Tagged: blue jays
4/3/08 at Yankee Stadium
I need to start by thanking my friend Eric Marinbach (who, by the way, runs THE definitive message board about bobblehead dolls). The cheapest ticket available for this game would’ve cost me more than $60. Eric was somehow able to come up with two extra $5 seats at the last minute–one for me and another for my girlfriend Jona–and he gave them to us for free. Nice looking tickets, too. Check it out:
It was another cold day (game-time temperature: 42 degrees) but that didn’t stop me from lighting the right field seats on fire during batting practice. As soon as I ran inside, I saw a line drive hit the protective netting along the right field foul line, and the ball dropped down behind the rolled up tarp. There were only a few other fans in the seats, and I wasn’t sure if any of them had seen it, so I raced over, got permission from a security guard to head down to the front row, and then lifted up the net and grabbed the ball. Too easy. I wanted to take a pic of the ball before I grabbed it, but Jona had my camera and even if she hadn’t, there just wouldn’t have been time.
I snagged two more balls with my glove trick, and Jona got a really cool pic as I was reeling one of them in. This was her view from about 100 feet away…
…and here’s a closer look at the same pic. I’m the one wearing the blue cap and puffy black jacket. You can see my glove dangling just to the left of the “314” sign.
Did you notice the two other fans in this photo who are dangling their cup tricks? Some people with ball-retrieving devices like to pick a spot and immediately lower their contraptions. It’s like they’re claiming their spot, so that if/when a ball rolls to the wall below them, they’re all over it. But when balls roll 10 feet to the side, they’re screwed. I prefer to wait until I see a ball roll to the wall and THEN make my move. Sometimes I get there too late, but I’m always able to cover much more ground.
The previous day, I didn’t snag a single ball during the 35 minutes that the Yankees were taking BP. But this time? I ended up with half a dozen before the Blue Jays took the field. Ball #6 required a touch of athleticism, and Jona saw me get it. Basically, I was about eight rows back when one of the many Yankees lefties (don’t ask me who) rocketed a deep drive in my direction. Only problem was…I wasn’t paying attention. I guess I’d looked down for a split second, for whatever reason, so I didn’t see the ball coming until everyone around me started shouting and jockeying for position. I looked up, spotted the ball coming in fast, instantly realized that it was heading over my head, and jumped as high as I could. THWAP!!! I caught it in the tip of my glove and the whole section (minus the guys standing directly behind me) applauded.
I’d been hoping for another commemorative ball, but no, all six had the regular MLB logo.
The Blue Jays took the field and starting hitting. Just about every batter was right-handed. It was terrible, and the players retrieving balls weren’t throwing much into the seats either. At one point, Jessie Litsch walked over to retrieve a ball, and when I asked for it, he said, “You got like forty-two balls yesterday, am I right?”
Needless to say, he didn’t toss me the ball, but I did manage to snag four more with the glove trick. One player stood on the warning track and watched intently as I got the first one. I gave another ball to a kid and beat out a couple fans with cup tricks two minutes later. (Don’t worry, they beat me a few times earlier in the day.)
The non-snagging highlight of BP: I ran into a guy who was quoted 12 years ago in the very first article ever written about my baseball collection. His name is Howard Pressman. We hadn’t seen each other for at least five years. “You’re still doing it,” he said. Soon after, I saw him catch two homers on a fly and disappear into the crowd.
The non-snagging highlight after BP: Jona and I ran into a friend named Michael Fierman (aka “tswechtenberg” if you’ve been reading the comments on this blog). Here we all are:
The non-snagging humorous moment of the night: There was a long line out the door of the men’s room, and everyone was grumbling and waiting rather impatiently when a young man with baggy pants and tacky bling side-stepped us all and barged right through.
“Whoa!! Whoa!! Whoa!!” we all shouted. “Where do you think you’re going?!”
“Don’t be watchin’ MY moves, baby!” he called back as he kept moving.
Once the culprit reached his urinal, a fat, 40-something-year-old man next to him said, “Dude, what’re you doing, cutting the line like that? Can’tcha see we’re all waiting here?”
The line-cutter answered without answering: “How you gonna talk to a man while he’s holdin’ his johnson?”
“What!” shouted the fat man playfully as if to challenge him. “I’m comfortable with my sexuality. How about YOU?!”
The culprit and his friends (who apparently were waiting near the exit) burst into laughter, and the fact that they found this amusing made the rest of us laugh.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program…
Shortly before the national anthems, I snuck past security on the 3rd base side for ball #11. Aaron Hill and David Eckstein (whose last name is an anagram of “neckti
es”) were throwing 
in shallow left field, and I got Eck to flip me the ball on the way in. No way he’s 5-foot-7. I don’t care what the media guide says. I’ve seen subway rats taller than him.
