Are you aware that baseballs used to be covered with horsehide until MLB switched over to cowhide in 1974? Yeah, Danny had balls to mark THAT occasion as well:

One cool thing about the balls from the early 1970s is that they were made by different companies:

American League balls were made by Reach, and National League balls were made by Spalding. (Reach was owned by Spalding, but it’s still cool.)

Rawlings didn’t start making balls for MLB until 1977…the year I was born…HEY!!!

Let’s not forget that Bonds homer–number six-ninety-eight:

Here’s a closer look at the sticker that an authenticator from MLB stuck on the ball…

…and here’s Danny’s unofficial certificate of authenticity on MLB.com:

There are dozens of other photographs I could share. I could literally write a different blog entry about his collection every day for a year and still have plenty of stuff left to talk about. It was THAT impressive. But I’ll just leave you with one other pic from Danny’s place.

I had heard that at Coors Field, fans received “Clean Catch” pins from the ushers whenever they caught a foul ball or home run on a fly during a game–but I hadn’t actually seen one. Naturally, Danny had about a dozen, and here it is:

What a great idea. Seriously…what an excellent way to encourage fans to bring their gloves and be participants. What a shame that neither team in my hometown has the brains/incentive to do this.

As if the tour of his collection weren’t enough, Danny took me out to lunch with his family (at the famous Blake Street Tavern) and we all walked over to the ballpark together.

I took a few photographs of the exterior…

…and posed with my two shirts once we reached the gate:

As you may already know, I own all 30 major league team caps; visiting teams love to spot their “fans” on the road and reward them with baseballs. In this case, since the Mets were the visiting team, I went one step further and brought a matching shirt–but I didn’t wear it during the game. That’s where the striped shirt came in. My plan (as I mentioned in an entry last week) was to dress like Waldo to make it easier for people to spot me on TV.

Gate E opened at 5pm, and I nearly got hit by a ball as I ran inside. From the concourse behind the left field bleachers, I saw one of the Rockies players looking up as if he were following the flight of a long home run. I paused for a second, expecting the ball to clang off the metal benches down below when all of a sudden, SMACK!!! The ball hit the concourse five feet to my left (about 425 feet from the plate according to Hit Tracker), bounced up and hit a metal support beam above the roof of a concession stand, and ricocheted back toward me. I was totally caught off guard. I wasn’t even wearing my glove…I was carrying it with my right hand, so I lunged forward and knocked the ball down with my left hand (almost like a basketball dribble) to prevent it from bouncing back into the bleachers, and I finally grabbed it.

Moments later, another home run landed near me, this time in the bleachers, and when I ran over and grabbed it off the concrete steps, an usher down below yelled, “Give it to the kid!”

I looked up, and there was indeed a kid nearby, but I
knew he didn’t need any charity. His name was Hunter. I’d signed a baseball for him the day before. He and his dad Don (aka “Rock Pile Ranter” if you read the comments) had front-row access for this game, and sure enough, they ended up snagging a bunch of balls…and you can read about it on Don’s blog.

The Rockies’ portion of BP was slow. I didn’t get any more balls from them. The highlight was seeing Danny trade gloves with Ubaldo Jimenez…

…and then use it to catch a home run ball. Unfortunately, it was a ball I easily could’ve caught, but I backed off (because the idea of robbing him on his own turf made me feel guilty) and let him have it, and he thanked me several times.

Anyway, it almost didn’t matter because I got SEVEN balls tossed to me during the Mets’ portion of BP. The first came from Scott Schoeneweis near center field. The second came from coach Guy Conti in left-center. The third came from Ramon Castro near the left field foul line. The fourth came from Conti again…it was ridiculous…I didn’t even ask him for it…I was sitting just behind the wall in left-center, minding my own business and labeling the ball from Castro when Conti walked over and grabbed a ball off the warning track and flipped it up without looking at me. The fifth ball came from Marlon Anderson in straight-away left field. The sixth came from Pelfrey, also in left field, and the seventh came from Pedro Martinez in center. It was incredible. There was NO competition, and yet some of the fans behind me were grumbling. One guy (who I’m ashamed to admit was wearing a Mets jersey) shouted angrily, “How many balls do you need?!” and before I had a chance to walk over and respond, he snapped, “Go ahead, say something stupid.”

Too bad he was so rude. I’d been considering giving one of my baseballs to his son, but instead, when batting practice ended, I handed one to a different kid whose father had been minding his own business.

