Home run balls are out for me these days, as I am no longer a bleacher man.
I’m wondering where in a typical stadium gives the bext chance of a foul ball. Being handed a ball by a player or ball-person, or scooping it as it trickles down the side strikes me as kind of cheating.
When my son was a month or two old, he was in a baby carrier in an empty seat next to me (and my wife) at Candlestick Park, along the rightfield lines. A foul ball (lazy fly ball) came right towards us and eluded my hands and banged right under his seat, and somehow got away.
Fast forward 12 years – son’s 12th birthday, Giants vs Astros at the 'Stick. We had better seats this time, inside the basepaths. An Astros player (the pitcher, name escapes me) hit a check swing foul line drive right at us. My son, wearing his glove, stood up and calmly made the catch. Still has the ball.
I expected to find some answers to this question with a bit of googling, but no such luck.
I found a few seat-of-the-pants calculations about the overall odds of getting a ball, including an interesting piece about the case of two fans sitting next to each other who caught foul balls on two consecutive pitches.
The latter article acknowledged that foul balls are not evenly distributed throughout the stands, but didn’t delve into that aspect very deeply.
Anecdotally, it seems to me that the foul ball hot-spots tend to be the first few rows behind each dugout, and the sections about halfway between first or third base and the outfield wall. That’s a completely unscientific observation, so take it for what it’s worth, based on a rough estimate of maybe 300-400 MLB and Minor League games I’ve been to. And sometimes I’m drinking while there.
My wife got a foul ball off the bat of Giant Edgar Renteria last year at a Braves’ game. She didn’t catch it - the guy who should’ve muffed it, and it rolled down to her.
We occasionally are blessed with front row seats behind the tarp on the first base line. At the last two games we’ve sat there, Glenn Hubbard has thrown someone in our group a ball from the dugout. I got the first one, and my buddy got the other.
I didn’t catch it, so much as it rolled dead at my feet and I picked it up. This was back at Cleveland Stadium in the late 1980s, when there were about 7,500 of us in the 70,000 seat ballpark. Ruben Sierra of Texas fouled it off. I was on a date with this girl Trish, and didn’t even consider given it to her, proving once again, as if any more proof were needed, what a non-romantic louse I am.
Trish later married my friend Mark and then they had a nasty bitter divorce, so I’m happy I kept the baseball and not Trish. I still have the ball on a shelf in my office.
One came right to me at an Expos game in their last year of existence. Not really too impressive, since there were only ~1,700 people in the whole stadium.
When I was a kid and used to get to the stadium early to watch batting practice, I once caught six foul balls in two consecutive games. You would just line up down the third base line in a particular spot and they would come to you.
As for during a game, I think only once.
Last year, Nats stadium (wanted to see Chipper play before he retired)-Braves taking BP, me in left-field stands. I couldn’t tell who it was, but he lofted a high fly ball which I only had to move 3 feet to my left to corral (it dropped to my feet and I calmly picked it up-the bleachers were sparsely populated at the time). For all I know it may have been Chipper hitting righty. Made up for me losing Jack Nicklaus’ winning ball at the '78 TPC: I was in the middle of a milling crowd and he threw it right to me, but I foolishly tried to use one hand, and it bounced off and a girl got it. Since I was a huge fan of his, maybe I become a pro golfer and not a teacher if I got it.
You actually have to go to a game to catch one, right? That may explain why I haven’t snatched one yet.
My BIL, who was sitting in the left field seats at Camden Yards, caught one in the nuts during BP at Camden Yards, whilst he was fussing over his Blackberry.
And no, he didn’t retrieve that ball.
He should be happy he kept the two he already had.
Been to probably twenty or so games in my life. No catches, but no errors, either.
I didn’t ever catch one, but I’ve gotten three foul balls in my life all in old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. Well two I guess really. The first my father retrieved by climbing over two or three rows of seats in a pretty empty stadium. I was 6 or 7.
The first one I got myself was a line drive foul that banged off a steel post behind the empty seat next to me, then off the seat in front of that before rattling around under our seats. I was 9 or ten and managed to grab it before some other kids as it rattled around under our seats.
The easiest one I got came rolling right down a ramp to me as I returned either from the men’s room or a concession stand. I just stopped it with my foot and picked it up.
Not too many baseball games in Melbourne but a couple of years ago I managed to get my hands on the ball at an Australian Rules football game.
One of the Saints players speared it on the run from about 40 metres out; stupidly I attempted to catch it on the full (which nearly dislocated my shoulder). As it fell I gathered the ball, waited a few vital seconds for the Saints to set up their defence, then passed it to the Eagles full-back. He wasn’t amused.
Never. 
I always bring a glove, too, just in case. Giants’ broadcaster/dumbass Mike Krukow always says “bring a glove, get a ball!” but it has never proven true for me.
But one time when I was a kid, I attended an A’s game where someone just one row behind me and about three seats to the left managed to get three foul balls. That was insane.
Not a baseball, but I did get a hockey puck at a 1996 Chicago Blackhawks playoff game, glass seats no less. The puck popped five or six rows back. My friend and I gave it a cursory look, then turned around to continue watching the game. Several people must have fumbled the puck because it suddenly appeared on the ledge in front of us. My friend, unwilling to drop his beer, reached for it with only one hand. Instead of grabbing the puck, he merely pushed it along the ledge toward me, where I, sans beer, pounced on it. This is more notable to me, as pucks don’t go into the stands nearly as much as baseballs and people sitting on the glass rarely get an opportunity to snag the few pucks that do go into the stands. I’m considering adding a provision to my will to be buried with it.
Wait a minute… Least Original User Name Ever is your son? I had no idea. Cool!
As I think I posted here once before, I took a puck off the hand at a Kings’ game last season. Those suckers hurt. And I didn’t even end up with the damn thing.
So the people who are posting they take gloves - how old are you?
I’ve never known what to think of adults with gloves at the game (other than the players of course). But then again, I’m a Brit, and was brought up on cricket, and have always thought there is something soft about a big glove to catch. 
(I kid, I kid, different games, different needs).
Like zamboniracer, my only experience with foul balls are from Municipal Stadium. When I was a kid we’d go to games and my dad was a young buck and he’d run down the stands and pick up strays. I think we got at least 2, maybe more.
Sad story:
For the past 3 seasons, I’ve been getting to use a client’s sweet 4-pack of season tickets from time to time. I always take my 2 best friends with me and maybe a date if I’m seeing anyone.
I really love these seats. They’re 5 rows up, just past the Indians’ dugout and camera bay. If I get the tickets and can’t get people to come with (not easy to find Indians fans these days), I go alone.
So, I went to the last home game of the season a couple weeks ago, alone. I sat myself in seat 1 of the row. Seat 2 was for my sweatshirt. Seats 3 and 4, for which I held the tickets, were occupied by a couple of teenagers who wanted to sit in front of the people they were with instead of next to them. Whatever, they weren’t bothering me.
For the first time in about 15 games I’ve had these seats, a foul ball came right to my section. Seat 4. Where someone else was sitting
The kid caught it on the fly, and the usher took his name and address. I guess if you catch one on the fly they send you a certificate.
To add insult to injury…To show some fan appreciation, all of the players had signed a dozen balls and came out after the game to throw those balls into the stands. I rushed up to the dugout, along with my teenage seat-mates. One of the players rolled a ball right to the kid who’d caught the foul ball.
Then, Chris Perez threw a ball behind me, where my seat was, where I had been sitting before I went up to the dugout. The mom of the kid who now had a foul ball and a signed ball caught MY ball.
grumble