A funny thing happened as I entered Great American Ball Park: the scanners weren’t working, so one of the employees tore the barcodes off everyone’s tickets. Here he is about to tear mine:

I loved it. It was such a non-New York solution. At Citi Field or Yankee Stadium (or hell, at most other places), fans would’ve been forced to wait while the scanners got up and running.

Anyway, the highlight of the day was that two different TV stations sent cameramen to film me during BP:

In the photo above, the guy on the left was from FOX Channel 19, and the guy on the right was from ABC Channel 9.

Thankfully, despite some seriously iffy weather, there WAS batting practice. My 1st ball was a home run that I caught on the fly in the front row. (I have no idea who hit it.) My 2nd ball was a homer that landed in the seats. Here I am reaching for it:

That photo, along with all the others of me, was taken by Neal Stewart from BIGS Sunflower Seeds. And by the way, do you see the guy wearing shorts who’s climbing down over a row of seats? That’s my buddy Rocco Sinisi, a regular at Great American who has snagged approximately 800 baseballs. More on him in a bit . . .

My 3rd ball was a homer that I caught on the fly by reaching out over the wall in the front row, and my 4th ball was a homer that landed in the seats. I was glad to be putting on a decent show for the cameramen, who were following me everywhere:

I used my glove trick to snag my 5th ball off the warning track in right-center. Then I made a nifty play for my 6th ball — a homer that landed 15 feet to my left and more than half a dozen rows back; I climbed/jumped to my left over a railing, ran through an empty row, and caught the ball as it ricocheted down unexpectedly right to me. I handed it to the nearest kid (who ended up snagging a couple more baseballs on his own).

My 7th ball was thrown by Aroldis Chapman after I asked him for it in Spanish. Several minutes later, a ball rolled onto the warning track, and I set up my glove trick again.

“That’s not gonna work!” yelled Homer Bailey from right-center field.

“Wanna bet?!” I yelled back.

He stood there shaking his head, so I shouted, “If I can get that ball, then I deserve to play catch with you! Do we have a deal?!”

As I pulled out my camera, Bailey turned his back on me. (Hmph.) Meanwhile, his teammate Sean Marshall gave me a little wave with his glove:

Then I went to work . . .

. . . and snagged the ball within 10 seconds. I shouted at Bailey, but he didn’t even look at me — but hey, at least he (and Marshall) were nice enough to have left the ball there. Many players would’ve jogged over and grabbed it, so I tip my cap to the Reds (and to stadium security) for being so cool.

My 9th ball of the day was somewhat of a milestone for me: No. 6,600 lifetime. It was a home run by a right-handed batter on the Braves. I caught it on the fly in the front row and then took the following photo of it:

My 10th ball was a towering home run — possibly hit by Freddie Freeman — that carried perfectly to my spot in the front row. I caught it on the fly, and soon after that, I got my 11th ball tossed by Julio Teheran. My 12th ball was a *DEEP* home run that must’ve landed 15 to 20 rows back; luck, evidently, was on my side because it ricocheted right down to me as several other fans were converging on it.

When the whole stadium opened at 5:40pm, I headed over to left field. (I’d been confined to the right field seats for the fist 70 minutes.) In the following photo, I’m standing near the bottom of the stairs:

That photo was taken just after I climbed/straddled a railing to catch a line-drive homer on the fly — my 13th ball of the day. Unfortunately, the cameraman from ABC had already taken off, and the guy from FOX hadn’t quite set up his camera in this new location. This was the fifth home run that I caught on the fly, and I’m not sure if the TV cameras captured any decent footage. I know that on several occasions, one of the cameramen appeared in the other guy’s shot, rendering it useless.

Here’s a random/candid photo of me that Neal took. Look closely and you’ll see a microphone clipped to my shirt:

After BP, I did a sit-down interview in right field, but before that got started, I took a photo of a little kid with a baseball:

That wasn’t just any random kid, and it wasn’t a random ball. Check it out:

As you might’ve guessed, that kid’s name is Nate. That was a ball that he’d snagged during BP, and his father Jim (standing behind him two photos up) had recognized me. Jim had something else for me to sign, but I had to ask him to wait for a few minutes because it was time for the interview. The following photo kinda shows the setup. Take a look and then I’ll explain:

The guy in the blue shirt was the cameraman. His name is Matt Coiner.
The guy in the white shirt was the reporter. His name is Brian Giesenschlag.
Nate was chillin’ on the right, and you can see me sitting several rows up. I was still miked, so I didn’t need to shout for the camera to pick up what I was saying.

The interview itself was typical, as far as these things go, and I don’t mean that as a diss. The whole segment was probably only gonna end up being two or three minutes, so Brian had to ask all the basic questions: how did you get started, what’s the best ball you ever caught, what are you doing this season with the charity, et cetera. He and Matt both did a solid job and were great to work with. Here they are:

The other cameraman from ABC was named Lanny. (Yes, Lanny. Not Lenny.) He did a fine job too, but I didn’t get to talk to him much off camera because he had to go film some other stuff. He ended up getting some shots of me going for 3rd-out balls early in the game, but then he had to leave for good at around 8pm. His piece was going to air at 11pm that night, whereas Brian (from FOX) was going to take more time to edit the footage and run the segment a few days later.

Once my TV obligations were done, I signed Jim’s copy of The Baseball:

Then I signed Rocco’s copy of Watching Baseball Smarter . . .

. . . and got a photo with both guys and their books:

I don’t know why Rocco wasn’t smiling; he’d snagged eight balls during BP.

Did you notice the photo-bomber in the previous shot? That was a young fan named Tyler, who asked me sign a baseball for him:

I don’t have any photos from the first two hours of the game. That’s because I spent the time running back and forth between the left field seats and the Braves’ dugout; Neal was watching my backpack for me, so I didn’t have my camera. Basically, I tried to catch a home run in the top half of every inning, and when when the Braves took the field, I headed into foul territory to try to snag a 3rd-out ball.

Six innings. That’s how long it took. That’s when Devin Mesoraco went down on strikes, and Brian McCann tossed me the ball on his way in. Given the fact that this was gonna be my only game in Cincinnati this season and a $500 donation for Pitch In For Baseball was riding on it, it was a *huge* relief.

I ran back to left field and posed for a photo with the ball:

I emailed that photo to Lanny, who ended up using it in the segment.

Neal brought his laptop to the game — something that’s not allowed at Yankee Stadium — and got some work done:

In the 8th inning, I gave one of my BP balls to a little kid in my section. Then, in the bottom of the 9th, I headed back to the 3rd base side. Look how much room there was to move around:

Earlier in the game, when I was standing there for one of Joey Votto’s at-bats, an elderly usher approached me and asked if I was waiting for someone.

“Yes,” I said, “I’m waiting for Mister Votto to hit me a foul ball.”

The usher chuckled and told me that I could stand there for a minute, but then I had to find my seat.

In Votto’s next at-bat, when I was sitting 380 feet from home plate in left-center field, he hit a foul ball to that EXACT spot. I’m really trying hard to snag some non-3rd-out gamers, but other than that April 18th game at Yankee Stadium, luck has not been on my side.

Anyway, Votto was up again when I made it down to the dugout with two outs in the bottom of the 9th:

As good as he is, it seemed like he had no chance against Craig Kimbrel. He managed to hit a foul ball on the first pitch, but ultimately went down swinging. Final score: Braves 7, Reds 4.

I’ve been to several games at which Kimbrel has gotten a save. He always seems to toss the game-ending ball into the crowd, but when I asked him for it here in Cincinnati, he gave me a Dikembe Mutombo finger wag. You see, Kimbrel recognizes me (as does his teammate Kris Medlen) and refuses to toss me baseballs. I can’t blame him, although I wonder if he knows about my charitable efforts — and if that would change his mind. If anyone knows him or gets a chance to talk to him or feels like tweeting him (@kimbrel46), do me a favor and let him know that I’m not the worst guy in the world. I mean, it’s not like he’s rude or anything. I think it’s cool that such a talented and popular player knows who I am, but still, I wanna set the record straight.

On my out, I gave away another ball to a little kid and caught up with Rocco to say goodbye. I wish I could spend a solid week at all of these stadiums instead of one game. Everything feels so rushed.

Given the fact that we had to be in Cleveland the following day, Neal and I hit the road and drove two hours to Columbus, Ohio. We stopped along the way at Waffle House . . .

. . . which is truly one of my favorite places to eat.

We checked into our hotel at around 1:30am, and I went to sleep three hours later. What can I say? As a general rule, I have too much energy and too little motivation to get into bed.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 14 balls at this game (eleven pictured here because I gave three away)

• 146 balls in 19 games this season = 7.68 balls per game.

• 87 balls in 6 lifetime games at Great American Ball Park = 14.5 balls per game.

• 891 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 11 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, Safeco Field, Kauffman Stadium, Rangers Ballpark, Minute Maid Park, and Great American Ball Park

• 6,605 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 26 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.63 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $22.82 raised at this game

• $237.98 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $5,500 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $27,143.98 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

Step 1: Check out the Astros’ website to see how early the stadium opens.
Step 2: Learn that it opens two hours early *only* on Saturdays.
Step 3: Plan to be there on a Saturday and RUSH to get there on time.
Step 4: Look forward to snagging an Astros commemorative ball during BP.
Step 5: Hear that the website is wrong and that the gates open 90 minutes early.
Step 6: Be very VERY annoyed and hope that the Astros never win another game.

When the gates finally opened, the Astros were already gone. (Fabulous.) The Tigers were starting to hit, and I headed to the right field seats:

It was dead out there, so I headed over to the Crawford Boxes in left:

That section filled up fast, but I still managed to catch this home run ball:

(That’s how the Tigers mark their baseballs.)

I didn’t catch it on the fly, though. The ball sailed 30 feet over my head and smacked off the back wall above the arches:

I caught the ricochet while cutting to my left through the 2nd row.

When I realized that Prince Fielder was gonna hit in the next group, I raced to the 2nd deck in right field:

There was one other guy with a glove in the front row, along with a bunch of Little Leaguers who were standing around aimlessly at the back of the section:

Within a minute or two, Prince crushed a ball that appeared to be heading right toward the other guy. I could’ve easily drifted to my left and reached in front of him, but I don’t know . . . I felt like he deserved a chance to catch it. Therefore, as the ball was descending, I climbed back into the 2nd row in case he missed it.

That’s exactly what happened. The ball sailed two feet over his head, and his two-inch vertical didn’t quite get the job done. As the ball barely cleared his glove, this guy toppled over backward into a seat, and I made the catch.

I snagged three more Prince Fielder home runs after that and tossed two of those balls to the kids. The first of the three landed near me in the seats and thankfully didn’t take a crazy bounce. The next home was a towering shot that I caught on the fly after climbing two or three rows up. Then I caught the final one after running 40 feet to my right through the front row, breaking a cup holder (which snapped off when my left knee grazed it), and reaching out over the railing. I could hear/sense that the whole stadium was buzzing — more for Prince’s power display, no doubt, but it was cool to be on the receiving end of it.

After that, I headed downstairs and stayed in right field. I didn’t snag any more baseballs for the rest of BP, but I signed a few for some kids that recognized me.

Then I caught up with a couple of friends:

In the photo above, the guy on the left is named Mike Miles, and I’ve known him for quite a while. Way back in 1997, my girlfriend (whom I ended up dating for four years) happened to be best friends with his girlfriend, so that’s how we met. He used to live right around the corner from me in New York City. Now he lives in Houston. The other guy in the photo is named Donny Haltom. He’s a local ballhawk, and I’ve known him for a few years.

I also caught up with a woman named Mary, whom I’d met in 2011. Here we are with a bag of Salt & Vinegar BIGS Sunflower Seeds that she’d won:

Did you see this tweet that I posted before the stadium had opened? That’s how she won the seeds.

For such a lousy team, the stadium sure seemed crowded. A large percentage of the fans had traveled to see the Tigers, but still, look how packed it was along the left field foul line before the game:

When the game started, my total for the day was still stuck at five, and the way I saw it, I needed to snag two more. You know about the whole charity thing with BIGS, right? (For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball.) Well, in addition to that, I’m planning to give BIGS a game-used ball from every stadium so they can auction them off for charity at the end of the season. Therefore, I “needed” two baseballs — one for the auction and one that I could keep for myself. (No pressure, right?)