All 11 balls I’d snagged were standard balls. The only 
thing unusual was that more than half of them had prominent grass stains.
just a small handful. But I’ve decided that when a future Hall of Famer is in the batters box, it’s a waste of time trying to catch a foul ball.
Jona and I sat in the fourth row behind the Yankees’ dugout for the last two innings. Don’t ask me how. I will only say that the face value of those tickets is $250.
Joba Chamberlain picked up the win after tossing a scoreless eighth inning. Mariano Rivera notched his second save and held onto his precious ball. I couldn’t get one from the home plate umpire either, so my quest to get another commemorative ball failed miserably. It’s tough. Unless these balls start being used during batting practice, you’ll pretty much have to get your hands on a game ball, and at this stadium, it’s not easy because access to the seats behind the dugouts is extremely limited. I still think that these balls WILL end up being used in BP, so my advice to anybody from out of town who wants one is:
wait a couple months and then come to Yankee Stadium.
I might go back to the Bronx on Sunday afternoon if the weather’s nice. If not, my next game will be a Watch With Zack outing at Fenway Park on Tuesday, April 8.
STATS:
• 11 balls at this game = my 2nd highest one-day total at Yankee Stadium.
• 17 balls in 2 games this season = 8.5 balls per game.
• 498 consecutive games with at least one ball
• 110 consecutive games at Yankee Stadium with at least one ball
• 74 lifetime games with at least 10 balls (including 4 games at Yankee Stadium)
• 3,294 total balls…moves me ahead of Willie Mays (3,283) and into 11th place on the all-time hits list. Next up is Eddie Collins (3,315).
4/2/08 at Yankee Stadium
This was my first game of the year, and I have to start with three pics of the New Yankee Stadium. Here it is from the end of the #4 train subway platform:
Here’s the view from the middle of the other side of the platform:
Last one…from the same spot but looking to the right. Notice how the beautiful white facade is just ugly brown metal with a coat of paint:
As for the current Yankee Stadium…
It was $5 Night. I didn’t have a ticket. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked up to the ticket window at 4pm — a little more than an hour before the gates would be opening for batting practice. The people in front of me asked about the cheap seats. The man behind the bullet-proof glass said, “The five-dollar seats are sold out for the rest of the season. Cheapest ticket for tonight is sixty-five.”
“Sixty-five bucks?” I asked after the people ahead of me stepped out of line. “Even for a single?”
“Come back in an hour,” said the man, explaining that some cheaper tickets might get released into the computer system by then.
“I can’t wait an hour,” I said. “Batting practice will be starting and I need to be inside then.”
He shrugged. I walked away. Ran into a friend named Eric. Started eating a sandwich I’d brought. Got approached by two men. One had heard me trying to get a ticket, said he and his friend had an extra one, and offered it to me…for free. It was a $75 season ticket up in the Loge. No way I was going to sit there, but WOW. I really couldn’t believe it. I was sure it was a conspiracy to prevent me from snagging baseballs. (“Hey, Jimmy, see dat guy ova deh? Dat’s da baseball collecta. Give ’em wunna deez bogus tickets. Joik won’t be able t’get scanned at da gate. He’ll hafta get outta line and find anudda ticket and miss da starta battin’ practice.”) But as it turned out, the ticket was good.
The Yankees’ portion of batting practice was a disaster, and I got completely shut out, in part because I got outsnagged by a few other fans who regularly read this blog (“puckcollector” and “gregorybarasch” for those of you who read the comments…and I also want to say thanks to my friend Nelson who let me slip into the line ahead of him so I could be the first fan to enter the stadium). I came close to several balls — almost plucked one off the right field warning track with my glove trick, but a security guard stopped me just before I lowered it all the way down. A few other people had glove/cup tricks, and when we all complained that we were allowed to use them last year, the guard radioed his boss and then informed us several minutes later that yes, we WERE allowed to steal balls from the field. Woo-hoo!
Sure enough, my first ball of the season came via the glove trick, and let me tell you, it was a huge relief to get it out of the way. I snagged ball #2 with the trick and got ball #3 from a Blue Jays pitcher. I’m not sure who, but I think it was Dustin McGowan. It was impossible to identify any of the players because it was cold 
and they were all wearing warm-up jackets over their jerseys and none of their numbers were showing. I’d brought a team roster, but it was basically useless. Anyway, there was a thick cluster of Yankee fans shouting for the ball, and I was buried several rows back, so I took off my Blue Jays cap and waved it frantically when the player looked up to find a deserving recipient. He spotted it and lobbed the ball right to me. Perfect aim. Right over everyone’s head. I still had to jump and make a nice grab above the forest of outstretched hands, and it felt great.
