A Fan's Note: It took more than a half a century, but I finally caught a baseball
For most of my life, I wanted to catch a home run or foul ball or just a warm-up baseball at a game. It was worth the wait.
For Captain Ahab, it was a white whale. For me, it was a baseball
I'm 10, maybe 11 years old, My family is going to see the Los Angeles Dodgers play at Chavez Ravine, their home ballpark. As usual, we - father, mother, brother and I — have seats in the right field bleachers.
Just before the game starts, my dad and I are standing on the metal landing just behind the outfield fence, atop the stairs that lead up to the seats. We are talking and watching the Dodgers outfielders finish their tosses to each other.
The right fielder, just below us, catches the ball thrown to him by the center fielder, then casually flips it toward the stands, towards me!
I touch the ball, fumble it and it tumbles out my hands, falling to the ground below the stairs. With a cat-like movement that astonishes me, my dad is gone. He reappears, smiling and panting, moments later with the ball in his hand. He gives it to me.
I am happy. I am also humiliated. I play Little League baseball. I'm a good fielder. I play catch with my brother almost everyday. But when I had a chance to catch the baseball - a real major league baseball - I blew it.
I’ve written before about my lifelong quest to get a home run or foul ball during a major league game. I’m still trying. But I do understand that that’s largely a matter of luck - being in the right place at the right time. A ball thrown to you is a gift. It’s up to you to complete the transfer by simply catching it.
Many years later, I’m living in Boston. I’m at a Red Sox game, seated in the field level of the grandstands overlooking left field.
The outfielders are wrapping up their tosses between innings. The Red Sox left fielder, Manny Ramirez, catches a ball, then turns, pauses and throws it into the stands in my direction.
It’s coming to me. It’s right in front of me. Other hands are lurching for it, but it’s destined for me. I reach forward. It hits my hands. I try to grab a hold of it. I lose control. It drops. There’s a brief frenetic scramble in front of me. A guy comes up with it, grinning jubilantly. I hate him. I am humiliated. Again.
Now it’s the Covid summer of 2021 and I’m at a Yankees game. Attendance is still sparse so I and my buddy snag seats in the left field side in the second deck just past third base.
The players’ pre-game warm up is ending. I am standing and looking at the Yankees left fielder, Brett Gardner. He looks at me. I’m sure he does. I wave my arms. Gardner rears back and fires the ball. It’s an absolute laser coming at me with pinpoint accuracy more than 150 feet away. I reach for it with one hand. The ball hits the meat of my palm at the base of my left thumb. It caroms away. Like vultures, the fans nearby swoop in and someone grabs the ball.
The place where the ball hit my hand throbs with pain.
"Man, you had it!" my friend says.
The psychic pain hurts more.
Earlier this summer, I was in Oakland. California to attend an A’s game. I was there for a future article I’m writing for Substack about the team’s impending move to Las Vegas and how their enigmatic, tight-fisted owner destroyed the A’s as a competitive baseball team.
I sat in the right field bleachers at the hideous Oakland Coliseum ballpark because that’s the enclave of the A’s most diehard fans, a fun group some of whom I got to know writing about the A’s last year.
Between innings, I noticed the A’s right fielder Cody Thomas finishing up his warm up throws. I stood in the aisle and waved my arms. There weren’t many people around me. He saw me. He holds the ball. He lets it go. It coms toward me a gentle arc, so slowly I had enough time to think, almost a mantra. Catch it with both hands. Stay calm. Catch it with both hands. Stay calm.
The Ball now resides among my treasured baseball memorabilia
A strange tranquility washed over me as I reached forward. The baseball landed softly in my outstretched palms. I cradled it to my chest as if holding a baby. Finally, I held it up to look at it. The ball was a little battered and oddly bore two blue scrap marks. No matter. It was mine.
A couple of A's fans came over to fist-bump me. A guy approached me from behind me and said, "Nice catch."
He had no idea. The sun shone. Somewhere a band played. Men laughed. Children shouted. My heart was light. I felt joy.
Finally !! Next game you’ll catch a home run.
Worth the wait.