In the top of the 1st inning, I went here:

I was hoping for a 3rd-out ball from Astros 1st baseman Carlos Pena (or any of his teammates), but it wasn’t meant to be, so in the bottom of the frame, I moved to the 3rd base side:

Given the fact that Max Scherzer was on the hill (and that the Astros are terrible), I figured there’d be lots of strikeouts, so I positioned myself near the home-plate end of the dugout.

My plan worked.

With two outs, Jason Castro took a called third strike, and Tigers catcher Alex Avila tossed me the ball on his way in. Check it out:

<cue the sound of angels singing>

I was super-excited to have gotten that ball. Even if I didn’t snag another, at least I fulfilled the charity challenge (and knew that I’d end up with a good photo for this page on my website). I gave one of my BP balls to the nearest kid, moved to the outfield end of the dugout, and stayed there for the rest of the game. Here’s the best I photo I took from that spot — Torii Hunter talking to Miguel Cabrera between innings:

As the innings ticked by and my opportunities dwindled, I knew that my best shot at getting another commemorative ball would be from home plate umpire Scott Barry after the game.

Before the bottom of the 9th got underway, I got the infield warm-up ball from Tigers coach Rafael Belliard, and although it *was* commemorative, the logo was quite worn — nice but not good enough. As far as I was concerned, I still had to get another.

Meanwhile, I wondered if there was any tidbit of personal info about Scott Barry that I could possibly use to my advantage, so I looked him up on my phone, found his Wikipedia page, and learned that he was born in Michigan! HA! What’re the odds? Even though umps are supposed to be neutral, I figured he probably rooted for the Tigers at some point in his life, so I kept my Tigers shirt on when I moved here:

After the final out of the Tigers’ 17-2 victory (in which Miguel Cabrera went 4-for-4 with two homers and six RBIs), the umps began walking toward me, and I’m glad to report that I got Barry to hook me up! Less than two minutes later, I got my 9th and final ball of the day from Tigers bullpen catcher Scott Pickens. Then I posed for a pic with a young ballhawk named Angel who’d brought copies of my last two books:

Angel and I had exchanged some emails over the past few seasons, but this was the first time that we actually met. It was great to catch up in person, and I also got to meet his father, whose name is . . . Angel. Nice guys — very polite and respectful.

On my way up to the concourse, I took a closer look at the umpire ball . . .

. . . and was surprised to see a lumpy, uneven spot above the commemorative logo. See it there on the stitches, just left of center? That’s the kind of ball that I’m used to seeing in BP with the word “practice” stamped on the sweet spot. I wonder what the folks at MLB would say if they knew that a less-than-perfect ball nearly made it into a game.

Before leaving the stadium, I took a few moments to sign Angel’s books:

I was hoping to buy a new Astros cap on the way out — the one I have is waaay out of date — but by the time I finished, the team store was closed. No big deal. I’ll keep rockin’ the old cap. Maybe it’ll help me get future toss-ups. I mean, it shows that I’ve been a fan for a long time, right?

Back at my hotel (which I didn’t check into until midnight), I photographed the six baseballs that I kept . . .

. . . and stayed up way too late — as always.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 9 balls at this game (six pictured above because I gave three away)

• 132 balls in 18 games this season = 7.33 balls per game.

• 44 balls in 5 lifetime games at Minute Maid Park = 8.8 balls per game.

• 890 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 53 different commemorative balls; click here to my whole collection

• 10 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, Safeco Field, Kauffman Stadium, Rangers Ballpark, and Minute Maid Park

• 6,591 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 25 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.61 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $14.49 raised at this game

• $212.52 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $5,000 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $26,618.52 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

The highlight of my day took place on the way to Rangers Ballpark. I was with Neal Stewart from BIGS Sunflower Seeds, and we stopped in Irving, Texas, for a private tour of the Panini America headquarters. Here’s a photo of the lobby:

Panini, for those who don’t know, specializes in trading cards. Remember Donruss? Panini bought them out in 2009, but that’s just one of their products. They’re the biggest collectibles company in the world, and they have licenses in all four major American sports, along with exclusive contracts with Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Stephen Strasburg, and other athletes. I learned all of this from the guy pictured below in the snazzy “Rated Rookie” t-shirt:

His name is Scott Prusha. He’s the marketing manager for Panini. He’s been with the company for 13 years, and he’s the one who showed us around.

In the photo above, the woman on the right is named Bianca Cadloni. She’s in charge of social media for BIGS Sunflower Seeds, and if she looks familiar, it’s because I met her on 4/21/13 at Angel Stadium.

(For those who are new to this blog and might not recognize me, I’m standing on the left in the previous photo; the reason why I’m wearing all the BIGS gear is that they’re sponsoring me this season.)

Before the tour got underway, Neal filmed Scott talking about the company:

Scott told us about the cards in one of the nearby display cases . . .

. . . which included astronauts, presidents, and war heroes.

Then we headed down this hallway . . .

. . . and eventually ended up here:

That room, as you might expect, had boxes of sports cards (many of which were autographed) all over the place . . .

. . . but the coolest thing about it was the HUGE collection of game-worn and game-used memorabilia. Check out this collection of jerseys and hockey sticks:

Scott correctly assumed that I’d be most interested in the baseball items, so he pulled out two Barry Bonds jerseys:

I was also drawn to some the of basketball stuff. Here I am comparing my sneaker to Kobe Bryant’s . . .

. . . and here I am wearing a dress (aka a Shaquille O’Neal jersey).

Why does Panini have all of these game-worn jerseys?

Scott said, “We acquire them, cut them up, and put ‘em on trading cards to bring the fan and collector closer to the experience of meeting the athlete.”

Here’s an example of a card with a piece of a jersey on it:

See the black circle? That’s the jersey. The cardboard is neatly cut out, and the actual fabric is inserted (or embedded or however you want to describe it) into the card. These cards are then randomly inserted into packs. I would’ve *loved* that as a kid, but back in the mid-1980s, when I started buying packs of Topps, the only “inserts” I got were stale, powdery pieces of bubble gum.

Scott showed us some other interesting pieces of clothing. In the following photo, I’m wearing a Rodney Dangerfield jacket, and Neal is wearing one that belonged to Red Buttons:

In the previous photo, did you notice the big plastic bins stacked on the shelves in the background? Here’s a photo of one of them:

I wonder why all those guys with first names beginning with the letter em were grouped together. I mean, why not store them alphabetically by last name? I would’ve asked Scott, but I didn’t notice the system until I went through the photos 24 hours later.

Here’s Scott with a putter that belonged to Ted Williams:

Good luck chopping THAT up and putting it on baseball cards.

Look at this game-used bat that I came across, along with all the others in the background:

Ever since I snagged his first major league home run ball on 4/18/13 at Yankee Stadium, Didi Gregorius has held a special place in my heart.

Scott let us play with all the memorabilia for about half an hour, and then we kept moving. Here’s the area of the office where the designers work:

Bianca loves Justin Bieber . . .

. . . or maybe she was just kidding?  <3

There was so much stuff to see and photograph that I could’ve spent a week there, but Rangers Ballpark was going to open in two hours, so we had to keep moving.

Before we left, Scott gave us all some parting gifts. Not only did he hook me up with a t-shirt, but he handed me something that nearly made me gasp. Behold!

Ready for a closer look?

That baseball is signed by Willie Mays. (?!?!?!) I have no idea why Scott gave it to me — maybe because I gave him some sunflower seeds? I mean, what are you supposed to do or say when someone gives you something much nicer than what you deserve? (“Umm, thanks?”) I practically felt guilty for accepting the ball, but he insisted. And that wasn’t all he gave me. Here’s a photo of all the schwag I received:

Amazing.

Many thanks to Panini . . . and to Scott for the tour . . . and to Doug Drotman (who’s constantly working his magic behind the scenes) for setting it up in the first place.

Look what I saw when I headed outside to the parking lot:

It was the BIGS tour van! (Yes, that deserves an exclamation point.) This was the first time I saw it in person, and Neal filmed me talking about the Panini experience while standing in front of it:

(BTW, Neal wrote his own blog entry about Panini. Click here to read it.)

Here I am with the “Ladies Of The Van,” as I like to call them — Bianca on the left and Allison (who had joined us for the Panini tour) on the right:

Basically, they drive the van all over the place — mainly to sporting events — and hand out free samples of BIGS seeds. If you want to catch up with them, follow BIGS on twitter and use the “BIGSnation” hashtag.

Neal and I didn’t get a chance to drop off our stuff at the hotel. We had gone directly from the airport to Panini, and from there we headed straight to Rangers Ballpark. While Neal parked the car and dealt with some other work-related stuff, I caught up with some old friends outside the home plate gate:

In the photo above, that’s Trent Williams in the red jersey. He’s the dude that sits out in center field and catches all those home run balls on the grassy berm. He’s the best ballhawk at this stadium, and I’ve known him since 2009. The guy on the right is named Clyde, and the kid is his six-year-old son, Suede. I’d met the two of them on 4/25/11 at Rangers Ballpark. Remember this photo from that entry? Anyway . . .

When the stadium opened, the three of them headed to center field, and I made a beeline for left. As I was cutting through the front row, one of the Rangers’ many right-handed batters hit a home run right to me. I caught it on the fly and took a photo of it:

My next ball — another home run that landed in the seats — was the 100th that I’d ever snagged at this stadium . . . and then I grabbed three more homers. I don’t know who hit them. They all landed in the seats, and I’ll admit that there was very little competition at that point.

Eventually, when there was a brief lull in the action, I headed over toward left-center field to check out the newly-configured visitors’ bullpen:

(Here’s what it used to look like.)

I don’t like the fact that the bullpen replaced so many bleacher seats, but DAMN it looks nice. Also, on the positive side, because stadium security here is cool with ball-retrieving devices, there are now more glove trick opportunities for me. In fact, I used the trick to snag my 6th ball of the day from the back of the bullpen:

It’s a good thing I have lots of string because that ball must’ve been 20 feet below me.

That’s when Hunter Pence showed up and grabbed a seat near me in the left field stands:

I’m kidding. That’s not really Hunter Pence. It was a reporter named Eric Sheffield from The Dallas Morning News, and he was there to do a story on me. (Do you remember the phone interview I’d done the day before at Neal’s friend’s place in Kansas City? That interview aired in Dallas on the morning of this May 3rd game; Eric heard it, Googled me, got in touch, and bam! Here he was with me at the stadium hours later.)

With the seats packed with Red Sox fans, my 7th ball was tossed up from the gap behind the left field wall by a groundskeeper, and my 8th ball was thrown by Daniel Nava.

The final group of hitters were mostly left-handed, so I headed over to the right field seats. That’s when Torii Hunter showed up and stood around with me.

I’m kidding again. That’s not really Torii Hunter. It was a photographer named Vernon Bryant, and he was there to get some shots of me for Eric’s story.

In the photo above, did you notice the ball in my right hand? That was a homer that I’d just caught on the fly — pretty cool to do it in front of the media.

BP ended several minutes later, and I gave that ball to a kid. Then I realized that he was there with his younger sister, so to prevent sibling rivalry from ruining the game (and the rest of their lives), I gave her a ball too.

Eric and I sat down and continued talking:

In the photo above, that’s Trent on my left (talking to his friend Arnie). My buddy Frank was also hanging out nearby, and Neal was now with me as well. It was fun to have a whole group of guys that I could share the experience with.

Eric wasn’t able to stay for the game, but before he left, I got a photo with him and Vernon:

I’m hesitant to compare the physical similarities of black guys because there’s always gonna be someone who’ll say, “Oh, right, so ALL black guys look alike?!” but seriously – Hunter Pence and Torii Hunter. Am I crazy? Decide for yourself:

By the way, whenever someone tells me I look like Billy Corgan or James Carville or Lex Luthor or Moby or Tim Hudson, I’m like, “Oh, sure, so ALL white guys with shaved heads look alike?!” (It’s okay. We do.)

