Idiots Write About Sports

Between 2001 and 2003, I had a 20-game season ticket package for bleacher seats at the Oakland Colisuem. That means 60 games in which I was seated in prime position for catching — or given my athletic skills, dropping — a home run ball. And really, when you factor in all the games I went to above and beyond the ones in my season ticket package, it’s closer to 100 games since the start of the 2001 season where I was sitting in the part of the stadium where home-run balls land.
And do you know how many homers I caught? Zero. In fact, in that entire 100-game span, only one even landed in my section of the bleachers — a titanic Barry Bonds blast in an interleague game that, unless I have some heretofore untapped ability to enlarge myself Apache Chief style, I wasn’t going to catch anyway.
In fact, in the entire time I’ve been going to baseball games — a period that spans back to 1978 and includes countless contest not to mention spring training, in which you’re practically handed a ball just for showing up — a ball has been hit to my vicinity only twice. There was a Cubs-Phillies game at Wrigley in 1987, where my cousin nearly caught a batting practice home run (good thing he didn’t, since it hit the foul pole, and the momentum of the ball’s flight would have likely carried my cousin’s hand into the pole at bone-mashing speed). And there a Giants-Astros game — 1995, I think — where a foul ball rolled under my father’s seat, prompting youngsters to dive at his knees. Other than that, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter for me and souvenir baseballs.
Until last night.
I made my triumphant return to the Oakland Coliseum from my long exile in Southern California to watch the A’s go through the motions against some minor league squad from Michigan. (Game Note 1: Guess we left our bats in Kansas City. Game Note 2: If Billy Beane’s thought process works anything like mine, Ricardo Rincon’s days in the green-and-gold are numbered.) We were sitting in the Plaza Infield seats, Section 218 right behind home plate and just under the broadcast booth. The second batter of the game, Carlos Guillen, took a mighty hack at a Rich Harden fastball, fouling it back, way back, directly over our heads and apparently headed toward the third deck.
Or apparently not, if you remember what eventually happens to things that go up. The next thing I know, there’s a loud thud in the empty row directly behind me.
“The ball is right behind your head,” said Rick, my companion for the evening.
I looked at Rick. I looked up at the sky. I looked all around at the other people in the section. Then I decided to look immediately behind me, just in time to see the ball roll forward and drop down into my row and come to a stop, roughly 10 inches from my feet.
There are many ways to react in such a situation. You can immediately pounce on the ball, falling directly on it and curling up into the fetal position to fend off any interlopers. You can reach out your foot, using it to drag the ball back into your possession or even kick it Pele-style back in your general direction. You can even reach down and snatch it away from the on-rushing mob.
Me? I stared at it.
“The ball is at your feet,” Rick said. Can’t get anything past him.
So I began leaning forward, almost as if conducting an investigation — yup, that’s a ball all right, officer — and slowly started to reach toward the ball, as if any sudden movement might cause it to shriek and skittle away.
Which is when the young man in front of me turned around, quickly grabbed the ball away from me and pumped his fist as if he snagged a 100-mph screaming liner from mid-air while the scantily dressed young ladies accompanying him to the game squealed their delight.
I’m beginning to think the cautious, calculated approach is not the best strategy for foul-ball retrieval.