thrown to me by a player that I couldn’t identify. I had no idea what to expect in terms of the logo, so as soon as I caught it, I frantically looked inside my glove . . . and had to turn the ball around  . . . and it was commemorative! But it was only slightly better than the other ball. Acchhh!! I mean, I was thrilled to now have two of these precious baseballs, but it was a shame that neither one was pristine. Anyway, here’s a photo of the player heading back to the dugout:

Can anyone identify him for me?

I headed to the home-plate end of the dugout to say hello to a friendly usher. When I got there, a man (who I think had been standing near me when I caught the previous ball or two) asked, “What’s your count up to?”

I figured he recognized me, and I don’t mean that in a cocky way. What I mean is . . . I get that question a lot from random people who seem to know who I am, so when I told him, “Five thousand nine hundred and twenty-four,” I was surprised when HE was surprised.

“Wait!” he said and then thought for a moment. “Are you Zack . . . Hample?!”

“That’s me,” I said.

He then told me that he had a copy my latest book, The Baseball, in his car and that if he’d known I was going to be here, he would’ve brought it for me to sign. I told him (and this goes for everyone reading this) that if he mails it to me at the Argosy Book Store, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope, that I’d be happy to sign it and mail it back. Then he asked if we could get a photo together. The answer, of course, was yes, so he handed his camera to the friendly usher, who was standing atop the dugout roof. Then I handed my camera to the usher, and this was the result:

The man’s name is Chad, and he was really friendly, so I’m happy to report that he ended up getting a perfect, mud-rubbed commemorative ball five minutes later from Astros coach Dave Clark, who was chillin’ on the top step of the dugout. Seeing Chad with that flawless ball fueled my desire to snag one of my own. Rather than pestering Clark for one, I raced out to the seats in right-center when the Astros’ starting pitcher (Lucas Harrell) and catcher and coaches began their pre-game throwing routine. Once I got out there, this was my view:

In the photo above, there’s a red arrow pointing at bullpen catcher Javier Bracamonte because he ended up throwing me this:

GREAT SUCCESS!

I was starving at that point, but there was no time to eat; several of the Astros’ position players were warming up in shallow left field, so I hurried back to that side of the stadium. This is what it looked like as I made my way down into foul territory:

In the photo above, do you see the “STAFF” member on the steps in front of me? When I approached him, he turned around and asked to see my ticket. I responded by (a) admitting that I didn’t belong in that section and (b) asking if I could wander down a little closer to take a few photos. (Never admit to stadium security that you’re trying to catch baseballs. Always claim that you want to use your camera. It sounds much more innocent.) What did the guy say? He told me that I could go all the way down to the front row, but that I had to leave before the game started. Wow! I’ve been attending so many games lately in New York City that I’d forgotten how NICE it is at stadiums everywhere else. The Mets and Yankees should seriously take a lesson from the Phillies. This is how fans should be treated at baseball games.

Anyway, I got two baseballs thrown to me within a five-minute span. The first came from Chris Johnson, and the second came from Jordan Schafer. Neither one of the balls was commemorative, so I gave the second one (my 6th overall of the day) to the nearest kid.

Game time.

This was my view in the bottom of the first inning:

By the time I took that photo, I’d already snagged my 7th ball of the day. It was the infield warm-up ball that the Astros had used when they first took the field. Bobby Meacham, the team’s first base coach, tossed it to me just before the bottom of the first inning got underway. It was a regular ball, but I was still glad to have it.

One inning later, Placido Polanco (who, by the way, was sitting on 1,999 career hits), hit three foul balls off his foot in a span of four pitches. Every one of these balls rolled out into the infield. It was bizarre (and quite painful, I’d imagine). The final foul ball rolled all the way to Astros third baseman Chris Johnson. Johnson scooped it up and tossed it toward the dugout, at which point I stood up and walked down the steps to the front row. Some random trainer-type guy (wearing a striped, black-and-white polo shirt) popped out of the dugout and picked up the ball. I asked him for it, and he tossed it to me. Just like that. Soooooooooooo easy. There was absolutely no competition (which was a very nice change of pace from the typical mob of ballhawks in New York).

Later in the game, a bunch of kids caught onto the whole “snagging baseballs” thing and crowded the dugout between innings:

Despite having absolutely no clue (staring off into space and not knowing who or when to ask), nearly all of those kids received baseballs before the game was through — and the ones who didn’t? They got hooked up by a ballboy at the very end of the night. I’m telling you, there were plenty of baseballs to go around.