Just before the game, Vernon came with me when I headed here:

Two Red Sox were playing catch, and when they finished, I got Pedro Ciriaco to throw me the ball by asking for it in Spanish. That was my 10th of the day, and it had some cool streaks:

This was my view for the first pitch of the game:

Anything goes at Rangers Ballpark — such a nice change of pace from the prisons back home known as Citi Field and Yankee Stadium. Can you imagine anyone at either of those two ballparks sitting with their feet on top of the dugout roof? I’m not kidding when I say this: they’d probably be arrested for trespassing.

Meanwhile, Vernon was camped out in the photographers’ box on my right:

He was there to get a shot of me snagging a 3rd-out ball, and I’m sorry to say that I made him wait for an hour, but you know what? It was Felix Doubront’s fault. That’s how long it took him to end an inning with a strikeout — the 3rd inning, to be specific. A.J. Pierzynski went down swinging at a 3-2 pitch, and Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia tossed me the ball as he jogged off the field. There was no competition, and it felt GREAT — $500 more for Pitch In For Baseball, courtesy of BIGS Sunflower Seeds.

Vernon wanted to get a shot of me with some baseballs in the upper deck, so we headed upstairs. On the way, I gave one of my BP balls to a random kid and then photographed the ball that I’d just received from Saltalamacchia:

Neal (who had a seat in the upper deck) met us up top and documented Vernon’s photo shoot:

Then I did a brief audio interview with Vernon on the concourse:

He took off after that, and I headed downstairs with Neal. On the way, we saw/heard THE best vendor of all time. He was selling beer, and you simply must watch this video. It’s only six seconds, so you have no excuse. Make sure your volume is on.

Now, you know everything is supposedly bigger in Texas? Well, that was certainly true for this two-foot-long hot dog:

This so-called boomstick – a new concession item at Rangers Ballpark — weighs three pounds and costs $26, and you know what? I kind of regret not getting one. It would’ve been a fun challenge to finished it all by myself, but instead I had two slices of pepperoni pizza and some overrated Blue Bell ice cream:

It wasn’t bad or anything. It was perfectly fine/normal/tasty ice cream. It just wasn’t worthy of all the comments I’d been getting such as, “Ohmygod, dude, you haaaaaaave to get Blue Bell. It’s the best!” The best ice cream I ever had was Godiva, and now I can’t find it anywhere. My new favorite isn’t technically ice cream. It’s gelato, and it’s made by a company called Talenti. (Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll sponsor me next year?) Eat some Blue Bell. Then try some Talenti — I recommend the “sea salt & caramel” flavor – and you’ll see what I mean. There’s no comparison.

I think it was the 6th inning by the time I finished my food and made it to the outfield. As much as I wanted to head to the seats beside the berm and show Trent how it’s done, I needed to take a moment to photograph this:

What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, do you see the red line on the ground? That’s where the stands used to end. If you wanted to move from left field to left-center, you had to go inside a doorway/tunnel-thing and take a really annoying detour. Now there’s a direct path, and I love it!

As for the berm, I was allowed to stand here for a little while:

This was view to my right:

(That whole section used to be bleachers, and there was no cross-aisle.)

This was the view to my left:

I can’t even imagine having THAT much room to run for home run balls. Without a doubt, it’s the best ballhawking spot in the majors, and it kills me that I can’t be there regularly to take advantage.

As the game entered the 8th inning, I photographed the Red Sox bullpen . . .

. . . and found an empty seat beside the berm. This was my view:

Did you notice the kid sitting in front of me in the previous photo? See the baseball in his right hand? I gave that to him, and he was thrilled. His father told me that it was his first game and that he’d been hoping to get a ball all night.

Neal, evidently, had worked his way into the seats on the 3rd base side. Here’s a photo that I grabbed from his camera later that night. The red arrow is pointing at me:

It would’ve been SO nice if one (or eight) of the Red Sox or Rangers had hit a home run onto the berm. But no. There wasn’t a single longball all night. But hey, look, there were fireworks:

Whoop-dee-doo.

After the fireworks, I got a photo with Trent . . .

. . . and with Frank:

After heading outside, Neal suggested that Trent and I do a little video together. Click here to see Neal’s blog entry about it. There are actually a couple of videos there worth watching (including a clip of Trent catching a recent game home run and robbing the Mariners’ center fielder in the process).

Finally, click here to see the article that Eric wrote about me in the Dallas Morning News. It’s supposed to appear in the print version today (May 5th), so look for it if you’re in Texas.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 11 balls at this game (seven pictured here on yet another ugly hotel room carpet because I gave four away)

• 123 balls in 17 games this season = 7.24 balls per game.

• 109 balls in 11 lifetime games at Rangers Ballpark = 9.9 balls per game.

• 889 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 11 stadiums with at least 100 lifetime balls: Shea Stadium (2,173), Citi Field (562), Old Yankee Stadium (560), Camden Yards (510), New Yankee Stadium (422), Citizens Bank Park (282), Nationals Park (248), Turner Field (186), Kauffman Stadium (116), PETCO Park (110), and Rangers Ballpark (109)

• 9 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, Safeco Field, Kauffman Stadium, and Rangers Ballpark

• 6,582 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 25 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.61 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $17.71 raised at this game

• $198.03 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $4,500 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $26,104.03 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

One more thing . . . I’m guessing you didn’t bother clicking the photo of those seven baseballs, so let me show you a closeup of one of them:

Multicolored streaks? Never seen that before. Have you?

I woke up at 7am with about four hours of sleep, left my hotel with Neal Stewart at 7:30, and made it to the local FOX news station half an hour later:

The weather was brutal — rainy with a high in the 30s and a chance of snow . . . not exactly ideal conditions for a baseball game. The Royals and Rays were scheduled to play at 1:10pm, and even if the weather were perfect, I’m not sure I would’ve gone. Aside from being exhausted, I had four interviews scheduled that were going to run into the early afternoon.

Anyway, I had some time to spare before my 8:40am interview at FOX, so while I was standing around doing nothing, I took a few behind-the-scenes photos. Here’s what it looked like inside the studio:

Here’s a shot of the weatherwoman doing her thing in front of the green screen — note the monitor on the left that shows her with all the graphics:

(By the way, WordPress’s spellcheck is sexist; it has no problem with “weatherman,” but it’s underlining “weatherwoman” in red. Just thought you all should know.)

Neal and I had brought some props, including the eight baseballs that I’d snagged the day before at Kauffman Stadium and some BIGS Sunflower Seeds:

Unfortunately, at the very last second, Neal was told that the seeds had to go (although we did get ‘em on camera for a few teasers leading into the segment, and of course the BIGS logo was visible on my clothing). As far as we know, FOX never posted it online, but Neal was filming from off the to side with his own little camera. Here’s a screen shot that shows me live on the air:

Did you notice my books on the monitor in the background? At the time, I had no idea that they were being shown, so when I found out later, it was obviously a very nice surprise. I never thought I’d say this, but thank you, FOX!

Moments after my segment wrapped up, Neal accidentally photo-bombed the next one. (You seriously MUST click that link. The video is less than 20 seconds. Do it!) Basically, he was standing off to the side, and the cameraman didn’t bother letting him know that he was gonna be in the background of the next shot. Ha!

I was in a great mood when we made it back to the green room . .

. . . but Neal was feeling down about his TV blooper:

On our way out of the building, I took a photo of the doors that lead to the studio . . .

. . . and then I got a peek inside the control room:

After that, we stopped briefly at a diner and placed a to-go order. Here I am reading the previous day’s box scores while waiting for my food — scramble eggs, potatoes, and pancakes:

Neal happened to have an old college friend who lived nearby, so we dropped by his house to eat . . .

. . . and watch the FOX segment, which he had recorded:

Here’s a closer look at me on TV:

I know I already linked to Neal’s epic photo-bomb, but it was so damn funny that I need to post a separate screen shot of it:

That has been a constant source of laughter ever since. Oh, man.

While I was at Neal’s friend’s place, I did a taped/phone interview with a radio station in Dallas, which aired the following day. (I don’t have a link. Sorry.)

After that, Neal and I GPS’ed our way . . .

. . . to this radio station:

I was scheduled for a live, in-studio interview here at 11am. Once again (and as we’d planned), there was some time to spare, so I took some more photos of the snazzy interior. Here’s the staircase . . .

. . . and here’s a shot of Neal in the lobby:

In the photo above, do you see the balcony above the TV monitor? More on that in a bit . . .

Neal hung out in the studio while I was interviewed and took the following photo while I was live on the air:

Click here to listen to the segment.

I was on a show on 610 Sports Radio called “The Day Shift with Lake and Bink.” The two hosts, Henry Lake and Jay Binkley were cool as hell. Here I am with them after we finished:

Kauffman Stadium, by the way, was about to open, and I was nowhere near it. In fact, I stayed at the radio station for an extra half-hour in order to do a Skype interview for the Cleveland Plain Dealer website. (I’m going to be in Cleveland on May 7th.) Here I am during the interview . . .

. . . and if you want to watch it, click here and jump ahead to the 23:25 mark.

That was supposed to be my final interview of the day, but on our way out of the radio station, I ran into Jay, and he asked me about my glove trick. First I described how it worked. Then I offered to show it to him. And then he asked if he could do a video segment with me for the station’s website.

Now, do you remember that balcony in the lobby? Oh yeah, baby! While I set up my glove for Jay and the camera, Neal placed one of my baseballs on the floor below. Here’s a screen shot from a video that Neal ended up filming . . .

. . . and if you want to see how the segment turned out, click here.

It was only 1pm, but I was ready for bed. My lack of sleep was really getting to me, and on top of that, I’d been “on” for like four hours. Being interviewed is fun — don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining — but there’s lots of pressure, and it’s draining.

Neal and I went back to our respective rooms at the hotel. I forced myself to stay awake long enough to watch the first three and a half innings of the Royals game. That’s when the grounds crew pulled the tarp out, and when I woke up three hours later, I learned that it had been postponed (after a two-hour delay). So glad I decided to skip it.

Remember Garrett and “Big Glove Bob” from 5/1/13 at Kauffman Stadium? They were there. Suckers.

When I headed out to dinner at around 6pm, it was snowing! Garrett told me later that this was the first time it snowed in Kansas City in the month of May since 1907. Lucky me. At least I had a nice, meal, though. I went to a place called Jack Stack and got a large, double-appetizer — spinach salad with onions, strawberries, pecans, and feta . . . AND . . . soup with chicken and sausage:

For my main course, I got pork and beef burnt ends with a side of beans and “cheesy corn”:

Meanwhile, at Kauffman Stadium, this was happening:

Garrett found that photo on Twitter and sent it to me. Crazy, huh?

Thankfully, the weather was perfect the following day (May 3rd) in Arlington, Texas. Stay tuned for my blog entry about it. I got a tour of a baseball card factory and then went to the Rangers game . . .

I’ve been to Kauffman Stadium four of the last five seasons, and it keeps on getting worse. This time, as always, I spent an extra $10 to get inside at 4:30pm for the “early bird” BP tour. On a positive note, I found a baseball as I wandered down to the seats behind the 3rd-base dugout . . .

. . . but on a sucky note (and for the first time ever), I had to deal with this:

The early bird tour has always been lame. Basically, you start in the Royals Hall of Fame and end up behind one of the dugouts. You’re not allowed to chase home run balls in the outfield. You’re not even allowed to hang out along the foul lines, but it used to be that if a batter sliced a ball into the empty seats, you could get permission to go get it. (Permission?! What the hell is this, kindergarten?!) Now you can’t even do that because there are “pennants” blocking the seats. (Pennants?! More like “cheapo flags that belong at a used car dealership.”)

I’m guessing you didn’t notice the baseball in the previous photo, so here, let me give you a closer look:

One of the Royals had hit it there, and let me tell you, it drove me crazy not to be able to walk through the seats and pick it up.

Part of the reason why I got so annoyed was that a two-man crew from CBS was there to film me. Here I am getting miked by the cameraman, who’s name is Andy:

The host, pictured below on the left, is named Stephen Mayer:

They were both great to work with, but unfortunately, because of all the silly rules — and ultimately the lack of BP home runs — there wasn’t a whole lot of action.

I’m glad to say, though, that I did snag two more baseballs within a 10-second span. The first was thrown to my friend “Big Glove Bob” by Salvador Perez, but it fell several rows short and ricocheted closer to me. The second ball (which was my 3rd overall on the day) was the one that had been sitting in the seats along the foul line; a friendly usher walked over there and retrieved it for me.

