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Valuable
balls
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Last
Mets home run at Shea Of all the baseballs that I've caught, this one is the most meaningful and valuable. It was Carlos Beltran's 263rd career home run, but more importantly, it ended up being the last homer that the Mets ever hit at Shea Stadium. Click here to read my long blog entry about the experience. |
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Barry
Bonds' 724th career home run I caught Barry Bonds' 724th career home run on August 16, 2006 at PETCO Park. Click here to read my blog entry and here to watch the footage. (Note: the video clip is 37.4 MB, so you might need to let it load for a minute.) |
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Mike Trout's 1st career home run On 7/24/11 at Camden Yards, I caught Mike Trout's first major league homer and gave it back to him after the game. That's why I don't have a better photograph of it here. |
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Mike Nickeas's 1st career home run Same deal with Mike Nickeas's first career home run. I caught it on 4/21/11 at Citi Field, and when stadium security asked me what I wanted for it, I simply requested to be able to hand it back to Nickeas myself. |
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Didi Gregorius's 1st career home run On 4/18/13 at Yankee Stadium, I snagged this Gregorius homer in the 3rd inning and caught a game-tying solo shot by Francisco Cervelli in the bottom of the 9th. |
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Robinson Cano grand slam Remember when the 2009 Yankees became the first team in history to have five guys hit 25 home runs in a season? Okay, you probably don't, but anyway, this is the ball that made history. It was Cano's 25th and final homer, and it's the only grand slam that I've snagged. |
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Mariano
Rivera's 313th career save Yankee Stadium. July 8, 2004. Top of the 9th. Two outs. Mariano Rivera induced Rey Sanchez to ground out to 2nd baseman Miguel Cairo for his 30th save of the season and 313th of his career. Cairo threw the ball to 1st baseman Tony Clark. Clark handed it to Rivera. Rivera returned to the dugout and tossed it to me. |
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Derek Jeter's 3,262nd career hit On 8/27/12 at Yankee Stadium, Derek Jeter led off the bottom of the 9th inning with a game-tying home run against the Blue Jays. I was soooo happy when I caught it that there truly aren't words . . . |
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Four
studs Sometimes I prefer to get baseballs thrown to me because of the personal connection that I share with the players. To me, THAT is valuable. These four balls (clockwise from the top left) were thrown by Tom Glavine, Trevor Hoffman, Albert Pujols, and Ichiro Suzuki. |
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Heath
Bell = my hero Bell might've been a Quadruple-A reliever for the Mets, but he really was my hero. This is the ball that we used to play catch on 9/29/05 at Shea Stadium. Since then, Bell has been even more awesome. Click here and here and here and here and here, and you'll see what I mean. |
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Bucky
Dent I got to know Bucky in the early 90s when I attended his baseball school in Florida. It was a thrill to get this ball from him at Shea more than a decade later. |
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1,000th
ball Personal milestones are valuable too. This is the 1,000th ball that I ever snagged. Braves pitcher Pedro Borbon Jr. threw it to me on June 11, 1996 at Shea Stadium. It helped that I was wearing a Braves cap and asked him for the ball in Spanish. |
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2,000th
ball Phillies pitcher Joe Roa tossed it to me on May 24, 2003 at Olympic Stadium. It helped that I was wearing a Phillies cap and asked him for the ball in English. |
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3,000th
ball I used my glove trick to pluck this ball off the warning track during batting practice on 5/7/07 at Yankee Stadium. |
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4,000th
ball Mets pitcher Livan Hernandez threw it to me during batting practice on 5/18/09 at Dodger Stadium -- totally anticlimactic, but hey, for what it's worth, my 4,001st ball was a BP homer hit by Gary Sheffield that I caught on the fly. |
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5,000th
ball This was an Alex Rios BP homer that I caught on the fly on 5/28/11 at Rogers Centre. A friend filmed me catching it. Here's the video on YouTube. |
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6,000th
ball I was at Fenway Park, and it rained, and there was no batting practice -- quite a shame considering I'd hired a videographer and was with a reporter from The Boston Globe. Anyway, Nationals pitcher Brad Lidge tossed this ball to me before the game. |
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Cal
Ripken Jr. Ripken is my favorite player of all time. I was never able to catch a game ball off his bat, so this is the next best thing: a foul grounder he hit during BP in the Bronx. |
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100th
game ball 4/23/07 at Camden Yards. Top of the 7th inning. Runner on 1st. No outs. 1-1 pitch from Brian Burres to Nick Swisher. High foul pop-up behind the plate. |
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1,000th
ball of 2011 A thousand baseballs in one season?! Oh yeah. This was the milestone ball -- a BP homer that I caught on the fly on 9/14/11 at Great American Ball Park. Sadly, I don't know who hit it. All I can tell you is that it was a right-handed white guy on the Cubs. |
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Single-game record 9/14/11 at Great American Ball Park was special for two reasons. Not only did I catch my 1,000th ball of the season (pictured above), but I set a single-game record by snagging 36 balls. (Oh, and it was also my birthday.) This was my final ball of the day—a post-game toss-up from home plate umpire Gary Darling. |
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1,157 My record for most balls in a season is 1,157, and this was the final one. It was a batting practice homer by Albert Pujols at Game 4 of the 2011 World Series; the ball landed in the gap behind the left field wall, and I reeled it in with my glove trick. |
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50
stadiums My first ball of the day on 5/21/12 at Marlins Park made it 50 major league stadiums with at least one snag. |
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