There was a steady drizzle throughout the game, so when I went to get food in the middle innings (a chicken cheesesteak with onions, if you must know), I lingered for a while in the concourse. This was the view:

Call me a wimp if you want, but I’d been getting soaked, so it was nice to be covered for a bit.

Something kinda neat happened in the bottom of the sixth inning . . .

With two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd, Freddy Galvis ripped a single to left field. Placido Polanco, the lead runner, scored on the play, but John Mayberry was thrown out at the plate by Travis Buck. Astros catcher Chris Snyder made the tag, and when he returned to the dugout, he tossed me the ball.

Where were all the kids, you ask? I have no idea. They were nowhere in sight. They only seemed to go down to the dugout when their parents told them to, and that seemed to happen only when Carlos Lee — the first baseman — ended up with the third-out balls, or when the Astros were warming up between innings.

Late in the game, when a bunch of fans took off, I moved down to the second row:

If I’d moved a bit quicker, I could’ve sat in the very front, but the guy pictured above with the helmet and beard beat me to it. No one cared. There weren’t any security guards micro-managing the movements of the fans. It was a beautiful, relaxed environment — the way baseball should be. Sneaking down to better seats is part of the game. It’s part of our culture. Who the hell stays in the last row when the seats closer to the field open up? My dad used to sneak closer with me when I was little, so the way I see it, every time I sneak around a major league stadium nowadays . . . I’m doing it in his honor.

In the top of the eighth inning, Marwin Gonzalez, a switch hitter who was pinch hitting for Fernando Abad, hit his first major league home run. It was kind of depressing not to be in the outfield when it happened, but I wasn’t too hung up about it because I wouldn’t have caught it anyway. I would’ve been sitting several rows back in straight-away right field, and the ball landed in the front row, one full section toward the foul pole. Then, in the bottom of the eighth, Placido Polanco, who hadn’t homered since last season, ended up going yard for his 2,000th hit. If I’d been trying to catch that ball (which I suppose I should’ve been), I would’ve been sitting several rows back in straight-away left field, but the ball barely cleared the wall in left-center. No harm done, but still, it served as an semi-painful reminder than I need to focus more on catching homers.

After Jonathan Papelbon struck out the side in the top of the ninth inning to secure the Phillies’ 5-1 win, I got my 10th ball of the day from home plate umpire Jerry Layne. Then I got No. 11 from that ballboy I mentioned earlier. He had unexpectedly poked his head out of the dugout, and then he tossed half a dozen balls into the crowd. I gave away another ball before leaving the stadium and drove back to New York in near-record time.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 11 balls at this game (eight pictured here because I gave three away)

• 113 balls in 16 games this season = 7.06 balls per game.

• 808 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 333 consecutive games with at least two balls

• 294 consecutive games outside of New York with at least one ball

• 186 lifetime games with ten or more balls (only three of which have happened on days without BP)

• 46 different commemorative baseballs snagged; click here to see my entire collection

• 5,932 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more about my fundraiser, and click here to see the prizes that I’ll be giving away to donors.)

• 28 donors

• $1.66 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $18.26 raised at this game

• $187.58 raised this season

• $19,344.58 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

My first thought upon reading this was, “Why don’t YOU do the right thing and put a space in between sentences?” My second thought had to do with blocking the guy’s address so that if he ever wrote again, his emails would automatically be deleted. It’s something I often do with spammers, but rarely with haters. I don’t need to. Most of the emails I receive are friendly, and I don’t even bother reading — let alone responding to — the ones that aren’t. But this time things were different. I decided to answer the guy (and tweet about it). Here’s what I said:

That was it — just a quick question to get more info. I hadn’t been to Camden Yards this season, so why was this random guy accusing me of something? Was he confusing me with someone else? It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time. I once got the nastiest email from someone who blamed me for stealing a ball from his kid at a specific game . . . that I hadn’t even attended. Anyway, this was the reply:

August 10th? I couldn’t remember where I’d been that day, so I looked at this list, and sure enough, I was at Camden Yards. But so what? Just because I was there didn’t make this guy right. In fact, I knew he wasn’t right, and here’s what I told him:

In my response above, the word “this” linked to a recent blog entry called “In Defense of a Ballhawk,” written by a gentleman named Andrew Gonsalves. If you haven’t yet read it, I command you to do so immediately! But anyway, I wasn’t sure what kind of response I was going to get from the guy. I kind of expected him not to write back at all, but when I woke up the next morning, this was in my inbox:

Wow. Just wow. All I could say was . . .