Andy got a shot of those two baseballs in my glove:

Several minutes later, this was the scene behind me:

In the photo above, that’s Big Glove Bob with the big glove. Stephen is sitting two rows behind him, and Neal Stewart from BIGS Sunflower Seeds is chillin’ on the stairs.

Meanwhile, I felt like a caged animal . . .

. . . and by the way, it should be noted why those flags are now in place.

Two words: Yankee fans.

I’m not making this up. I asked the usher about it, and she said that the last time the Yankees were in town, so many fans tried to sneak off into other parts of the stadium that security decided to permanently block the seats during the early bird tour.

When the stadium “opened” for real at 5:30pm, things seemed to get even worse. Last year, you could wander off into other sections at 5:30pm, but this year, for some unfathomably moronic reason, you have to stay behind the dugout until 6pm! That’s right. While other fans who paid less money got to run around the outfield, my sorry ass was stuck in foul territory. You see, the whole stadium no longer opens at 5:30pm; only the outfield gates open at that time, so the fans who enter there get to be there, and the fans who do the tour have stay behind the dugouts. It’s so stupid and un-fan-friendly that the person (or people) who instituted this plan should be banned from baseball. Then, to add insult to emotional anguish, a different usher had the nerve to tell me that this has always been the rule. Big Glove Bob overheard this nonsense and set the record straight. He’s a season ticket holder. He does the BP tour every day. He knows what’s up, and even *he* was surprised. Shame on you, Royals. Seriously.

I was so pissed off about being stuck behind the dugout that I asked to leave the stadium. I was actually going to pay for a whole new ticket just to be able to (re)enter the normal gates like a normal person and have a chance like everyone else to enjoy batting practice. But get this: security wouldn’t let me. That’s when Neal took charge and asked to speak to a supervisor and calmly explained our situation: we’re here from out of town, we didn’t know the rule, we’re doing a thing with the local media, we’re snagging baseballs for charity, they really want to get some footage of Zack in the outfield, etc. And it worked. The supervisor, clearly a reasonable man, agreed to walk me out to the outfield, though he was hesitant at first because, you know, what if everyone else sees me taking you to the outfield? Then they’re gonna want to go to the outfield too. Yeah? And your point is . . . ?

If slow-walking were an Olympic event, this supervisor would’ve won the gold medal. I swear it took us three solid minutes to get out there (after he stopped to have a one-minute conversation with a friend). But finally, I was there. And I felt so free. And ohmygod, look how much room there was to run for home run balls:

Sadly, there were no home runs — and I do mean NO home runs. Not one. The entire time. It’s like a junior varsity team was hitting, and I was going out of my mind.

Neal was still stuck behind the dugout, so this was the best photo of me that he could get:

In the photo above, do you see the fan on the left, wearing a blue jacket with a white stripe on the sleeve?

That was my friend Garrett Meyer, who was kind enough to put his own ballhawking on hold just so that we could hang out — and while he was at it, he grabbed my camera and took a few photos of me. Here’s the best one. It shows Ryan Roberts (deep in left field) about to throw a ball to me (on the walkway behind the seats):

That was actually my 6th ball of the day. Alex Cobb had tossed me No. 4 in left-center, and Jake McGee had hooked me up with No. 5 in right-center.

When Big Glove Bob eventually wandered out to the outfield, I took a photo of him with Garrett:

There were a zillion kids in left field — some school outing or something — and Fernando Rodney tossed more baseballs to them than I cared to count. Here he is about to let one fly:

Normally, I give away a ball or two (or five) to kids over the course of the day, but in this case, I’d pretty much decided to keep whatever I got. That’s because I was scheduled to appear on the FOX morning news the next day, and the producer had asked me to bring a bunch of baseballs.

Anyway, that was it for BP. Six balls. No home runs. Not terrible, but not all that exciting. I’d really been hoping to put on a better show for the TV guys, but it certainly could’ve been worse. And by the way, speaking of TV, I’ve gotten a few less-than-friendly comments lately from people accusing me of “acting like a celebrity,” so lemme just say that *I* didn’t set any of this stuff up. BIGS Sunflower Seeds approached me during the off-season. They’re the ones who conceived of this whole sponsorship. They’re the ones who are pitching me to the media and planning to donate up to $15,000 to my favorite charity. What was I supposed to do? Turn them down? What am I supposed to do when there’s a TV crew following me around? Pretend like I’m not having fun? I never started collecting baseballs to get famous. I just did it because it was (and still is) fun. When I snagged those two home runs on 4/18/13 at Yankee Stadium, I never contacted the media. I was minding my own business during the game when my phone rang. It was some random guy from the Associated Press, who somehow got my number. What was I supposed to say? “Screw you, I don’t want to talk”? C’mon.

Enough about that. I’d rather tell you about the pepperoni pizza that I ate before the game:

It was good.

Neal had gotten us seats behind the 3rd-base dugout, and in the top of the 1st inning, this was his view:

I was in the outfield, running back and forth behind the batter’s eye, constantly repositioning myself for right- and left-handed batters. My plan was to spend the top of each inning in the outfield . . . plus an out or two in the bottom half  . . . and then hurry back to the Rays’ dugout for a 3rd-out ball.

Well, it just so happened that the Rays hit two homers in the top of the 1st inning — back-to-back solo shots by Matt Joyce and Ben Zobrist. Unfortunately, they both landed in the right field bullpen, and the groundskeepers out there kept the balls.

When I made it back to the dugout, Garrett (who was sitting with Neal) showed me a comment card that one of his usher-friends had begun to fill out on my behalf. Here’s what it looked like several minutes later:

Before you start calling me a complainer (which I’ll admit that I sometimes am, occasionally for valid reasons), remember that I had very little to do with this. The usher asked me how I felt, so I told her that the groundskeepers should’ve tossed the balls into the crowd. Then she asked me if I wanted to go to guest services and get some sort of apology/consolation prize, and I said no thanks. I wanted one of those home run balls. Other than that, whatever.

It wasn’t long before Eric Hosmer flied out to Rays center fielder Desmond Jennings to end the 1st inning. I wandered down the steps to the 3rd row — there were some people down in front, and I didn’t want to crowd them — and watched as the ball got tossed around. Evan Longoria ended up with it, and when he got close, I waved my arms and shouted “Longo!!” He looked up and tossed it right to me over everyone down in front. I made the catch and hurried up the stairs and, well, click here for a YouTube video that shows how it all went down.

I felt *great* after that, not only because Pitch In For Baseball was going to receive an additional $500 from BIGS, but because it freed me to return to the outfield and try to catch a home run.

Garrett, having snagged a ball earlier (and therefore extending his consecutive games streak to 169), was content to put his glove away and hang out with me for the rest of the game. Here he is on the left-field walkway:

Here I am with the ball that Longoria had tossed to me:

I ran back and forth all game, positioning myself in right field for every left-handed batter and in left field for every righty. I was dying to catch a home run, and if one had been hit anywhere near me, I would’ve been all over it. There was NO competition. It was insane. And of course it was frustrating as hell that nothing came close.

Here’s a photo of the most unusual thing that happened all night:

Quite simply, the fountains began overflowing, and the water spilled into the stands. Look how bad it got:

There was about an inch and a half of water in the front row, and there were mini-waterfalls in other areas. Crazy, huh?

Just so you know, the water level of the fountains can be controlled, and in fact, the Royals regularly overflow them after games in order to clean the stands. But during a game? Garrett had never seen this happen before.

Stadium personnel handled it reasonably well, I guess. They put up a “CAUTION” sign . . .

. . . and invited everyone in the left field seats to move into foul territory, but it took them a long time to lower the water level — more that half an hour, I think.

Garrett and Neal hung out in right field:

The stadium was so empty during the final few innings . . .

. . . that I considered moving to the upper deck. There were TWO fans on the first base side, and they were sitting 10 rows back. But no. I couldn’t do it. The outfield at Kauffman Stadium is too glorious, so stayed there and hoped for a longball. Here’s a photo that shows me camped out on the walkway behind the left field seats:

Meanwhile, look how empty it was in right field:

In the photo above, the two people in blue jackets are ushers. The one person wearing the black jacket is me. Why why why why WHY could there not have been a home run? I would’ve been able to run 100 feet and still make it look easy.

After the final out of the Royals’ 9-8 victory, I got a ball from Fernando Rodney near the right-field bullpen. (Garrett gets the assist on that one for helping me call out for it.) That was my 8th and final ball of the day.

Here’s a photo that I took less than a minute later as Rodney and a few teammates walked across the field toward the dugout:

Before we left the stadium, Neal took a few photos of me with all the baseballs for the media:

I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be back at Kauffman the next day because the weather forecast was brutal, and I had four interviews scheduled in the early morning/afternoon . . . and the first pitch was scheduled for 1:10pm . . . and I knew I was going to be exhausted.

Sigh.

It’s such a shame to be at such a great stadium for only one game, but that’s the nature of the BIGS Baseball Adventure. I still have 22 more ballparks to check off my list this season.

Oh! Two more things:

1) Click here to watch the CBS segment on me.
2) Click here to read Neal’s blog entry about this game.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 8 balls at this game (pictured on the right)

• 112 balls in 16 games this season = 7 balls per game.

• 116 balls in 11 lifetime games at Kauffman Stadium = 10.5 balls per game.

• 888 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 8 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, Safeco Field, and Kauffman Stadium

• 6,571 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 25 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.61 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $12.88 raised at this game

• $180.32 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $4,000 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $25,586.32 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

I should’ve stayed home. This whole day sucked, and my mind was elsewhere. I should’ve been packing for my upcoming trip, answering important emails, planning my writing group‘s next meeting, cleaning up all the clutter in my apartment, spending time with my loved ones, eating healthy food, and relaxing. But stupid me . . . I couldn’t resist this game because the Astros were in town, and I was hoping to snag one of their commemorative baseballs during batting practice.

On my way to the stadium, I ran into a familiar security guard who warned me that my photograph had recently been circulated during an employee roll call. Why? Because of those two home run balls that I snagged during the game on April 18th. Remember how I got the first one in right field and the second one in left? Well, evidently, I’m now on the Yankees’ Most Wanted List as a result. After I caught that second homer, one of the TV announcers joked, “I wonder where his ticket says he’s supposed to be,” but it was no laughing matter to stadium security. So yeah. The whole day sucked, and this was just the beginning.

When the stadium opened and I ran inside, this was what I saw:

All of the Yankees were stretching . . . as in, NOT taking batting practice. But there was a Yankee coach on the mound with a basket of balls, which meant they WERE going to hit, which meant the Astros weren’t — no chance that both teams would hit with BP starting so late. So yeah. My entire reason for being at this game was pretty much wiped out from the start.

One of the few bright spots was finding a ball in the front row:

It was my 100th baseball of the season. Yay.

While the Yankees were wasting time along the right field foul line, two Astros were playing catch on the left side:

Two minutes later, my friends Ben Weil (pictured below in the Astros jersey) and Greg Barasch (in the light blue t-shirt) made their way over to my section:

They were hoping that the player who ended up with the ball would “go long.” Some players enjoy tossing baseballs deep into the crowd rather than hooking up fans in the front row with easy toss-ups, but in this case, I pretty much knew I was gonna get it. That’s because I’d politely asked the player closest to me if I could have the ball when he finished; he didn’t make an official promise, but I took his subtle head-nod as a good sign. Sure enough, when the warm-up session ended, he tossed it to me, and I was ready with my camera. Check out this photo of the ball in mid-air:

Does anyone know who that player is? Here’s a closer look at his face:

Once the Yankee started hitting, I headed to 100 Level seats in right field:

I had considered going to the second deck, but thought, “Nah, the last two times I went up there, it was dead.” Then, of course, the Yankees proceeded to hit half a dozen balls up there — maybe even eight or ten. My bad luck was out of control, and when a few longballs finally landed in my section . . . let’s just say that things didn’t exactly go my way. There were two that I could’ve easily caught on the fly, but other fans caught them right in front of my glove. There was another homer that landed right behind me in a totally empty spot, but took a wild ricochet 30 feet away, and when I finally had my chance — albeit a difficult one where I was looking into the sun and jumping and trying to reach above two other fans — the ball tipped off my glove. Thankfully I managed to grab that one in the seats, but DAMN, everything was a struggle.