At around 6pm, I had a chance to snag yet another ball with the glove trick, this time a few feet shy of the foul pole. Before I lowered my glove, I announced that I’d be giving the ball to a kid. Big mistake. It caused a frenzy as soon as I reeled in the ball. So many kids (and even a few grownups…fathers, I guess) hurried over and started pushing that I nearly toppled backwards over the wall and onto the warning track nine feet below. I announced that I would only consider kids with gloves who had NOT already gotten a ball that day. There were still dozens of kids swarming me, so I announced that I’d give the ball to the youngest one. Another mistake. This prompted every kid to lie about his age, and it was obvious. The whole thing caused quite a scene, and that was not my intention. I just wanted to do something nice and disappear back into the crowd. Finally, after a solid minute of mayhem, I handed the ball to the shortest kid I saw and got lots of thumbs-ups and pats on the back as I headed back to my spot in straight-away right fiel
d.
I got one more ball at the end of BP. One of the ball boys retrieved a ball that had rolled near the warning track, and he flipped it up into the aisle behind the wall. Everyone dropped it. The ball boy tossed it up again. Same result. I worked my way into the middle of the pack, and when the ball came up for the third time, I jumped and gloved it.
I’d heard that the Yankees were using special balls during games to commemorate the final season of the stadium, but I didn’t get any during BP. No surprise there. As I mentioned, I didn’t get a single ball while the Yanks were on the field, and there was no chance that the Jays would be using them. I figured that within a few weeks or months, these balls would find their way into the BP buckets and eventually circulate around the league. And since I live less than five miles from Yankee Stadium and can go there anytime, I figured I’d get one of these balls eventually, but man, I wanted one right away.
BTW, the pic on the left shows me after BP with the four balls I kept. You can see the new Yankee Stadium way off in the distance.
Once the game started, I headed to straight-away left field and pretty much stayed there through the seventh-inning stretch. Other than getting my hands on one of those commemorative balls, my ONLY purpose for going to Yankee Stadium this season is to catch an A-Rod home run. Not during batting practice. I’m talking about real live action. I still haven’t forgiven myself for misjudging one of his blasts last season, and I need to redeem myself. He’s going to end up as the all-time home run king. I need to catch one. It’s as simple as that.
I was in a great spot for all his at-bats (the pic on the right shows my view when he stepped to the plate for the first time), and he DID hit a home run late in the game…but it went to dead center. At least he’s hitting well. It’d be great if he has another monster April. I’d like to catch one sooner than later, especially if I’m gonna be paying a $65 cover charge every time I go.
A.J. Burnett was mowing down the Yankees and took a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh. That’s when A-Rod went yard, but the Yankees’ rally died, and half the crowd bolted for the exits. That’s when I snuck down to the Jays’ dugout, and at the end of the next inning, I got 1st base coach Ernie Whitt to toss me a ball. I didn’t even think he had one. In fact, I knew he didn’t, but I asked anyway, just in 
case there happened to be a loose ball sitting around in the dugout. And there was. And it was one of those commemorative balls. YES!!!
I ran back to left field for the bottom of the ninth. Jeter and A-Rod were both due up, so it was worth being out there. Thankfully, Jeter (who batted 2nd) and Abreu (who batted 3rd) both led off with singles, so when A-Rod finished his night by striking out, there was only one out, and I still had time to get back to the Jays’ dugout. Juicin’ Giambi and Robinson Cano both flied out to end the game, and I bolted down the steps to the front row. All the players and coaches walked out on the field to shake hands. I didn’t get the game-ending ball (which was the reason I was down there), but I ended up 
getting something even better. All the coaches headed back to the dugout in a small cluster, and I shouted (while wearing my Jays cap), “Hey, guys, any chance I can get the lineup card?!”
One of them (not sure who) looked up and said, “I got ya,” and disappeared from sight for a full minute. Was he serious?! Was he going to give it to me? What was taking so long? The few other fans standing around nearby were oblivious, so when the coach poked his head out of the dugout and slid a big piece of thick card stock my way, no one else bothered to lunge for it. Oh. My. God. It was beautiful. THAT’S what took so long. He had to peel the thing off the dugout wall. Most of the lineup cards I’ve gotten look like this, and they’re small–only about 5″ x 7″. But this one? How about 8.5″ x 13.5″. Check it out:
Every team seems to organize and mark its lineup cards differently. One thing I figured out about this one is that the Jays mark all the lefties (hitters and pitchers) with a yellow hi-liter and mark all the switch-hitters with blue. As for the black circles, every team keeps track of which hitter makes the last out in each inning. Then a coach writes the number next to the player’s name and circles it. The Jays, for whatever reason, color in the circles as the game progresses. Johnny Damon struck out swinging to end the bottom of the eighth, and you can still see the “8” next to his name because as soon as the final out was recorded in the ninth, there was no point in making the effort to scribble over it. Cool, huh?
STATS:
• 6 balls at this game
• 497 consecutive games with a
t least one ball
• 109 consecutive games at Yankee Stadium with at least one ball
• 3,283 total balls…ties me with Willie Mays for 11th place on the all-time hits list. (If you’re wondering why I’m comparing balls to hits, click here.)
The Baseball Collector 