For the record, there ARE times when I believe that kids don’t deserve baseballs, but I don’t run around preaching it at games. I’ll say it here, though. I’m talking about gloveless kids who pay more attention to their cotton candy than to the action on the field. We’ve all seen them, right? When people nag me about giving baseballs to kids like that, I get annoyed. When I give baseballs away, I do it on my own terms, not because I’m being begged or bullied, and I only give ‘em to kids with gloves. That’s all. Just had to share.

In the photo above, Hughes is the player standing closest to me.

After the first group of Yankee hitters, I ran over to the left field side, and it was dead. Andruw Jones hit two homers into the second deck, one of which bounced down into the lower level, but I was nowhere near it — and that was pretty much it. I had lots of room to run, but there was nothing to run for. I hate it when that happens.

I headed back to right field when the Mariners started hitting and promptly got Chone Figgins to throw me a ball in the last row. Unfortunately, he didn’t aim high enough, so the guy in front of me was able to reach up and grab it — but Figgins, a man of great character, quickly got another ball and gave me another shot. His second attempt was right on target.

Moments later, I won a mini-scramble for an Ichiro homer that landed near me in the seats. That was my fourth ball of the day, and let me be clear about something: it wasn’t easy. Not only was the sun in my eyes, but the section was crowded. Here’s a photo that I took during the next group of hitters. It’ll give you an idea of the conditions I was facing:

Despite the challenges, I ended up going on somewhat of a snagging spree, grabbing four home run balls within the next 10 minutes. I don’t know who hit any of them, so I’ll just give you a rundown of the action. The first home run — more of a line drive than a fly ball — landed 20 to 30 feet to my right. After darting through an empty row to get in line with it, I lunged/reached forward over TWO rows and caught it back-handed. The force of the ball hitting my glove slammed my left forearm against the back of a seat. It still hurts, and I don’t care. It was totally worth it. The second home run flew directly over my head and landed in the tunnel. Thankfully, there was no one in it at the time, so I had zero competition while chasing it down. I neglected to take a photo of the tunnel after this particular snag, so here’s a shot of it (and of me!) from a game last month. The third home run could not have been much easier. It was a lazy fly ball (relatively speaking) that came right to me in the last row. There was a gloveless fan in front of me (who looked to be in his 50s) who had every intention of trying to catch it . . . until he lost the ball in the sun. The fourth home run took me by surprise. I had just made a bone-headed mistake while scrambling for a ball and had to climb over a few rows to get back to my spot. While en route, I sensed that the people around me were jockeying for position. It was the type of mini-frenzy that can only mean one thing: a ball was coming. When I looked up, I spotted it instantly, high in the bright sky, and I quickly determined where it was going to land: one or two rows in front of me and several feet to the right. While the ball was still in mid-air, I looked back down for a split-second and climbed down over a row. Then I looked back up for the ball, drifted to my right, squinted in the intense glare of the sunlight, and reached up above a ducking kid for the catch.

“Who caught that?!” he asked.

“I did,” I said, showing him the ball inside my glove.

“Thank you!” he yelled. “That woulda killed me!”

I asked the kid if he’d gotten a ball, and he admitted that he had, so I started tossing balls to other kids. The whole section seemed to be in one collective state of shock. First I’d caught just about ever ball in sight, and then I started giving a bunch of them away — three to be exact, to some kids who turned out to be part of the same group. Several minutes later, a man (who must’ve been one of their fathers) came over and thanked me and asked if he could take my picture.

“Sure,” I said, “but let’s get the kids in it too.”

The father then took a couple photos of us in the last row, at which point I asked if he’d take another one with my camera. Here it is:

Unfortunately I didn’t get the kids’ names. They were all leaving, and BP was still underway, so we said a quick goodbye, and I turned my attention back to the field. But wait! Before I tell you what happened next, I have to point something out in the photo above. Do you see the ball that I’m holding? That was the final home run during my mini-snagging spree — my eighth ball of the day. I had started the day with 92 balls this season, which means that that one was No. 100, which means that 2012 is the 15th consecutive season in which I’ve hit triple digits.