Toward the end of BP, in a similar jumping/reaching situation, I had another home run deflect off my glove in left field, only this time I didn’t end up getting it. WTF?! It was a tough play, one that might not have been scored an error if a major league outfielder had done the same thing on the warning track, but it felt like an error to me, and I was as stunned as I was bummed. I think it was just a lack of focus on my part, and I’m sorry to say that I cost Ben a chance to catch it, as he was cutting through the row directly behind me.

While I was in left field, a security guard told me that from now on, during games, if I ever want to move from one section to the next, I can’t walk through the seats, even if they’re empty. Instead, I have to use the tunnel, walk through the concourse, and then use the next tunnel.

Ben and I hung out after BP and made our way to the left field bleachers. Remember the Astros jersey that he was wearing? Check out the back of it:

Mike Scott. Wow. That name brings back some bad memories. (I used to love the Mets. Now I root against them. But back in the 1980s, when I lived and died with the team, Mike Scott was an unbeatable nemesis.)

Astros catcher Jason Castro was doing a drill with pitching coach Doug Brocail — one that involved lots of baseballs:

I looked at every single ball and didn’t see any commemorative logos. Then I was told by a security guard not to lean out over the wall.

Roughly fifteen minutes before game time, I headed to the right field bleachers and got a toss-up from Yankees bullpen coach Mike Harkey. Then I rushed back to the left field bleachers and got my 5th ball of the day from Brocail. (I’d like to thank my buddy Jay for not reaching out and robbing me.) It wasn’t commemorative, but whatever. I’ll be at Minute Maid Park on May 4th, so I’ll have a good chance of getting one (or twelve) then.

Here’s where I sat for the most of game:

I had started off in the 4th row, which was gloriously empty until a rather hefty young man climbed over from the row behind me and parked himself half a dozen seats to my left. I thought about offering him a ball as a form of bribing him to move back, but (a) he was about 20 years old so I doubted that it would’ve worked, and (b) one of his friends climbed over and sat down beside him. I felt trapped, so I moved to a totally empty row near the back of the section and ended up giving one of my BP balls to someone else.

In the top of the 8th inning, Chris Carter blasted an opposite-field homer that landed in the middle of the section on my right. I got caught up on a railing and scurried over a bit too late and watched helplessly as the fans bobbled it and then couldn’t immediately find it on the ground. When I returned to my seat, the 19-year-old security guard told me that I’m not allowed to go into the next section.

“Not even to try to catch a home run during the GAME?!” I asked.

“You can’t do it, Zack,” he replied. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”

I wanted to shout, “Wrong! The fact that you use your cell phone for half of every game is going to get you in trouble!” but instead, all I said was, “You have got to be kidding.”

“That ball landed in section 103. Your ticket is in 104. You gotta stay there.”

Half an inning later, Lyle Overbay hit one of those lazy, Yankee-Stadium homers into the seats on my right. It landed in the empty 4th row. Anyone wanna guess who snagged it? Yeah, the hefty fan, and he had raced over from section 104. Of course the guard didn’t say anything to him, so I asked the guard, “Does this rule apply to everyone or just to me?”

As it turned out, this guard hadn’t noticed that the kid had crossed over into the next section — and why should he have noticed? Who the hell cares? It’s a baseball stadium. People try to catch baseballs. Jesus Aitch. LET. IT. GO.

Thankfully my fingernails didn’t suffer because I had a whole bunch of sunflower seeds with me. I had fun spitting the shells on the ground and seeing how big of a mess I could make. As I tweeted late in the game, I dare anyone to try to eat more BIGS seeds and make a bigger mess at one baseball game than this:

Not surprisingly, the Yankees beat the Astros, and as you might imagine, I’m glad to be hitting the road again. I’m writing this entry from Kansas City. I’ll be at Kauffman Stadium tonight, followed by games in Arlington, Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. For specific dates (and to see when I’m going to be at other stadiums later in the season), visit bigsbaseballadventure.com and click the link that says “The Adventure.” Scroll down a bit, and you’ll see a calendar. Gotta run for now.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

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

• 104 balls in 15 games this season = 6.93 balls per game.

• 887 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 412 consecutive games with at least two balls

• 195 consecutive Yankee home games with at least one ball

• 16 consecutive seasons with at least 100 balls

• 7 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, and Safeco Field

• 6,563 total balls

• 184,539,116 stupid rules at Yankee Stadium

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 25 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.61 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $8.05 raised at this game

• $167.44 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $3,500 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $25,073.44 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

It’s never a good sign when fans are sitting in line outside the gates of a Major League Baseball stadium:

In this case, there was a large crowd because (a) it was Friday, (b) it was “college night, and (c) there was a “beard hat” giveaway for the first 20,000 fans. I figured there’d be a large crowd, but I wasn’t prepared for the madness.

My first ball was a fluke. I was standing on the center field party deck (which, by the way, had a huge area blocked off for a private gathering) when Oliver Perez flipped a ball to a fan in the front row. Several folks reached for it, and they all bobbled it, and the ball somehow fell to the ground and trickled 20 feet back to where I was standing.

There were two reasons why I was positioned so far back:

1) It was crowded at the front.
2) Michael Morse was hitting.

As if on cue, Morse crushed a monstrous fly ball in my direction. I barely had to move, and I caught it on the fly. Here’s a photo of the ball, taken at the spot where I gloved it:

That’s a looooong way from home plate — roughly 425 feet.

Meanwhile, my friend Max Van Hollebeke was using the glove trick to snag a ball from the bullpen:

The day before, I’d snagged two that way before security shut me down, but he managed to get away with it here.

As much as I hate promotions, I have to admit that the beard hats were amusing. Little kids were wearing them . . .

. . . as were the not-quite-drunk guys on the new left field party deck:

I went up there because there was nowhere else to be. Safeco Field is nice-lookin’, but let’s face it: left field is worthless when it comes to catching home runs.

After a minute or two, I headed to right field, stopping along the way to photograph the center field party deck from above:

How about NO.

The right field seats were also crowded, but I managed to snag a couple of baseballs there in the next half-hour. The first was thrown by Angels pitcher Barry Enright in this area . . .

. . . and the second was a long home run by Hank Conger, which I caught on the fly here:

Yes, I was actually underneath the overhang, twenty (or however many) rows back. There weren’t any empty rows farther down, so I played deep and got lucky.

With Albert Pujols set to take his cuts in the next group, I headed to the second deck in left field. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t much action up there, but I did get a nice look at the new, two-tiered party deck setup in the left field corner:

While I was up there, I got an autograph request — the second of the day. Before the stadium had opened, a man had approached me and asked me to sign a baseball with my “number” on it. I had ended the previous day with a lifetime total of 6,551 baseballs, so that’s what I wrote. Fast forward 90 minutes. A teenaged kid asked me to sign another ball the same way . . . so I did with a “6555″ after my name. As it turned out, these two fans were a father-and-son duo named Mark and Alex. Here they are with the baseballs:

A little while later, I played pretend-catch with Ernesto Frieri. In other words, I pretended to throw a phantom ball to him, and he pretended to lunge and catch it and throw it back. I then pretended to catch *his* throw behind my back, and then I threw him an imaginary knuckleball, which somehow sailed over his head. He actually jumped for this nonexistent knuckler and chased it down by jogging toward the infield — hilarious, but as we all know, my aim isn’t that bad. After our little game of make-believe, he got his hands on a real ball and threw it to me. He then flapped his glove to indicate that he wanted me to throw it back, so I did — right on the money. His return throw fell short and landed in the bullpen. I pretended to dive after it. He held up his right index finger as if to say, “Hold on.” He then went out of his way to get another ball, and before he threw it to me, I handed my camera to Mark. I was hoping to continue playing catch with him and get a video of it, but unfortunately he didn’t ask me to throw the ball back a second time. The video isn’t really worth posting, but I’ll share a couple of screen shots. Here’s Frieri throwing the ball . . .

. . . and here I am catching it:

Many thanks to Mark for documenting it. Too bad it wasn’t more exciting.

(It should be noted that Neal Stewart from BIGS Sunflower Seeds didn’t attend this game. Earlier in the day, he flew to Baltimore for another work assignment; I’ll be seeing him in Kansas City in a few days. He and I are planning to attend games at Kauffman Stadium on May 1st [and possibly the 2nd], Ameriquest Field on May 3rd, Minute Maid Park on May 4th, Great American Ballpark on May 6th, Progressive Field on May 7th, PNC Park on May 8th, Camden Yards on May 9th, and Nationals Park [where I hopefully won't get ejected for photographing my baseballs] on May 10th. Come say hi if you see me.)

The upper left field party deck was packed:

No thanks.

Here’s a look at the lower of the two left field party decks from above:

Yuck. But if you think THAT’S crowded, check out the concourse behind the left field bullpens:

It. Was. Insane.

And it was like that all night. It felt like a frat party — loud/awful music, endless lines for the bathroom, schmucky drunk people behaving obnoxiously. I hated everything about it. At one point, I saw a guy with a very bloody nose.

Batting practice ended while I was trapped in the crowd, so I went and checked out the lower party deck. I had to show my ID to get in. Then I walked through this area:

The outdoor portion of the deck or bar (or whatever you want to call it) was absurdly crowded:

If this party deck were empty, it’d be a nice little spot to catch home run balls, but as things were, the only good thing about it was the gap behind the outfield wall:

I photographed the oddly-configured area around the foul pole . . .

. . . and got the hell out of there. Not only was I about to lose my mind, but my friend Joe had arrived from Portland, Oregon with his eight-year-old son, Booker. Here I am with them:

I’ve known Joe since the summer of 1995; I had an internship with the Boise Hawks, and he happened to be the head groundskeeper. He’s one of my favorite people in the world — I can’t even comprehend what it’d be like not to have him in my life — and Booker is one of the best kids I’ve ever known.

We all chatted for a bit until I noticed that two Angels were playing catch in the left field corner. Booker decided to come with me as I headed off to try to get the ball, and I succeeded because of him. I have no doubt about it. Bullpen coach Steve Soliz (who was one of the guys playing catch) saw me in my Angels gear crouching down next to Booker, and quite simply he couldn’t resist. He tossed the ball in our direction. I caught it and immediately handed it to my young companion, and yes, I counted it — my 6th ball of the day. Think of all the balls I haven’t gotten *because* there were cute little kids standing next to me. Now that I happened to be with one and got a ball as a result . . . ha! You bet your ass I counted it.

Booker and I headed closer to home plate — to the front row along the left field foul line. Two more Angels were throwing, and although we didn’t get a ball from them, we still got hooked up. Check out the following photo:

See the guy in the black pants? I can only assume that he’s the Angels’ strength and conditioning coach, He walked over to the edge of the warning track and waved to get our attention. When I looked up at him, he tossed us a brand-new baseball. Once again, I made the catch and promptly handed it to Booker. Here he is with it, and if you look closely, you can see the other ball in the right/front pocket of his shorts (just to the right of his forearm).

Booker is officially my secret weapon — too bad he lives 2,894 miles away or else I’d bring him to every game.

Just before game time, Mike Trout signed a few autographs along the left field foul line, so I went over and said hello. I had gotten my picture taken with him the day before, and this time we got to talk a bit more.

“Whose home run are you trying to catch today?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “there are three guys on your team who haven’t yet hit a major league homer, so I’m focusing on them.”

Then I asked him if he’d heard of BIGS Sunflower Seeds. He said he had, so I told him about my sponsorship and the whole thing about the charity. He mentioned that he’d seen the split-screen of me on “SportsCenter” after my two home run snags at Yankee Stadium. I said that it was great to see him again, and we shook hands, and just before he ran off, I got him to sign one of Booker’s baseballs:

I’m not sure if Booker realized that he was in the presence of greatness, or if he appreciated the awesomeness of that autograph. Joe certainly did, and he captured the aftermath with his camera:

Do you remember all the stuff in my previous entry about Angels bullpen catcher Tom Gregorio? The quick recap is that he had recognized me and told me to come find him in the bullpen during the game. Of course, I’d spent the entire previous game hustling for a 3rd-out ball, so now I finally had my chance. I headed out there in the top of the 1st inning . . .

