8/9/08 at Shea Stadium

August 11, 2008

I hate weekend games. They’re too crowded, and there are always a million kids. The only thing that made THIS weekend game tolerable–the only reason why I went in the first place–was the fact that I had access to the left field bleachers, aka “the picnic area.”

The bleachers are normally reserved for groups of 100 or more fans. Therefore, it’s almost impossible to get in, but once you make it there…not only is it great for snagging baseballs during batting practice, but you’re allowed to wander back into the main part of the stadium at any time. In fact, you’re even allowed to enter the main part of the stadium when it opens at 4:40pm–a very good thing because the bleachers don’t open until 5:40.

During that first hour…

…I managed to snag exactly ONE ball. It was a pretty good ball, though, I have to say. It had
a commemorative logo (pictured here on the left), and it was thrown by Johan Santana after he finished playing catch.

The right field Loge was dead. There were no opportunities to use the glove trick. The front row in the Field Level was packed. There was a mob at the Mets’ dugout. There was literally no place to go so I headed up to the left field Loge, just for the hell of it…just to kill the remaining minutes before the picnic area opened. Nothing there either. But I did get to meet a guy named Erik who’s been reading this blog for a while. (Erik recently left his first comment as “nysetrader76” and you can find it here.) We chatted for a minute, and when I mentioned that I had a picnic area ticket, he told me that he’d seen a ball drop into the gap between the outfield wall and the bleachers. I probably would’ve discovered this ball on my own shortly after entering the section, but it was great to have this information in advance. My friend Greg (aka “gregorybarasch”) was at this game, and he also had a picnic area ticket. Although we agreed to share the balls that dropped into the gap (as we had done on 7/29/08 at Yankee Stadium), we were still going to be competing somewhat. The first ball would be up for grabs, and there was no guarantee there’d be any others after that. In addition, fans and employees were sometimes able to go underneath the bleachers and climb fences and get into the gaps and grab those baseballs, so I was going to have to act fast.

Finally, the bleachers opened and I ran inside and peeked into the gap (just to the left of the “B” on the Bud Light ad on the outfield wall). This is what I saw:

I set up my glove trick and feared that it would be tough to use with all the weeds and pieces of trash surrounding the ball…but it wasn’t. I had my second ball of the day, and Greg was nowhere to be found. I think he was still in the main part of the stadium trying to exploit the Marlins’ pitching staff. I don’t know. All that mattered was that he still wasn’t there when another ball dropped into the gap at the center-field end of the bleachers. If he’d been there, I would’ve let him get it, and if I knew no one else could’ve gotten it, I might’ve even left it there for him (because I’m that kinda guy), but it was too risky. I had to go for it. And I did. And I quickly had my third ball of the day.

Greg turned up soon after.

During the first hour that Shea was open, I noticed that there was one usher in the bleachers collecting all the home run balls. I hadn’t seen her toss any of them back onto the field, so when I was finally out there and noticed a couple baseball-sized bulges in her pockets, I innocently asked, “What happened to all those balls you were collecting before the bleachers opened?”

“I still got ’em,” she said without much emotion, leaving me to wonder if she was being testy or just feeling ho-hum about the whole thing.

“Any chance you might be able to spare one of them? Please?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled one out and handed it to me–just like that–and I later gave it to a little kid.

Did I count this ball in my collection? Abso-snagging-lutely. Ball No. 3,574. As I’ve mentioned before, stadium security has gone out of its way so many times to prevent me from getting balls that on these rare occasions when they actually show me some love, I gladly accept it.

Meanwhile, the bleachers were getting uncomfortably crowded:

In the photo above, do you see the guy wearing a black shirt, white shorts and white shoes? Well, he was a jerk. At one point, when a home run ball was heading our way and I got a head start to the spot where it was going to land, he stuck out his arms and elbowed me in the chest to prevent me from getting past, and wouldn’t you know it…when he turned around I noticed that the front of his shirt had a Yankees logo.

“What the HELL are you doing?!” I shouted at him. “This isn’t Yankee Stadium! We don’t DO that here!”