During the final group of BP, a Mariners player in deep right field turned around and threw a ball into the stands. (I think it was Hector Noesi.) It was a fairly gentle toss, and he aimed it several rows deep. I was in the last row at this point, so the ball was clearly falling short. Way short. Like . . . 10 feet short . . . and get this: not only did the fans completely miss it, but the ball landed on the skinny/flat portion of an armrest — an ARMREST, for Chrissakes!! — and skipped right back to me, eluding several other fans along the way. It was probably the single luckiest ricochet of my life, and the guy standing next to me was so annoyed that he tried (unsuccessfully, for the record) to claw the ball out of my glove. That was my ninth ball of the day, and here’s a photo of No. 10:

Just before BP ended, I spotted a couple balls sitting on the field in foul territory, so I snuck over there (security had already kicked everyone out who didn’t belong) and ended up getting Mariners bullpen coach Jaime Navarro to throw one of them to me. His throw sailed 10 feet over my head, landed right in the middle of a group of gloveless adults, and bounced back down to me. Double digits had been achieved. Ooh yeah.

I celebrated by giving away another ball (NOT to the gloveless adults) and then attempting to talk my way into the exclusive Mohegan Sun Sports Bar in deep center field. Here’s a photo of it from the way-too-narrow-what-the-hell-were-they-thinking concourse that runs behind the batter’s eye:

($1.5 billion for a stadium, and they can’t even get the concourses right.)

In order to get into the Mohegan Club, you need to have a membership — or in this case, you simply have to be me and ask really nicely and say that you just want to take a few photos and then promise not to stay for more than five minutes. That’s all it took, and I don’t understand why. Over the past few seasons, I’d tried to get inside the club half a dozen times and was always denied.

Anyway, here’s what it looks like just inside the doors . . .

. . . and here’s the view to the right:

Here’s a closer look at the bar (with a glimpse of the field in the background):

This is what the main part of the club looks like:

This club is located inside the batter’s eye. The windows appear to be black from the outside, but from where I was standing, I could see out just fine:

The problem is . . . it’s INSIDE THE BATTER’S EYE, sealed off from the outside world. What’s the point of being at a baseball game if all you’re gonna do is watch it from a glorified cubicle?!

Check out the view of home plate from the club:

Would you pay extra to sit there? I’d pay extra NOT to sit there. I can imagine that it’d be quite nice to be inside the club during a rain delay when it’s 38 degrees and windy, but other than that? I really don’t get it. Can anyone explain to me, in a serious/non-sarcastic way, what the draw is? I would genuinely love to know.

Here’s a closer look at the club’s menu:

I have to admit that everything on the menu looks good, but DAY-um, sixteen bucks for a burger?! Hey, Pedro Feliciano’s contract isn’t gonna pay itself.

I’m glad to have seen the Mohegan Sun Sports Bar because now I never have to go back. As far as I’m concerned, this is the best possible place (within Yankee Stadium) to sit and watch a game:

Here’s what the Mohegan Club looked like from where I was sitting:

In the photo above, do you see the three flat-screen TVs mounted to the concrete wall? They’re way off in the distance, just above the “Toyota” and “DKNY” ads. Do you know why those TVs are there? It’s because the Mohegan Club obstructs the view of a *huge* portion of the bleachers. Here’s a photo from my archives that shows just how bad it is:

Who designs a stadium like that? And who, exactly, is dumb enough to sit there?

Let’s get back to baseball, shall we? In the top of the 6th inning, Jesus Montero hit a solo home run to right field that gave the Mariners a 2-1 lead. (I ran through an empty row and came within 10 feet that ball.) In the bottom of the 6th inning, Raul Ibanez hit a three-run homer off Felix Hernandez to put the Yankees on top, 4-2. (That ball also went to right field and missed me by the same distance.) Andruw Jones, pinch-hitting for Eric Chavez in the bottom of the 8th, blasted a two-run homer to the back of the bullpen in left-center, and that was it. Final score: Yankees 6, Mariners 2.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 10 balls at this game (six pictured here because I gave four away; check out the mis-stamped logo, barely overlapping the stitches, on the ball in the middle of the right-hand column)

• 102 balls in 15 games this season = 6.8 balls per game.

