They will ask for the ball back in soccer. That can be hard with some crowds I think.
If a spectator picks up a golfer’s errant shot and moves it, it is supposed to be replaced at its original spot with no penalty.
This is known in golf speak as “an outside agency”.
Sometimes mean spectators will step on a ball and drive it further into the rough. I believe that there is no relief from such shenanigans.
In cricket, if the ball leaves the field it is always returned to the field. Unlike baseball the ball is used for (approx) 90 overs (or innings) 6 balls to the over. In cricket the ball can (and usually does hit the ground) before reaching the batsman. Part of the “art” of cricket is getting the ball to wear unevenly on one side by polishing it between deliveries on only one side. Then, as the ball gets beaten up the team will switch the type of bowler accordingly. Usually they will start with very fast bowlers (who bowl fast and straight) with a new ball and then switch to bowlers who bowl slower but can put more spin on the ball. A slower, spinning ball will turn much more when it hits the ground and so be harder to play. Conversely a faster ball is equally hard to play due to the speed it is travelling (up to 115 mph). In addition, a cricket ball has a single seam running around the circumfrance of a ball. Pitching the ball on or just off the seam gets a lot of movement once it hits the ground. But, back to the original point, if for some reason the ball does leave the ground (eg it gets hit completely clear of a stand) the umpires have boxes of balls that have been played with up to a certain point in the game. They select one of these to replace the lost ball so as the team is not placed at a fair or unfair advanvtage.
As for golf, I remember a few years ago Tiger Woods and the PGA decamped to the far east (China?) and played in a tournament. Alas the locals weren’t too familiar with the custom of playing it where it lies and so would occaisionally pick it up as a souvenir. I think the ruling is a 1 stroke penalty and a drop as near to but no closer to the hole than where it was anticipated to be.
Hockey you can keep the puck although it rarely leaves the ice now as safety netting has been installed after an unfortunate girl of 12 was struck by a puck last year and killed
And finally…one of the all time great ball keeping stories I saw was on Monday night football a couple of years back where an extra point cleared the safety net behind the posts and a fan leapt off the seating deck and caught it in mid-air before landing (apparantly) unharmed some 20 feet below.
It’s not a penalty in golf if someone who is not you, your playing partner, or your caddy picks up your ball and moves it. All you do is put it back.
It’s no different than if a dog came by your ball and moved it from its place. Or if it got struck by lightning and disintegrated.
In golf, if the ball gets hit off the fairway, how is it determined if a spectator has picked the ball up or whether the ball is simply lost?
Or is that a case of “if a ball is lost in the forest and nobody is there to see it…”
In a pro tournament, there are always marshals down the course who go and track down wayward shots to make sure nothing untoward happens to them.
When you’re playing with friends, you can just use your foot to nudge the ball out of the thickest rough into a playable position.
In darts, the spectator is technically not entitled to keep the stray projectile, but no player has ever had the courage to ask for one back.
Kidding, kidding. [Grinny]
If there are any pro football big shots out in Doperville, I’ll pass along a brainstorm I had a few years back whilst attending an NFL game.
If I’m not mistaken, the mid-to-upper level seats behind the goal posts are considered the least desirable ones in the stadium and go for the lowest price. I think you could make those seats far more valuable (and the game a little more fun) if you stopped raising the net behind the goalposts during field goals. Let the balls fly into the stands and let the fans in the cheap seats get a shot at keeping a souvenier.
Even if you don’t do for every single kick, you could do it for the first kick on either side. Or just during a few games a season as a promotion.
One of the more amusing moments in my life thusfar was attending a tennis tournament in Toronto. During the match, the ball was hit into the stands. The game hung up for about five minutes while the umpire worked on shaming the person who caught it into giving it back. She was quite adament that the ball was going to be returned and we were all going to sit there and wait until it was.