. . . and got his attention in the bottom of the frame. He came over, and we talked for about five minutes. How cool is that? I don’t care if he’s “only” a bullpen catcher. He played briefly in the major leagues, and he now travels with the team and wears the uniform and appears in the “manager & coaches” section on the roster. THAT is cool. It turns out that he’s from New York City — born in Brooklyn, raised on Staten Island — so we had some stuff in common. I told him about my books and ballhawking and about the BIGS Baseball Adventure. He told me about his family and about life on the road and his off-season routine. He asked me when I’m planning to see the Angels again. I said I had no idea — probably whenever they head to New York — and he told me to look for him and say hello. Before he walked off, I asked if I could get a photo of him giving a thumbs-up for my blog. Here it is:

It’s been a good week for me in terms of being recognized by major leaguers. First it was Didi Gregorius, and then it was Mike Trout and Tom Gregorio. I also had several long conversations with Heath Bell, and in just a few days, I’ll be seeing Jeremy Guthrie at Kauffman Stadium. There are lots of other guys that recognize me: Chris Tillman, Ricky Bones, Jordan Zimmermann, and Frank Francisco, just to name a few. I miss Brian Stokes, Josias Manzanillo, Mike Nickeas, and Dan Wheeler. And Ryan Speier. All of those guys recognized me too.

Joe and Booker and I hung out near the bullpen for a few innings. Here’s a photo of Booker with his baseballs and beard hat:

Here’s something random that amused me: In honor of Jason Bay (who, for some terrible reason, was batting leadoff for the Mariners), I brought a bag of “old bay” sunflower seeds:

Heh.

For the record, those seeds were DAMN GOOD. Joe and Booker liked ‘em too.

Eventually we headed up to the second deck in left field . . .

. . . which was nice for about an inning. It was good to rest my feet for a little while, but after that, I got antsy and felt detached from the game and had to get back downstairs. Here’s where I ended up:

My view of the game was lousy, but I enjoyed being close to Gregorio.

In the bottom of the 9th inning, I headed to the Angels’ dugout:

In the photo above, do you see the kid looking back at me? He’s sitting three rows down, and his leg is sticking out. If you’ve been reading this blog for a couple of years, he might look familiar because we attended four games together in 2011 in Cleveland and Pittsburgh. His name is Maple, and he (along with his sister Maxine and father David) was a Watch With Zack client.

I knew he was going to be at this game, and it was great to catch up with him, although it was way too brief. After the game, which the Angels won, 6-3, I got a photo with Maple and his friend Wes:

Then I got another pic with Maple and his father:

(Maple still looks like Justin Morneau . . . no?)

After that, I took a pic of the trio of ballhawk siblings: Luke, Hannah, and Max:

Luke had caught two baseballs, Hannah had gotten one, and Max had snagged nine, all with the glove trick. There wasn’t time for him to explain how it all went down, so I’m hoping he’ll leave a comment and share some details.

Max had given away four of his baseballs, and I’d given two of mine to Booker. Therefore, we were each left with five::

I really like Max and Luke and Hannah. Wayne too. And Tom. And Maple and Wes. And Mark and Alex. There’s a genuine feeling of camaraderie among these Seattle ballhawks. There’s no trash-talking. There’s no ill-will or cut-throat competitiveness. It’s like they’re all in it together, and I was glad to be welcomed into their world for a couple of days.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 7 balls at this game

• 99 balls in 14 games this season = 7.07 balls per game.

• 886 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 411 consecutive games with at least two balls

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

• 7 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, and Safeco Field

• 6,558 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 24 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.51 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $10.57 raised at this game

• $149.49 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $3,500 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $25,055.49 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

 

I’d like to start by showing you my luggage:

As you probably know by now, I’m being sponsored this season by BIGS Sunflower Seeds, but here’s the story (in list form) behind the previous photo:

1) I woke up in San Francisco, still a bit worn out from the previous day.
2) Neal Stewart told me that a large package of BIGS Sunflower Seeds had arrived.
3) We headed to the airport (with the seeds) for our flight to Seattle.
4) Neal realized he was gonna have to pay $25 to check the seeds.
5) We stuffed as many packs as possible into our suitcases.

I was genuinely excited about the seeds because there were some new flavors that I hadn’t seen, but there was no time to try them. We rushed to our gate, and while we waited to board the plane, I plugged in my laptop and blogged:

When our flight landed, we took a train to downtown Seattle, which passed by Safeco Field:

Then I had about half an hour in my room before heading downstairs . . .

. . . to meet Neal in the lobby.

(Between the travel, the games, the blog, and occasionally some sleep, I have absolutely *no* time for anything else. If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t yet written back, that’s why.)

On the way to Safeco, Neal peeled off to grab a sandwich. I made it to the stadium at around 4:20pm . . .

. . . and took a peek inside . . .

. . . as I headed to the center field gate. (FYI, this is the only gate that opens two and a half hours early; fans are then confined to the party deck in center field and the concourse behind the bullpens in left field for the first half-hour.)

One of the first fans to arrive was my friend Wayne Peck. Here we are:

Why did we pose like that? Because (a) we’re dweebs and (b) we were recreating our fist bump from 3/28/12 at the Tokyo Dome. (Check out that little girl staring at us in the background. Hilarious.) We hadn’t seen each other since then, so it was great to catch up.

When the stadium opened at 4:40pm, I headed here:

There was lots of room to run . . .

. . . but unfortunately there wasn’t much to run for. That’s Mariners baseball for ya.

Sensing that I wasn’t going to catch a home run or convince any of the Mariners to throw me a ball, I wandered toward the bullpens:

That’s when I saw a ball sitting on the grass:

Knowing what the answer was gonna be, I showed my string to the nearest usher and asked if I could go for it. (I had to ask because he was standing right there.) To my surprise, he shrugged and said, “I’ve never heard any rule about that either way,” so I set up my glove trick and snagged the ball. While that was happening, another one landed a few feet away, this time farther out from the stands. Here’s a video that shows me snagging it:

At the end of the video, I wasn’t joking when I said, “And now security is coming to bust my balls.” Two yellow-shirted supervisors did indeed wander over and inform me that I’m not allowed to do that . . . so I informed them that I’d pretty much gotten permission ahead of time. We all chatted for a minute, and that was the end of it — no harm done.

Back on the party deck, I photographed the two baseballs:

When the rest of the stadium opened at 5:10pm, I headed to right-center field:

In the photo above, do you see the platform that the usher is standing on? That’s where I snagged my 3rd ball of the day. He had tossed it (from down below) to some fans in the front row, but the ball had fallen short and rolled under the chairs. I hurried over and leaned waaay down over the railing and snared the ball in tip of my glove. I then offered it to a girl named Hannah, whom I’d met at Safeco two years ago, but she wouldn’t accept it.

“I can’t count it in my ballhawking stats,” she said, and I realized right away what she meant. Because I had acquired possession of it first, it effectively became worthless to her, and I felt really bad. I knew that she tried to get baseballs, but I didn’t realize that she was so strict with her stats. (Thumbs-up to her integrity.) If anything, I thought I was doing her a favor by grabbing the baseball; there was a smaller boy standing next to her, and I thought the usher might eventually retrieve the ball and hand it to him. I ended up giving her the ball so that she could give it to the boy, so it all ended up reasonably well.

In the previous photo, did you notice the netting in the gap? (It’s gotta be there to prevent people from falling and dying, right?) You can’t see it in the following photo, but there was netting in the gap in straight-away right field as well:

Remember the netting. It helped me snag a ball later on.

When the Angels took the field, I headed to the seats along the left field foul line:

It was totally dead, so I headed to the Angels’ bullpen:

In the photo above, the guy standing and adjusting his mask is named Tom Gregorio. He’s the bullpen catcher, and when he saw me standing there, he walked over with a curious expression and said, “Weren’t you just at our stadium earlier this week?”

It was pretty cool to be recognized, and we chatted for a bit. He started by asking me if I’m following the Angels around, so I replied with a question of my own: ”Have you heard of BIGS Sunflower Seeds?”

“Baked sunflower seeds?”

“No, BIGS Sunflower Seeds.”

“Oh, yeah, I have,” he said, so I told him briefly that they’re sponsoring me this season and sending me to all 30 major league stadiums and helping me raise money for charity. Our conversation got cut short because he had to do a bullpen session with one of the pitchers, so he told me to come back in the 1st inning.

“Or maybe after a few innings?” I asked. I figured my best chance to snag a 3rd-out ball would be early in the game, so I wanted to take care of that before schmoozing it up with him.

“Sure, no problem,” he said.

Here’s something (unrelated to Mister Gregorio) that I forgot to mention earlier: because we had so many seeds with us, Neal had logged into the BIGS Sunflower Seeds Twitter account and posted the following:

Several people responded by tweeting the word “bacon” at me, but that didn’t count. This was an in-person contest, and the winner was a young man named Max. Here he is with the prize:

Fun fact: Max is the older brother of Hannah (she’s the one who was standing near the platform in right-center field), and they have a brother named Luke who showed up later — pretty neat to see a trio of sibling-ballhawks.

I headed back to the party deck (aka “The Pen”) in center field and promptly caught a Mike Trout homer on the fly. That was my 4th ball of the day, and I met up with Neal soon after. Here he is:

A few minutes later, I caught another homer on the fly (not sure who hit it), which was nice except for the fact that a woman got knocked down in the process. I’m *not* the one who knocked her down. In fact, I probably saved her from getting drilled because she was drinking a beer and never saw the ball. There was another guy out there who was reckless. He’d already crashed into Max, and he’s the one who slammed into her. She went down hard and appeared to be pretty shaken up. The other guy was reasonably apologetic, but he made an excuse which I thought was 100 percent unacceptable: he said he was “just watching the ball.” I scolded him and told him he can’t do that — that he needs to take his eye off the ball and look at the crowd and figure out what his path is gonna be.

“Easier said than done,” he replied.

I wanted to say, “Really? I just did it, you jackass,” but I let it go. The two security supervisors had just arrived, and they reprimanded him. I ended up giving the ball to the woman and moving to the corner spot in center field. I get furious at people like that guy because they ruin it for everyone; they injure innocent bystanders and give people like me a bad name. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been accused of knocking over little kids, but I *can* count the number of times that I’ve actually done it: ZERO. (I’ve never knocked down anyone, big or small.) Considering I’ve been to more than 1,000 games, I’d say that’s a pretty good record.

Anyway, I got three balls thrown to me in the corner spot within the next ten minutes or so. The first came from Sean Burnett, and the next one came from this guy:

After the game, I tweeted that photo and asked for help identifying him. My friend Matt Jackson replied and said, “That’s Shayne Kelley, Josh Hamilton’s accountability partner.”

Can anyone else confirm or deny that?

The final ball that I got on the party deck was thrown by Peter Bourjos, and it was weird — I hadn’t even asked him for it. He turned around unexpectedly and tossed it right to me. Here’s why:

After that, I headed to right-center field and got my 9th ball of the day tossed by Nick Maronde. Then I ran into this guy whom I’d met two years ago:

His name is Justin, and he’s a very talented ballhawk. He doesn’t go for toss-ups, but watch out on home runs. He judges them well, catches just about everything, and shows no mercy. Shortly after I took that photo, I drifted 20 feet to my left for what should’ve been an easy snag. I figured he was gonna let me have it because we were standing next to each other and chatting. I wasn’t planning to run for anything hit to my right, and I assumed he’d extend the same courtesy on anything hit to his left. So much for that. He darted down to the row below me and ran like hell and jumped up and caught the ball right in front of my glove. He said he had to do it because he wanted to “rob the best.” Flattering? Meh. I was just annoyed, but really I blame myself. I shouldn’t have been crowding him on his home turf, but given the fact that I was, I shouldn’t have given him any room to slip past me.

Now, remember that netting in the right field gap? Well, at the very end of BP, a left-handed batter hit a deep line-drive that was coming right at me. The sun, however, was so bad that I had to turn away and flinch at the last second. I was scared of getting hit by the ball, but thankfully it landed in the gap and skipped off the netting and deflected straight up in the air for the easiest and luckiest of snags. That was my 10th ball of the day.

After BP, I met up with a guy named Tom, who had brought his copy of my latest book, The Baseball. Here we are with it — and with his 16-month-old son, Easton.