• 807 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 554 consecutive games in New York with at least one ball

• 165 consecutive Yankees home games with at least one ball

• 15 consecutive seasons with 100 or more balls

• 185 lifetime games with ten or more balls

• 5,921 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more about my fundraiser, and click here to see the prizes that I’ll be giving away to donors.)

• 28 donors

• $1.66 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $16.60 raised at this game

• $169.32 raised this season

• $19,326.32 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

Here’s one more photo for you — a side-by-side comparison of two of the balls that I kept in regular light versus black light:

The End.

ANSWER: This day at Yankee Stadium.

When the gates opened at 5pm, I bolted out to the short porch and immediately snagged a ball that bounced off the warning track and landed in the totally empty seats. (I have no idea who hit it.) Then I raced to the left field side, convinced Cody Eppley to toss me a ball, and snagged two A-Rod homers that landed in the seats. It was only 5:07pm, and as it turned out, my day of snagging was done.

This was my view while waiting for the second group of hitters to begin taking their cuts:

Two minutes later, I headed back to right field . . .

. . . and it was dead out there.

In the photo above, that’s Greg Barasch looking at me. Nice guy. Awesome ballhawk. He didn’t have any baseballs at that point, but ended up with seven.

Eventually I headed back to left field . . .

. . . and it was dead there too, at least for me. Everyone else was snagging baseballs. I was getting all the bad breaks. It happens.

Shortly before game time, my friend Andrew showed up. I took a photo of him . . .

. . . and then he took a photo of me:

I photographed the upper deck facade . . .

. . . and then I photographed Andrew’s fancy shoes:

It was that kinda night.

I should mention that Andrew’s shoes are so fancy (and have caused such a stir amongst our circle of friends) that he recently wrote an entire blog entry about them. (Andrew also recently wrote a blog entry about me called “In Defense of a Ballhawk.” It’s really good, so if you haven’t yet seen it, check it out. Here’s the link.)

The highlight of the game was witnessing a major milestone in the 6th inning that probably went unnoticed by 99.9 percent of the fans in attendance: Derek Jeter’s 10,000th career at-bat. This was my view for it:

Jeter grounded out to third — part of an o-for-4 performance that lowered his season batting average to .376 — but it was still cool. He’s just the 25th player in baseball history to amass 10,000 at-bats, and nearly everyone ahead of him on the list is a Hall of Famer. Look at the names he’ll pass this season: Frank Robinson (10,006), Rabbit Maranville (10,078), Al Kaline (10,116), Tris Speaker (10,195), Luis Aparicio (10,230), George Brett (10,349), Honus Wagner (10,430), and so on. Not too shabby. I don’t know why I love numbers so much. I just do, okay?

The Yankees won the game, 5-3. CC Sabathia allowed two runs — none earned — in eight innings to improve to 5-0, and get this: his season ERA and career ERA are identical at 3.51. I love stuff like that, temporary as it may be.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 4 balls at this game (two pictured here because I gave two away — one after BP and another in the 5th inning)

• 92 balls in 14 games this season = 6.57 balls per game.

• 806 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 553 consecutive games in New York with at least one ball

• 164 consecutive Yankees home games with at least one ball

• 5,911 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more about my fundraiser, and click here to see the prizes that I’ll be giving away to donors.)

• 28 donors

• $1.66 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $6.64 raised at this game

• $152.72 raised this season

• $19,309.72 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

Normally I would’ve stayed home — ballhawking without batting practice isn’t much fun in New York — but I hadn’t attended a game since April 30th, and I was seriously antsy.

The stadium was still empty when the first few Rays came out to play catch at around 5:20pm:

In the photo above, Jose Molina is the player in very shallow left-center. I have no idea who the other guy was, which is a shame because he ended up throwing me the ball when they finished. Here’s a photo of him that I took as he was heading back into the dugout:

Does anyone know who that is? Just to be clear, I’m talking about the white guy with the shaved head. My only guess is Chris Gimenez, but I’m really not sure. I’d like to know so that I can add his name to this very long list.

I got two more balls thrown to me during the next 10 minutes. The first came from Cesar Ramos, and the second came from Matt Moore.

All of these balls (including the one from the unknown player) were thrown over the entire “Legends” section. Take another look at the photo that shows Molina in shallow left-center. That was as close as I could get to the field.

The grounds crew removed the tarp at around 6:40pm . . .