I made sure not to give away any of the three baseballs in the following photo:

As you can see, I got two commemorative balls. The one on the left was thrown by Castro, and it happened to be the 900th ball I’ve snagged outside of New York. The ball in the middle was thrown by Pelfrey, and it’s just cool. I love how worn out it is. The ball on the right (not commemorative but still cool) was thrown by Pedro.

Okay, so the seven balls that the Mets threw to me gave me nine for the day, and I managed to snag one more. Remember the aggressive fan who had shoved me while going for a ball three days earlier? Well, he was back in his usual spot, and I made a point of standing right behind him and shutting him down. Toward the end of BP, one of the Mets righties lifted a deep fly ball in our direction. I judged it perfectly and jumped as high as I could at the last second…and although I didn’t catch it cleanly, I successfully prevented this other guy from catching it. Our gloves made contact, and the ball plopped down into the aisle, and I snatched it before he knew what was happening. I’m proud to say that he did not snag ONE ball since The Shove.

Anyway…
Throughout the week, Danny had been telling me that he knew one of the guys who worked the manual, out-of-town scoreboard in right field (?!?!) and he kept offering to arrange a visit for me. This was the day that I finally took him up on it…so after BP ended, Danny made a phone call and sent me on my way. It was as simple as that. I exited the tunnel at the bottom of the left field pavilion, turned right, and walked through the “secret” concourse:

After walking for a couple minutes and not really knowing who or what to look for (and hoping that I wasn’t going to be arrested), a woman stuck her head out of one of the black doors on the right and called me over by name.

Nice.

HER name is Beverly Coleman. She works for the Rockies in the “Business Operations” department. (You can find her on this list of Rockies front office employees.) Her husband is the guy that works the scoreboard.

Beverly led me down into a party area…

…and we headed toward an unmarked door…

…and climbed some steep/narrow steps…

…and before I knew it I was standing behind the scoreboard, witnessing an update in progress:

Then things calmed down a bit, and I met her husband, David Holt:

David gave me a quick tour and told me I was welcome to take as many photos as I wanted and share them on my blog.

This was my view of the field through one of the small holes in the wooden boards…

…and this was the view through one of the grated windows (which was damaged by a ball):

Did you notice the ball in the photo above? It’s tucked into a little nook in the wall on the upper right. Here’s a closeup:

I was in heaven:

David introduced me to a guy named Jim Park who was monitoring every game on a laptop:

Here’s a closer look at Jim’s work space:

At least once per minute, Jim shouted some sort of update–a score change, an inning change, or a pitching change–and David went to work:

He showed me how to make sure that the boards were facing the right way. Quite simply, the front (which faced the field) had big letters…

…and the back had small letters:

If the board was right-side-up in the back, that meant it was facing the proper way in the front. Easy…I had it…and David let me make some updates:

Seventeen years ago, I got to work the electronic portion of the scoreboard at Fenway Park for an inning during a game…but I did it from the press level high in the grandstand behind home plate…so this experience at Coors Field was a first. Unbelievable. I still can’t get over it.

…and it got better.

Beverly, being a front office employee, had received a 2007 National League Championship ring and gave me all the time I needed to photograph it. Note her last name (Coleman) on the side:

I actually didn’t have much more time. The game was about to begin, and although I probably could’ve stayed longer, I really wanted to get back to left field and unleash my Waldo Essence.

David removed one of the boards so I could reach out and take a few more photos before I left. Check this out. You can see the shadow of my hand and camera:

I made it back to the left field pavilion just before the first pitch, then pulled out my big glove and let Emily (Dan’s four-year-old daughter) try it on:

I didn’t bring the big glove to help me snag extra balls. I just brought it to help me stand out even more on TV.

I was so psyched to be sitting in the wide aisle in straight-away left field. Even though I didn’t have much room on my right…

I had a ton of space on my left:

In the top of the second inning, Carlos Beltran led off with a single and Carlos Delgado followed with a deep drive to my left. I jumped out of my seat, raced through the aisle, and watched helplessly as the ball sailed 15 feet over my head.

So much for that.

There were two other home runs in the game, both of which were hit in the first few innings and went to right field, so I had to find other forms of entertainment:

Final score: Mets 7, Rockies 2.

STATS:

? 10 balls at this game

? 210 balls in 27 games this season = 7.8 balls per game.

? 83 lifetime games with 10 or more balls

? 28 lifetime games outside NYC with 10 or more balls

? 18 different stadiums with at least one game with 10 or more balls

? 523 consecutive games with at least one ball

? 126 consecutive games outside NYC with at least one ball

? 905 lifetime balls outside NYC

? 3,487 total balls