What’s with the bag of seeds, you ask? Well, Tom had said “bacon” to me earlier in the day, but not early enough to win the contest. Fortunately for him, it just so happened that I had another bag of bacon seeds with me. I was gonna pour him a big handful, but Neal suggested that I give him the whole thing.

Tom, by the way, is a semi-regular at Safeco Field. He had already snagged five balls that day, giving him a lifetime total of 262. He said he’s gotten at least one ball at 117 consecutive games, including seven foul balls from live play. Not bad.

Then I grabbed a couple slices of pepperoni pizza and tried to eat fast . . .

. . . but I wasn’t quite fast enough. I was still holding the plate when I ran down to the front row to say hello to Mike Trout:

The conversation went as follows:

ZACK: “Hey, Mike, I’m the guy who caught your first home run in Baltimore.”

MIKE: “Hey! I remember you . . . didn’t you catch a home run last week at Yankee Stadium?”

(Actually, Michael, I snagged two in one game. Thanks.)

I was stoked when he said that. (I’m on the west coast, so I’m allowed to use the word “stoked.”) Ever since I caught his first homer on 7/24/11 at Camden Yards, I’d barely gotten to talk to him, so I really wasn’t sure if he remembered me.

We didn’t get to talk long because the national anthem was being announced, but I did get a photo with him before he ran off:

After the anthem, I was spotted by a guy named Mike (not Trout), who had met me once before in Baltimore. He was sitting with two friends, and he asked if they could get a photo with me. Neal took one with their camera, and then he took this one with mine:

In the photo above, Mike is the dude in the Angels jersey. The guy on the left is named Davin, and the guy on the right is named Mitch. Very nice guys. I’m glad they waved me down.

When the game got underway, I had double-motivation to snag a 3rd-out ball as quickly as possible. Not only would it mean $500 more, courtesy of BIGS Sunflower Seeds, for Pitch In For Baseball, but it would free me up to go talk to Tom Gregorio in the Angels’ bullpen. I started the game on the 1st base side, hoping to get a 3rd-out ball from the Mariners . . .

. . . but had no luck. In the bottom of the 1st inning, I moved to the Angels’ side, but this was all I got:

It’s a bit early to be voting for All-Stars, don’tcha think?

Every half-inning, I moved back and forth from dugout to dugout, but I didn’t snag a thing. It was really frustrating. Eventually, to increase my odds of obtaining a gamer, I sat here for right-handed batters . . .

. . . and here for lefties:

My goal was to snag a foul ball. Of course, I only sat there for the first two outs of each half-inning (so that I could be in position for 3rd-out balls), and nothing came close. (I did, however, give away another ball to a little kid who was sitting near me with his mother. Also, it should be noted that the ushers never asked to see my ticket. What a pleasure!)

Finally, when Angels reliever Nick Maronde struck out Dustin Ackley to end the 8th inning, I scurried down the steps and got catcher Chris Iannetta to flip me the ball. (Tom gets the assist on that one; he was just starting to drift down the stairs with Easton when I blew past him. Rather than competing with me, he let me go for it because he knew the stakes.) I then offered one of my BP balls to the nearest kid, but the usher told me that he’d already gotten one, so I handed it to a different kid and then gave away another, just because. Even though I’d missed my chance to talk to Tom Gregorio, I was feeling good. I was gonna be here for one more game, and I was glad that my charity challenge wasn’t going to spill over into the following day.

I was as drained and stressed as I was relieved. My facial expression in the following photo says it all:

(BTW, this ball pushed my total fundraising effort for Pitch In For Baseball above the $25,000 plateau — that is, since I started working with them in 2009.)

Five minutes later, the Mariners won the game, 6-0, and five minutes after that, I got a group photo with the Safeco Field ballhawks:

Wayne had unfortunately disappeared, but as for the people pictured above, you’re looking at Easton, Tom, and the three siblings — Max (age 19), Hannah (age 13), and Luke (age 15). Luke and I were both on crutches the last time I visited Safeco, and let me tell you, it felt GREAT this time around to be able-bodied.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 11 balls at this game (six pictured here because I gave five away)

• 92 balls in 13 games this season = 7.08 balls per game.

• 885 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 410 consecutive games with at least two balls

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

• 7 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, AT&T Park, and Safeco Field

• 6,551 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 24 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.51 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $16.61 raised at this game

• $138.92 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $3,500 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $25,044.92 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

I woke up at 5:30am with four hours of sleep and jumped in a cab to a nearby radio station:

Neal Stewart from BIGS Sunflower Seeds was with me. When we reached our destination, he signed us in at the front desk . . .

. . . and we headed upstairs:

In the photo above, did you notice the glass door on the left? Well, when I peeked through it, I saw AT&T Park way off in the distance:

Neal and I had arrived 15 minutes early, so we hung out next to the studio. Here I am waiting to go on the air:

I was interviewed live on a show called “The Rise Guys” on 95.7 FM The Game. Here’s a photo that Neal took during the interview:

It lasted for about 10 minutes, and the three hosts — Whitey Gleason, Mark Kreidler, and Dan Dibley — were great. I expected them to diss me relentlessly (because that’s the nature of morning radio), but they treated me with respect and still managed to keep things light and funny. Click here to listen to it.

From there, Neal and I grabbed a quick bite to eat at a nearby coffee shop, and whaddaya know? There happened to be newspaper box right outside with free copies of The San Francisco Examiner. Remember this article about me that was published online the day before? Well, I grabbed a copy of the print version . . .

. . . and was pleased to find the article:

Our next stop was AT&T Park . . .

. . . and as I tweeted at the time, it was the earliest (7:45am) that I’d ever been at a major league stadium. We were there because I had two live TV interviews scheduled in the eight and nine o’clock hours on Good Day Sacramento.

Before I went on the air, this guy was interviewed, and I was concerned that his act would be tough to follow. Check it out:

In the photo above, that’s not just any old bike you’re looking at. It’s a “pianobike,” and yes, the guy in the white hat was riding and playing at the same time. His name is Gary, and he let me take a photo of his pianobike up close:

There was plenty of time to spare before my first segment, so I goofed around with the host:

His name is Cody Stark, and in case you’re wondering, that was *his* (yucky) baseball. He and I had corresponded several years ago, but this was the first time that we met in person.

We still had more time to kill, so I sat on a gigantic concrete baseball and read some box scores:

Finally, at around 8:45am, it was time for my first interview. It was still cold — probably in the 50s — but I took off my hoodie and jacket and ski cap so that the world (or at least Sacramento) could see my BIGS gear. And then, suddenly, I was on live TV:

Neal did a solid job of documenting everything. Here’s another shot he took during the interview:

In addition to the two segments, Cody and I filmed a bunch of teasers, and by 9:15am we were done. I was absolutely exhausted, but I held it together for one final photo with him and some seeds:

Cody actually loves sunflower seeds and had requested that I bring some for him; in one of our teasers, we both had a mouthful, and we were eating them and spitting the shells. Fun stuff.

Here’s a screen shot from one of the segments:

If you want to watch it, click here.

Neal and I took a cab back to the hotel. All I wanted to do was take a nap (for about a week and a half), but instead I fired off a few urgent emails and gathered my stuff and took another cab back to the stadium:

Before the gates opened, I caught up with this guy on the portwalk:

His name is Joe Dirt, and he’s there EVERY day. He’s famous for fishing home run balls out of McCovey Cove. He’s gotten more than two dozen gamers over the years, including Brandon Belt’s 9th-inning homer the day before.

Eight minutes before the “Marina” gate opened, this was the scene:

As you can see, there wasn’t much of a crowd — but it didn’t make a difference because there was no batting practice. When I first ran inside, the only action consisted of several Giants pitchers playing catch along the left field foul line:

Two minutes later, Javier Lopez threw me a ball, and get a load of this — I took a photo as it was flying toward me:

Once the Giants were gone, I headed to the right field corner where two Diamondbacks players were running:

It turned out to be Matt Reynolds and Heath Bell . . .

. . . and when they finished, Heath came over to say hello:

The previous photo was taken by one of those annoying fan-photographer people, but in this case, hell, it turned out to be a good thing. That photo is actually a screen shot of a thumbnail on the Giants’ website, which I expanded in Photoshop — a bit pixelated, but whatever.

Heath and I talked about all kinds of stuff for ten minutes — chewing tobacco, drinking (or lack thereof) in the clubhouse, charging the mound, Zack Greinke vs. Carlos Quentin, Heath’s contract, the Mets’ payroll, Omar Minaya, PETCO Park, Jose Reyes’s injury, and more. It was fascinating. I *love* that guy.

At the end of our chat, I took a photo of our gloves . . .

. . . and he told me to text him next time I’m gonna see the D’backs.

The D’backs ended up taking infield practice, which was fun to watch. What wasn’t fun was when the coaches walked in with a bag of balls . . .

. . . and completely ignored me. Not only was I the only fan in the fancy/restricted seats behind the dugout, but I was decked out in red Diamondbacks gear and had asked them politely. I was shocked that they didn’t hook me up. Alan Trammell? Not a friendly man.

While I was down there, the friendly usher told me that my ticket entitled me to go anywhere in the stadium except the luxury suites.

“You mean I can go check out the club level?” I asked.

“You sure can,” he told me.

Therefore, after grabbing some food and photographing a skinny Brandon McCarthy signing autographs . . .

. . . I headed up to the “Virgin America Club Level” via this escalator:

At the top of the escalator, I headed through these doors . . .

. . . and found myself in a nice-but-generic concourse:

The floor was shiny, but so what? Airports and shopping malls also have shiny floors.

There were airplane logos all over the place . . .

. . . which was annoying, but okay, fine, I’ll stop complaining. Here’s something that I thought was pretty cool. While standing in this spot . . .

. . . I could look directly into the press level on my left:

Another nice thing (from a ballhawking perspective) is that there’s a cross-aisle between the seats and press box:

That said, it’s not a great spot for foul balls because it’s narrow, and of course fans aren’t allowed to stand there.

Shortly before game time, I headed back down to the regular seats along the right field foul line:

Several D’backs were playing catch, and I ended up getting a ball from bullpen catcher Mark Reed. I handed that ball to a little girl with a glove (and gave her entire family some BIGS Sunflower Seeds), and then I headed out to the left field bleachers. This was my view:

I was in heaven. (I even made friends with the folks sitting near me by handing out more packs of seeds — the Vlasic Pickle and Buffalo Wing flavors, to be specific.) Look how much room I had to run:

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the rightful owners came for their seats, and I had to move.

One good thing about AT&T Park is that the Giants are really good, and the stadium is packed, and the atmosphere is lively; this was a weekday game in April, and I felt more energy in the building than I did last year at Yankee Stadium during Game 5 of the ALDS. The bad part about all of this is that there were *NO* empty seats in the outfield. I tried floating from spot to spot, but the people either returned to their seats or the ushers kicked me out. It was frustrating as hell, but hey, that’s just how it goes sometimes. I stood here for a little while . . .

. . . until the usher told me to move.

AARRGHH!!!

I headed out to the Arcade in right field, but the view was crappy:

In addition to that, the walkway was too crowded to run for home run balls . . .

. . . and most of the batters in the game were right-handed, so I gave up out there. Before I left, I took a photo of the scene behind me:

I know I’ve already posted a photo of the Marina Gate, but I have to share another because it’s so damn beautiful:

Lots of fans headed for the exits as the game dragged on, but it seemed that the bleacher crowd didn’t thin out at all. Meanwhile, I was so tired that my eyes hurt, and I just couldn’t deal with the hustle of eluding the ushers . . . so I headed back up to the club level. I spent a few minutes looking at the cases of memorabilia in the carpeted (Ooh! Wow!) concourse behind home plate including signed baseballs . . .

. . . and commemorative bases . . .

. . . and Bobblehead dolls and baseball cards . . .

. . . and bats:

As I’ve said before, I’m not the museum type, but I did enjoy *briefly* looking at all that stuff. Then I grabbed a seat here in the shade . . .

. . . in the hope that a right-handed batter would hit me a foul ball. Nothing came close, and I ended up moving back down to the dugout . . .

. . . for the final three outs. Final score in 10 innings: Diamondbacks 3, Giants 2. And let me point out the fact that my man Heath Bell pitched a scoreless inning to lower his ERA to a respectable 4.50. (Remember, he’s still recovering from a dreadful first outing in which he surrendered two homers and three runs in a third of an inning.) Also, his 14-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio isn’t so bad.