. . . and since no one bothered to check my ticket, I stayed there for a while. (I passed the time by reading another brilliant chapter of Kitchen Confidential.)

Fast-forward 20 minutes. The game was about to begin. Jeff Keppinger and Will Rhymes were playing catch on the edge of the outfield grass, and when they finished, I got Keppinger to throw me the ball. I ended up giving that one away to a little kid.

This was my view during the game . . .

. . . and this is the home run ball that I snagged in the bottom of the 4th inning:

Yes, that’s right. As I mentioned last night on Twitter, I snagged a Raul Ibanez homer during the game. Here’s how it played out . . .

I was sitting in the 4th row in straight-away right field, three seats in from the staircase. The two seats to my right were empty; the reason why I’d moved over was because the TV camera (pictured above) was blocking my view. Anyway, with two outs and a runner on first, Ibanez lifted a 1-2 pitch from James Shields in my direction. I knew right away that it was going to be a home run and that it was going to land near me . . . but where exactly?! My first instinct was to jump up and move to the staircase. Then I froze and looked skyward. Before the ball reached its apex, I realized that it was going to sail about five feet over my head, so I turned away from the field and scurried up a few steps. Then I looked back up for a split-second to pick up the ball, then turned away from it again, then darted into a partially empty row and climbed back over a row because I knew I was positioned too shallow. By the time I looked back up for the final time, the ball was about to land, and I suspected that I wasn’t going to be close enough. At the very last second, I jumped as high as I could and reached back and missed it by six inches. Luckily, the guy who had a clear shot at catching it was not wearing a glove, and the ball bounced off his hands and landed at my feet. Everyone around me started to lunge for it, but I had already scooped it up, and just like that, I’d snagged my 17th lifetime game home run ball. Here I am with it:

Two innings later, a fellow ballhawk named Tony Bracco made his way out to my section to say congrats. Here we are together:

See the ball that Tony’s holding? That’s a 3rd-out ball that Robinson Cano had tossed him earlier in the game near the Yankees’ dugout.

Tony, an aspiring sports photographer with his own MLBlog, told me that he’d gotten a few shots of me, both before and immediately after the home run, and he emailed them to me later that night. Here are my two favorites (which I’ve photoshopped in order to point things out). The first one isn’t an action shot, but sets the stage nicely . . .

. . . and the second one shows me celebrating with the ball:

Huge thanks to Tony for helping to capture a special moment for me.

Ibanez launched another homer in the 7th inning — that one hit the foul pole — and when he came up to bat again in the 8th, I took a picture of the jumbotron:

I love seeing a home run listed on the jumbotron and knowing that I own that ball. That’s the great thing about snagging a homer, or even a foul ball (or even a 3rd-out ball): I get to enjoy the ball and relive the moment long after it has passed.

Want to see something funny? Check out the following screen shot, taken just as the Ibanez home run ball was first rattling around the seats:

Not only is there a guy with his legs up in the air (it was his own fault for diving over a row), but if you look five seats to the left, there’s a woman who appears to be terrorized by the action.

In the screen shot above, just where exactly am I?

Good question. I’m not visible because I was (a) wearing black and (b) bending all the way down to grab the ball. But look . . . here I am moments later, emerging from the pile with the ball:

In the screen shot above, did you notice the two women on the lower right? I love ‘em. They’re wearing gloves and looking at each other and probably shrieking something along the lines of, “OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!!”

I don’t blame them. Being anywhere near a home run ball is VERY exciting — even for me after all these years.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 5 balls at this game (four pictured here because I gave one away)

• 88 balls in 13 games this season = 6.77 balls per game.

• 805 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 552 consecutive games in New York with at least one ball

• 163 consecutive Yankees home games with at least one ball

• 17 lifetime game home run balls (not counting the four gamers that I’ve gotten tossed to me by players, coaches, and other stadium personnel)

• 5,907 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more about my fundraiser, and click here to see the prizes that I’ll be giving away to donors.)

• 28 donors

• $1.66 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $8.30 raised at this game

• $146.08 raised this season

• $19,303.08 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

Here’s one final photo of the home run ball:

Yeah, it looks like just about every other ball, but it obviously means so much more.

Two more things . . .

1) Here’s the home run footage on MLB.com. (You might have to wait through a 15-second commercial.)

