I was sittin’ there, the sun was shining, my honey was on my arm… Crack! the ball is sailing majestically in my direction, and the first baseman skillfully settles under the ball and waits for it to drop in his glove. Foul Pop. Then, and this is the REALLY exciting part, he turned and tossed the ball in our general direction… it came RIGHT to me. You can’t imagine the thrill of catching a gently thrown ball that just made it past the outstretched arm of a toddler. Then, while the tyke was bawling over his missed chance at glory, I took some pictures of the ball with my phone. Wanna see 'em?
You do apparantly. Enough to come into the thread and post a comment.
Aaaaaawwwwww! Aren’t you a sweetheart. We need more kind hearted people in the world.
I suppose I’ve identified my disconnect with this whole deal.
A real baseball … that was in a real Major League Game … that a real Major League player touched? Yeah, couldn’t give less of a shit about it.
I just don’t get that attached to chachkis.
Speaking of children! If I were curlcoat it would delight me to no end to know the way I live in the heads of some of you. She’s not even in this thread and some of you are bursting with thoughts of her. Go pull her pigtail, maybe you’ll get some attention. And no, I generally don’t agree with her antics but some of you guys are worse than she is because every time she pulls your chains you never fail to disappoint. Great stuff.
Yikes, if there’s a kid fucking in the stands (especially to get what he wants!) you should report that to security!
Thread winner right there.
The guy is a dick. I’m with Kayaker, Jack Batty and Fear Itself.
I’ll try to catch it, that’s part of the fun. But if some little kid wants it, it’s his. It’s just a fvcking ball. What am I gonna do with it anyway? Put it on a shelf? Toss it in a box and forget it?
“There’s no crying in baseball.”
Minor nitpick: A MLB baseball is $15.50 (or $143.50 per dozen), not the $3 number that someone pulled out of their ass earlier in the thread. And that’s for one that hasn’t been mudded up and used in a Major League game.
I would love to get a foul ball directly off of the bat, or a home run ball. If I ever do, I’m not giving it to a kid, even if he holds his breath until he dies.
But a ball soft-tossed into the stands by a player or coach? That’s different. It’s artificial. It’s lame. I’d be embarrassed to have one. It’s like one of those fisherman dude ranches where they practically hang the fish on your hook. Kid wants one of those, he can have it.
Actually, I believe that baseballs being thrown into the stands has had a major influence on the world. If I recall the story of Gautama Buddha he too was denied a baseball as a youngster and it stayed with him his whole life. It ate him up inside for much of his life, and he was convinced that if he had gotten that baseball he would not be in misery. But then suddenly one day, while sitting under a Bodhi Tree he realized that it was in fact his longing for the baseball that caused him suffering and not the actual ball itself. He then realized that it didn’t matter because this life was temporary and some other stuff and BOOM, Buddhism.
That’s how I heard it, Wikipedia has a different story, but can you really trust Wikipedia to be accurate.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that this kid will almost certainly grow up to invent a religion, and not a cult one, but you know, one of the real ones…
At least one of these two statements is clearly incorrect.
I had a college prof once. I somehow heard he was really into baseball trivia. And at the time I found it sorta interesting (today I think its a sign of mental problems…). So, one time I said something like (in a nice way) " I heard you are really into baseball trivia…" hoping to have short friendly exchange.
He replied in tone you’d expect if I had called his mother the Whore of Babylon …“Its not trivia”.
I later found out he was an ass in a few other ways.
Damn, Americans aren’t just idiots; they’re assholes too.
Good thing I’m a meta-American.
Gotta admit, that made me laugh.
I have been to LOT of ball games. Going to see the Dodgers on Sunday.
If a foul ball was hit to my general area, I will try to catch it. But I couldn’t imagine keeping it. I have friends who have caught foul balls or balls thrown in the stands by players. Occasionally they will show them to me. I say to myself ‘Who cares?’. I would throw to a kid.
Now if the ball held a special significance to the game or a player’s career…
Thinking back I remember the first time I got the label (we were out at a show. I would have been about 4). Both parents and my older brother laughing and calling me a Want Whiney. It was horrible 
I don’t remember it happening much afterwards, so I guess I learned to give it a rest pretty quickly.
Yeah, a lot of times in hockey you’ll see players tossing pucks into the stands, and often times they’ll specifically direct them at someone. Generally you’re seen as an asshole in this case if you take one from a little kid, but that’s because they’re usually directed towards them. It’s not unusual to get a puck from a player. And players sometimes hand their sticks off to people after the game is over.
As for what you’d do with the ball, well, I’m not a baseball fan, but I’d probably put it on my shelf as a souvenoir – like I’d do with anything else. Don’t you people have shelfs in your house with various decorations, or whatever, of things you like, or souvenoirs of places you’ve been to? A concert, a vacation, or whatever?
I’ve never been able to afford to go to a game, so if a player handed me a stick or a puck, no, I’m not giving it away. I’ll keep it and put it on a shelf, as something to remember a really cool experience.
Well good for you. Other people feel different. I suppose that makes you special. Piss off.
I am a special snowflake.
Have fun dusting your snow-globe collection.
I WILL, thank you.