Despite all the fans who’d left early, the exit ramps were still packed:

When I finally made it outside, I took a photo of the one ball that I’d kept . . .

. . . and took a cab back to my hotel and collapsed in bed.

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 2 balls at this game (one pictured above because I gave the other away)

• 81 balls in 12 games this season = 6.75 balls per game.

• 884 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 409 consecutive games with at least two balls

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

• 6 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, and AT&T Park

• 6,540 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 23 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.26 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $2.52 raised at this game

• $102.06 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $3,000 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $24,508.06 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009

The day started with (1) returning the rental car in San Diego, (2) a flight to San Francisco, (3) checking into a hotel, and (4) a cab ride to my first interview:

The guy in the photo-collage above is named Neal Stewart. He works for BIGS Sunflower Seeds, the company that’s sponsoring me this season, so he’s traveling with me and making sure that everything runs smoothly.

As for the interview, here’s a photo that Neal took as it was wrapping up:

In the photo above, the guy on the right is named Bennie Martin. He writes for the San Francisco Examiner. (See the voice recorder in his right hand?) His article about me was published online several hours later — click here to read it — and there was a print version the following day.

From there, Neal led me to my next interview . . .

. . . at a nearby radio studio. Here I am with the sign in the lobby.

We had a few minutes to spare before the interview, so I wandered the hallways:

At the last minute, I learned that the interview was going to air on 500 stations in 177 countries. (No pressure, right?) It started at 4pm, and Neal (who was in the studio with me) filmed the whole thing. I’m not gonna post the video (because it’s 15 minutes, and who really cares?), but here are a couple of screen shots. The first one shows Ron Barr, the founder of the station and the host of the show . . .

. . . and the second one shows me:

After the interview, I was asked to sign the wall:

Then Neal and I jumped in a cab to AT&T Park. We headed to the Marina Gate (which is in center field), and within a few minutes, I saw a familiar face:

In the photo above, the guy with the bike is featured in The Baseball as one of the Top Ten Ballhawks of All Time. His name is Lee Wilson, and in case you haven’t seen the book, he caught Nomar Garciaparra’s 1st major league hit (which was a homer), and he also caught Barry Bonds’ 64th home run in 2001 — the year that Bonds set the single-season record. Not bad.

Then I caught up with another Top-Ten Ballhawk:

The dude pictured above is named Alex Patino. (Check out pages 283-284 in the book to see the full interview with him. He’s absolutely hilarious.) He has snagged thousands of baseballs including 97 game home runs (including two or three Bonds homers, depending on how you look at it; he was involved in a lawsuit after scuffling for Bonds’ 700th).

The stadium opened at 5:15pm, and I was the first fan to run inside. As I hurried through the concourse toward the left field bleachers, I found a ball at the bottom of one of the staircases. Several minutes later, as the bleachers began to fill in, Alex shouted at Giants pitcher Chad Gaudin for a ball. (Actually, he’s always shouting.)

“I’m here every DAY, baby!!” he yelled. “Hook it UP!!”

Gaudin ignored him, and when things quieted down, I called out and said, “I live in New York City, so I’m NOT here every day. Any chance you could toss one up, please?”

That did the trick, and Gaudin threw the next ball to me. Here are the two baseballs:

A minute or two after that, I snagged a home run that landed deep in the bleachers and ricocheted down to me in the cross-aisle. I’d been inside the stadium for five minutes and gotten three balls. Unfortunately, those were the only ones I got during batting practice. AT&T Park is gorgeous, and the layout (with all of its cross-aisles and standing-room areas) is ideal for ballhawking. As a result, there are a zillion ballhawks, so there’s an extreme level of competitiveness and aggression.

For some reason, everyone was standing *on* the bleacher benches:

That makes no sense. It’s not like they wouldn’t have been able to see if they were standing on the ground, right? And what the hell were they all planning to do when home runs were hit? Run on the benches? That doesn’t sounds safe, does it?

Halfway through BP, I switched into my Diamondbacks gear, but that didn’t help.

I hid my frustration when this young man approached me and introduced himself:

His name is Austin, and he recognized me because he reads this blog. He’s 12 years old and has collected seven major league baseballs — a respectable total which puts him ahead of my pace, as I only had four at that age.

Look where Neal was this whole time:

In the photo above, that’s him looking up at me from the warning track. Somehow, he’d worked his way down there into a private party, but he didn’t snag any baseballs.

Several lefties were batting, so I walked up the steps in deep right-center . . .

. . . and headed to the standing room area in right field (aka “The Arcade”). Look who had the same idea:

In the photo above, that’s Lee Wilson, and when a bunch of righties started taking their cuts in the next round, I found him back in left field.

One cool thing about AT&T Park is that there’s no restriction about using ball-retrieving devices. In fact, so many people use them that it has become part of the ballhawking culture here. That said, check out the following photo:

In case you can’t tell, two different fans had flung their “cup tricks” at a ball on the warning track. A Diamondbacks coach was messing with them by repeatedly tapping the ball away from them with his bat. Eventually, a third fan flung another device at the ball — a large net attached to a rope — and the coach backed off and watched them all battle for it. Alex Patino is the king of ball-retrieval devices. He uses a metal cooking pot (yes, he’s allowed to bring that inside) with a bungee cord stretched over the open part. The device is indestructible and can hold three our four balls, so if he sees a few sitting near each other on the warning track, he can go bang-bang-bang and pretty much get them all at once.

After BP, I met another ballhawk named Spencer who’s been reading this blog and following my baseball adventures. Here we are:

Spencer, who has snagged 172 lifetime baseballs, has a profile on MyGameBalls.com, and he’s also on Twitter, in case you want to see what he’s up to. Really cool guy. I love the fact that I get to meet so many people when I travel; no matter what stadium I visit, it seems that a bunch of folks always recognize me and want to say hey.

Neal and I shared some garlic fries before the game and each got our own “main course” — a chicken sandwich for him and a sausage with onions and peppers for me. Then we parted ways. BIGS Sunflower Seeds has been great about buying me tickets near the dugouts at all these stadiums, but in some cases, they’re only buying one ticket there per game. In other words, they want to help me get close so I can go for game-used balls and raise lots of money for charity, but at a place like AT&T Park, which is hella pricey, they don’t want to pay for Neal to sit with me — totally understandable, in my opinion. Neal, therefore, had a crappy seat in the upper deck (poor guy) and I had a ticket that allowed me to be here:

Check out the view from the front of the tunnel:

I stood there for as long as the ushers would let me, hoping that an inning would end with a strikeout and that I could get D’backs catcher Miguel Montero to toss me the ball.

Inning after inning passed — and no luck. One inning *did* end with a strikeout, but the ball bounced in the dirt, and Montero barely missed tagging the batter (like, by two inches), so he had to throw the ball to first base. That was painful.

I was getting more and more stressed, but at least I was having fun being so close to the action. Several fans recognized me as the guy who snagged two home runs on 4/18/13 at Yankee Stadium, one of whom invited me to sit in his seat beside the dugout while he went to the get food. Speaking of that Yankee game, do you remember the Diamondbacks’ TV reporter who interviewed me that night in the left field seats? Her name is Jody Jackson, and get this — when she saw me here at AT&T Park, we ended up texting. Here she is sending me a message:

Our text conversation went as follows:

JODY: Surprised you are sitting there.

ZACK: Just for a few minutes. Trying to snag a gamer for charity.

JODY: I don’t know if I will be interviewing you tonight but we are definitely going to show you on the broadcast.

ZACK: Cool, no problem.

JODY: I think it’s awesome what you are doing- did I read 500 per ball to charity?

ZACK: $500 for every stadium at which I snag a game-used ball. None yet tonight, unfortunately, but I did get three in BP.

JODY: What’s the charity?

ZACK: Pitch In For Baseball. They provide baseball and softball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world.

JODY: Awesome. Thanks for the info.

ZACK: Thank YOU.

Jody is super-cool, as you can probably tell. Follow her on Twitter and show her some love.

A bit later in the game, I moved to another open seat here:

In the photo above, that’s Didi Gregorius on deck. You may recall that he hit the first of the two home runs that I snagged the other night in the Bronx, and that it was the first of his major league career. After that game, I met him outside the visitors’ clubhouse and gave the ball back to him, so when I saw him so close during this game here in San Francisco, I couldn’t resist saying something. I waited until there was a lull in the action and then shouted, “Didi! I got your first home run last week in New York!” (I tweeted about this at the time. Remember?) He looked up and smiled wide and pointed at me. He obviously couldn’t talk, but he totally recognized me, which was cool.

Then I moved back to the seats next to the dugout:

Neal, meanwhile was sitting here:

Haha.

I finally gave up on snagging an inning-ending strikeout and moved behind the outfield end of the Diamondbacks’ dugout:

Finally, thankfully, mercifully . . . Buster Posey popped out to D’backs 2nd baseman Martin Prado to end the 8th inning, and Prado tossed me the ball on his way in. All I could think was, “Cha-ching!! Another $500 for Pitch In For Baseball,” and let me tell you, it was a HUGE relief to get that ball and take care of my AT&T Park challenge:

(In addition to the money that BIGS is donating, I’m doing my own fundraiser for Pitch In For baseball. Click here to learn more.)

The fans sitting in front of me asked if they could get a photo with the ball:

One inning later, with the game going into extras, I got another 3rd-out ball from 1st baseman Paul Goldschmidt — no extra money for the charity for that one, but it still made me feel good.

At that point, I gave one of my BP balls to the nearest kid. (I’d given another ball away earlier in the game.) One of his parents asked if they could take a photo of him with me, so I obliged and then asked if I could get one with my camera. Here we are:

The kid’s name is George. He was very appreciative of the ball. (I normally only give baseballs to kids with gloves, but occasionally I make exceptions.)

The D’backs won the game, 6-4, in 11 innings, thanks in part to my man Didi Gregorius who hit a one-out hustle-double and scored the go-ahead run. After the final out, two things happened:

1) Diamondbacks coach Steve Sax tossed me my 6th ball of the day.
2) Didi was interviewed in the dugout by Jody Jackson:

How good are your eyes? Did you notice the THREE baseballs in the previous photo? Didi tossed them all into the crowd, including one for me. That made me very happy.

I was one of the last fans to leave the stadium — good thing I wasn’t in the bleachers because the seagulls were raiding it for scraps of food:

My final photo before leaving was taken with a 17-year-old named Connor, who’d brought his copy of my book:

To be fair, Connor and I are the same height; he was standing one step below me because security was kicking us out, so we didn’t have time to stop and get settled. (Thanks to his friend Sam for taking that photo.) He and I had met once before on 9/3/11 at AT&T Park. Do you remember this photo of him holding a ball that I had signed? You probably don’t, but anyway, I signed the book for him in a fancy, under-the-stands concession area, and while we were there, Heath Bell walked by (in street clothes) with some friends. I walked over, said hello, gave him a fist-bump, and said I’d see him tomorrow.

It was pretty late by the time I left. Neal had taken off after the 9th inning because we were gonna have to get up at 5:30am the next day for another radio interview.

It took forever to find a cab, but at least I had a nice view of the stadium while I waited:

BALLHAWKING STATS:

• 7 balls at this game (five pictured here on an ugly hotel rug because I gave two away)

• 79 balls in 11 games this season = 7.18 balls per game.

• 883 consecutive games with at least one ball

• 408 consecutive games with at least two balls

• 6 stadiums this season with a game-used ball: Citi Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium, PETCO Park, and AT&T Park

• 6,538 total balls

CHARITY STATS:

(For every stadium this season at which I snag a game-used ball, BIGS Sunflower Seeds will donate $500 to Pitch In For Baseball, a non-profit charity that provides baseball equipment to underprivileged kids all over the world. In addition to that, I’m doing my own fundraiser again this season for Pitch In For Baseball.)

• 23 donors for my fundraiser

• $1.26 pledged per ball (if you add up all the pledges)

• $8.82 raised at this game

• $99.54 raised this season through my fundraiser

• $3,000 from BIGS Sunflower Seeds for my game-used baseballs

• $24,505.54 raised since I started my fundraiser in 2009