2) It was a good night for ballhawks, as two of my friends also snagged home runs in other stadiums. Rick Gold got his hands on a Kelly Johnson homer in Oakland, but more impressively, Tim Anderson grabbed the second of FOUR homers that Josh Hamilton hit in Baltimore. Congrats, gentleman.

You’re probably thinking,  “Go to Tampa, idiot! They get twenty-nine fans per game!!” but it’s not that simple. The Rays are going to be playing the Yankees those days, which means that Tropicana Field will be a madhouse, and in addition to that, the stadium will be opening just 90 minutes before game time. Citizens Bank Park opens two and a half hours early, and although the games will have sellout crowds of 45,000, the Phillies are going to be playing the Braves. Chances are, there won’t be many fans there wearing Braves gear — but those games are on Friday and Saturday nights.

If you were in my position, where would you rather go? Tampa or Philadelphia? I’m not afraid of getting shut out in either city, nor do I expect to hit double digits. I just want to have a fun and relaxing time with my clients.

Not an easy choice.

Speaking of the Phillies, it looks like I might be seeing them in Philadelphia on May 14th and in Los Angeles on July 16th and 17th. (One of the games in L.A. will also be a Watch With Zack affair.) Keep in mind that none of this confirmed, so don’t yell at me if the dates change.

. . . and here’s the link to the whole thing, which I hope you’ll read. It’ll take you a few minutes, but it’s worth it. Andrew makes a bunch of good points, and the entry is beautifully written.

Andrew, by the way, is the guy who filmed this funny video of me snagging a baseball in my hotel room at the Rogers Centre. If you haven’t seen it, watch it immediately. It’s a classic.

. . . and here’s the link in case you want to read the piece in its entirety.

Now, are you ready for the funny translation? Here’s a side-by-side screen shot for you — French on the left, English on the right — courtesy of Google Translate.

Wow. That’s good stuff. Supposedly there’s going to be an article written about me later this month in Japanese. I can’t wait to see what Google Translate is gonna say about that one . . .

In the photo above, that’s Ben Weil on the left and Mateo Fischer on the right. Note that Ben is wearing a hat with his beloved Garfield on it — and that Mateo and I have our Orioles shirts peeking out.

During the first group of batting practice, the three of us converged on the same staircase in straight-away right field. This was the view directly behind me:

By the time I took that photo, I’d already snagged two baseballs. The first was an A-Rod homer that took a lucky bounce off a seat, and the second was a Mark Teixeira homer that I caught on the fly — but there was more to it than that. Here’s a detailed account of how I ended up getting both of those balls . . .

Just after I ran into the stadium and reached the seats in right field, A-Rod sliced a deep drive in my direction. The ball was heading 10 feet to my left, and as I cut through the seats to get in line with it, I could tell that it was going to sail over my head, so I turned around to see where it was going to land. It ended up ricocheting back in my direction, roughly three feet over my head, so I jumped as high as possible (causing my MLB cap to fly off) and barely reached it with my bare/right hand. At that very moment, someone (possibly Mateo) was cutting through the seats two rows below me, so if I hadn’t been able to grab the ball on that first ricochet, I surely wouldn’t have gotten it. Two minutes later, Teixeira launched a deep fly ball more than 30 feet to my right. I knew immediately that it had the perfect distance, but thought that it might land in the Yankees’ bullpen — just on the other side of the netting along the far edge of the section. After hustling to get there and reaching out at the last second, I *thought* I felt the ball hit my glove at the exact instant that my glove smashed into the netting. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I’d caught it, so I looked around frantically at the ground. When I didn’t see the ball anywhere, I opened my glove, and there it was.

My next ball was going to be extra special. Not only was it going to me my 5,900th lifetime ball, but it was going to be the 200th that I’d ever snagged at the new Yankee Stadium. I was on high-alert, paying close attention to every batter who stepped in and out of the cage, and somehow I managed to blow it. Take another look at the photo above. See how it shows Ben and Mateo standing behind me? Well, *just* as I took that photo, Ben started shouting my name repeatedly in a way that I interpreted to mean, “Turn around, idiot, there’s a ball flying at you,” so I turned around just in time to see a ball coming out of nowhere. It smacked the seat in front of me and luckily bounced back into my row, where I was able to lunge and glove it. Here I am reenacting the snag:

I had no idea who hit it, and neither did anyone else. Curtis Granderson was in the cage, so when I shouted, “Was that Granderson who hit it?!” everyone was like, “Uh, no, he just started hitting. Uh, I think it was the guy hitting in front of him. Uh, umm, duh.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point. The fact is, I was the biggest dummy of all for not paying attention when it mattered most, but still, it would’ve been nice to get a little help.

