2008 Collection Pictures

Since its the offseason, and stuff is slow as it pertains to baseball, I decided to put up some pictures of the balls I caught in 2008 along with the 4 commemoratives that I got.

I had my wife take this picture of me for Zack Hample’s Thanksgiving Ballhawk Photo Entry.  It is a picture of me with the 128 balls that I caught in 2008.
I also took a picture of the 128 from the ground level.  The light coming through the door creates kind of a cool effect.

This is one of two Shea Stadium Final Season balls that I snagged in 2008.  The Pirates only played the Mets for one series in 2008, and I managed to get 3 of my 4 commemorative balls in that series, surprisingly.  The ball below was thrown to me by Mets bullpen coach Guy Conti.  It was used in Joe Smith’s bullpen session.  Conti told me he was giving me the ball because I had the right shirt on.  (A Paul LoDuca Mets shirt that I bought at Champs for $2.99)
The second Shea Stadium ball is in better shape, but I had to go through a lot to get it.  It took me about 5 minutes of throwing my glove 12 feet out onto the field to drag the ball towards me. Stadium security reprimanded me right as I was hauling the ball in, and I bargained with the guy to keep the ball, but I had to give them another ball that I caught earlier in exchange.  I didn’t care, as it was the first commemorative ball that I got all season.
The ball below was not caught by me, so I do not count it as one of the 128 balls that I caught this season.  I only caught 2 balls during the Yankees series, and neither was a commemorative ball.   A fellow ball hawk caught this ball, and to pay of his debt of 2 tickets that I had previously bought him, he gave me this ball.  Essentially, I paid $12 for the ball, since I paid $12 for the tickets.  It was a good trade though because I wanted to get a Yankee Stadium final season ball.
The final commemorative ball that I obtained, below, was one of only 3 balls that I used the glove trick on.  It came during the Mets season, and is a Washington Nationals 2008 Inaugural Season (Nationals Park) ball.  I was a bit puzzled when I got this ball.  I then checked the Mets schedule and saw that they had just played Washington before coming to Pittsburgh.  It made sense.  It obviously got mixed in with the Mets’ stash.
Sorry that the pictures are blurry.  Hopefully for Christmas I’ll get a digital camera and can take better pictures in ’09.