From the USGA Decisions on the Rules of Golf:
While it’s true that they used to require balls to be returned, the reason for the change was not PR. Prior to 1920, they used to keep balls in play as long as possible. Ray Chapman was killed by a pitched ball that year, and people speculated that one reason he didn’t react in time to evade the pitch was that he didn’t see it in time, because the ball was dirty. Major League Baseball decided to keep fresh balls in play at all times. From that point on, it didn’t make as much sense to retrieve balls that had been hit into the stands, since they would be taken out of play shortly, anyway.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in golf, there are areas of the course that are marked out of bounds, where I believe any balls that end up there (like the parking lot-- hey, it happens :o) are there for the pickin’s, during pro tournies or otherwise.
Happy
Exception to the football rule: In the Arena football leagues (AFL and AF2), fans are permitted to keep balls that go into the stands during game play. My little brother has one. This is no small feat, considering that while baseballs and hockey pucks cost trivial amounts, a professional-grade football retails for about $70.
However, in the NFL it’s an automatic $500 fine if a player throws/gives a ball to someone in the stands.
BTW: my favorite “golf ball moved by outside interference” story: once at the famed 17th at the TPC of Sawgrass, a seagull picked up a player’s (I think it was Fred Couples) ball, flew off with it, and dropped it into the water.
A few years back, I used to attend both Mn Vikings NFL football and Univ. of MN Gopher college football games in the Humphrey Metrodome stadium. It seemed like a kicked football fairly often went by the net and into the end zone seats.
At NFL games, the ushers came and took the football away from whomever caught it. And called security cops if they wouldn’t give it back. And got soundly booed for doing this. Often others tried to help them, by either obstructing the ushers until they could hide the ball, etc. I once watched several people go several minutes playing ‘keep-away’, throwing the ball around to keep it away from the ushers while the kid who caught it worked his way up near an exit, then they threw the ball to him and he ran out the exit with it. They managed to create an incredible amount of bad feeling for the sake of a $20 football.
But at the college games, the Univ of Mn did it differently. When a ball was kicked into the seats, they sent someone over to that area of the seats, who announced that the balls were expensive, and the University really couldn’t afford to keep buying new ones, so would the person who caught it please see the usher after the game, who would escort them down to the locker room, so they could return the ball to the player who kicked it to them. That always got cheers, and real excitement from the person who had the football. And I think they always had their footballs returned, and people were happy to do so. Certainly a lot better feeling among the crowd about this.
There then ensued all kinds of press about if the fan gave the ball back to Cal he’d be liable to pay a huge chunk in taxes because he’d given a gift that was worth greater than the IRS allows as a one time gift. Half the folks argued that the ball was [technically] only worth the $5 or so that the club had paid originally and the other half claimed that the ball on the free market would be worth an astronomical amout to a collector.
Speaking as someone who’s bought and sold a fair amount of baseball memorabillia/cards in his life its fairly common knowledge that a piece of memorabillia/card has no value until someone actually purchases it.
I don’t know how that actual case turned out, but I can’t believe anyone could make a legitimate claim that the baseball was worth anything more than $10 until it was sold.
115 mph? Nah.
When I was going to University of Michigan, people got mad that they had to give the ball back. It became tradition to throw it as high up into the stands as they could then, the next guy does the same, and so on until it went over the stadium wall, at which point everybody near the exit ran out to try and grab it and head home with it.
What would they trade for it? It seems like a Baseball is the lowest denominator of baseball game value.
There’s also a story of a game where the small ball was used after the yarn inside had gotten soaked and it was impossible to hit for any distance or speed. Apparently the umpire refused to replace it until an angry player took the ball and hurled it out of the stadium.
Clearly intentional on the part of the gull. I suspect it was revenge …
“Hello. My name is Sammy Seagull. You plonked my father. Prepare to bogey.”
I can see this as being possible. The fastest baseball fireballers can throw a ball 98-100 miles an hour, with some getting a little over 100. Since a cricket hurler is running forward when he throws, you’d have to add some speed on to the throw to account for that.
Oops, my bad, the guys are bowling up to 100mph (160km/h).
They do get a run up and rather than a broken arm pitch bowl overarm with a straight arm into the ground rather than straight at waist height.
All confused with the metric - imperial thing.
I think the fan would get a small stuffed toy of some sort or a coupon for food.
And apologies for the ball coming near you and possibly hurting you.