Check out the following four-part photo of The Ball, and I’ll explain everything underneath:

In photo No. 1, you can see the mis-shapen seam, just beyond the upper right corner of the MLB logo. See how it’s not a perfectly round/symmetrical horseshoe? That’s why the ball was designated for batting practice; check out the stamp on the sweet spot in photo No. 2.  In that photo, you can see the “5900″ that I wrote after snagging it. Photos No. 3 and No. 4 go together. They show the ball in regular light and black light. That’s quite a nice invisible ink stamp, no?

When the Orioles took the field, I got as close as I could to the 3rd base foul line — in other words, not very:

No one tossed me a ball or even acknowledged my existence, so I headed to the outfield. My brilliant plan was to camp out in the left field bleachers for Mark Reynolds. I was going to clean up! There was no one there! Look!

There’s a reason why no one was there: the section sucks. The main reason why I went up there is that it was crowded in the seats below, and by “crowded,” I mean that Ben and Mateo were there. (Mateo, it should be noted, put on a clinic during BP and caught four home runs on the fly, several of which required him to jump and reach in traffic. I’m proud to claim him as a former Watch With Zack client.) I didn’t want to compete directly with them or force them to compete with me, but guess what? Next time . . . it’s ON. I’m not going to retreat to the bleachers anymore or deviate from my typical plan. And yeah, okay, fine, I got two baseballs tossed to me in the bleachers, but it was anticlimactic, and I would’ve snagged twice as many if I’d stayed in my normal spot below. For the record, the first of the two toss-ups came from a left-handed pitcher that I couldn’t identify. The second came from the only guy in the outfield in the following photo:

Who the hell was that? The strength and conditioning coordinator? And have you ever seen such a pathetically empty outfield during BP? It’s kind of tough to get balls from the players when there are no players.

Am I complaining too much? Boo-hoo? Poor me? Only snagged five baseballs? Look, we all have different standards, and I set mine pretty high. I know how great it can be at a major league stadium — how much fun I can potentially have — and this one fell short. It happens. I’ll get over it. Hell, I’m already over it and looking forward to going back tomorrow.

I only took one photo during the actual game, and here it is:

Why did I photograph that? Because I had snagged one of the two walk-off home runs that were mentioned on the jumbotron. See the second of the two dates? I was at Camden Yards that day. Check out my blog entry about it.

The best thing about this game was that it only lasted two hours and 22 minutes. (Normally I like being at baseball stadiums for as long as possible, but having to wake up early for work six days a week has a way of changing things.) The Yankees won, 2-1, so of course the other best thing about the game was getting to see Mariano Rivera. (I normally root against the Yankees, but whenever he’s in the game, I want nothing but the best for him and the team.) And you know what? Watching David Robertson pitch is also pretty special. I hear about him all the time because I live in New York, but how many non-New Yorkers know about this guy? He’s the set-up man for M0 — the 8th-inning specialist — and his numbers are absolutely sick. This year he has 18 strikeouts in 11 scoreless innings. Last year he went 4-0 with a 1.08 ERA in 70 games, striking out 100 batters in 66 2/3 innings. He’s truly incredible.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 5 balls at this game (three pictured here because I gave two away to a pair of little kids in my section before the 7th-inning stretch)

• 83 balls in 12 games this season = 6.92 balls per game.

• 804 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 551 consecutive games in New York with at least one ball

• 162 consecutive Yankees home games with at least one ball

• 33 consecutive games at the new Yankee Stadium with at least two balls

• 5,902 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(I’m raising money again this season for Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. Click here to learn more about my fundraiser, and click here to see the prizes that I’ll be giving away to donors.)

• 24 donors

• $1.44 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $7.20 raised at this game

• $119.52 raised this season

• $19,276.52 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

This is actually a two-part prize because the stub will come with this:

That’s an envelope with the Opening Series commemorative logo.

In order to win this ticket and envelope, you need to pledge/donate at least one penny per baseball that I snag during the 2012 season. As I explained last month in this entry, your name will be thrown into the raffle drawing once for every penny per ball that you donate. So yeah . . . go for it. Here’s a direct link to the pledge form.