“Whaddaya talkin’ about?!” he snapped. “You tried t’cut me off!”

“No I didn’t,” I said, “and you know damn well what I’m talking about. Keep your elbows at your side, and we’ll both be fine.”

Ten minutes later, with BP still in full swing, a beer had replaced his glove. Shocker. (Neither of us got that ball, by the way, but he did see me snag a few more.

My fifth ball of the day (pictured on the left) was a home run that landed in the bleachers–you can see where it hit the metal ridges on the benches–and it took some skill to snag it because it skipped up off a wall and was about to plunk down in the aisle as I
was racing another fan for it. Basically, I had to catch it on an in-between hop after guessing how high it was going to bounce off the unfamiliar metal flooring. My sixth ball (pictured on the right) was tossed by Marlins bullpen coordinator Pierre Arsenault. I have no idea how this strange marking got on it, but I once snagged another ball like it. Could it have been pounded into a net? The L-screen, perhaps? Or the batting cage itself? Don’t those nets have wider holes?

Five minutes before BP ended, Greg took off and headed back into the main part of the stadium, and two minutes later, another ball landed in the left-center field gap. I reeled it in. It was muddy. (Eww; there’s something extra dirty about Shea Stadium dirt.) It was my 300th ball of the season:

I had a great seat for the game. Not only was I in the front row behind that nice wide aisle, but there weren’t any other fans with gloves, and the two biggest/meanest-looking guys in the section were glued to their cell phones:

Were they texting each other? (GUY ONE: omg these fones r gr8 lets go mets!!! GUY TWO: u got dat rite boieeee lol.) I just don’t get it.

There were five home runs hit during the game, and I nearly snagged the best one: Daniel Murphy’s first as a big leaguer. If you haven’t heard of this guy, now’s the time to get his name into your head. I think he’s gonna be around for quite some time. He’s 23 years old, bats left-handed, has a great eye, excellent pitch recognition, a patient approach, and a gorgeous swing. He pinch hit for Scott Schoeneweis (boo!) in the sixth inning and went oppo off Renyel Pinto, a southpaw with nasty stuff. The ball, which was hit pretty much right in my direction, barely cleared the outfield wall but fell short of the bleachers and bounced back onto the field. If it had been hit 10 feet further, I would’ve been all over it.

The two Carloses–Delgado and Beltran–also went deep for the Mets while Jorge Cantu and Mike Jacobs went yard for Florida.

The Mets ended up winning, 8-6. Schoeneweis “earned” the win after working one-third of an inning in relief of Brian Stokes. Aaron Heilman (boo!) got the save. Beltran and David Wright (yay!) each had three hits. It was a fun night, made even funner when I got a brand new commemorative ball from Ramon Castro at the Mets’ dugout after the final out.

STATS:

? 8 balls at this game

? 301 balls in 42 games this season = 7.2 balls per game.

? 538 consecutive games with at least one ball

? 328 consecutive games at Shea Stadium with at least one ball

? 3,578 total balls

? 1 day until I’ll be at PNC Park. I’m planning to wake up tomorrow in the 6am hour (ouch) and hit the road soon after. It’s a six-and-a-half-hour drive according to MapQuest. Thank God for iPods and girlfriends. Jona will be with me, as will my entire doo-wop collection (much to her dismay). (What? You don’t like doo-wop? Download “Canadian Sunset” by the Impacts and tell me that’s not an awesome song. Go on. I dare you. Anyway, my doo-wop collection only accounts for about one-sixth of one percent of all my music, so whatever.) I’ll be attending two games (August 12-13), but she’ll probably only join me on the second day. I’ll be taking my laptop, but I have no idea if I’ll have the time/energy to blog while I’m there. I don’t know. I might be able to crank out an entry before I head back to the ballpark on Wednesday afternoon…

Written by Zack Hample Posted in Dailies Tagged with bleachers, citi field construction, commemorative balls, florida marlins, friendly usher, glove trick, milestone, new york mets, picnic area, rude fans, shea stadium