5-9-11 PNC Park

Today got off to a great start.

I got to the stadium around 4:25 PM or so and went down to the Riverwalk.  Look what was waiting for me. 

It was just laying there. 

It had a nice scuff on it, so it likely bounced out of the stadium and just died in the grass.  None of the passers by noticed it.  Amazing stuff.

After a few minutes, several other ballhawks joined me on the riverwalk. 

There were two younger ballhawks, Nick Pelescak, and another guy who stayed farther down towards the foul pole.

While there, a ball bounced out that the youngest of us grabbed, and another one bounced out that I completely misplayed.  I notice a high fly ball that looked like it had a chance.  I ran up to the wall, because it looked like it might just barely clear the wall.  It did, after bouncing at least twice in the stadium.  When the ball reappeared into my field of sight, I was to far to the left, and totally misplayed it.  I tried to dive for it, but missed the ball, and one of the ‘new’ ballhawks grabbed it.

The rest of the time we spent staring at the sky, but nothing else came out.

When the gates opened, I ran in and found ball #2 laying on the cross aisle by the handicapped seats in left field.  A food service employee actually pointed it out to me.  He saw me sprinting, assumed I was looking for baseballs, and said, “There’s one right there.”

My third ball was hit by Steve Pearce.  It was a ball that landed in section 133 and it rolled down the stairs under the bleachers and I just waited for it and picked it up.

Despite having empty bleachers and doing a ton of running around, Nick and I both had really sub par games.

Here we are just coming up short on one of several scrums.

The Pirates had put several righties in their last group, and it was a good round of BP, but after about 9 minutes, they ran off the field and the Dodgers came out.

My fourth ball of the day came after the Dodgers came out to hit.  Here I am in my useless Dodgers gear:

Ball #4 was a ball that rolled to the wall that I glove tricked.

The guy in the Waner jersey below told me to give the glove tricked ball away to a kid.  I told him no.  

The kid just got three anyway.  I hate it when people try to tell me what to do with the balls that I snag.  He clumsily got a ball, but I didn’t see him giving it away.  For the record, I gave two of my decoy balls away to kids yesterday.

In the meantime, it seems like most of the Pittsburgh ballhawks change their jerseys now.

Dodgers BP absolutely sucked.  There was a lot of time to just stand around.

Whenever a ball looked like it had a chance, it died and was routinely caught by one of the Dodgers pitchers.

At 5:30, I headed over to center field,

but found no balls there.  I stayed there for a few minutes, and had three opportunities, but failed on all three.  The first was a ball that was over my head, hit in the fourth row and bounced back onto the field.  The second was a ground rule double that bounced into the fourth row that a random fan beat me to, and the third was a ground rule double that I had tip off my glove after a fan in the front row also tried to snag it and knocked my glove out of position at the last second.

I returned to left field, talked with one of the friendly supervisors who gets a kick out of our ballhawking antics,

and waited around for a home run.

They were few and far between.  I lost out on one scrum, 

and the caught a Russell Mitchell home run ball on the fly for ball #5.

Here I am getting a read on the ball.

The photo of the catch was obstructed as Nick was backing up the play.  

The ball was brand new without a spec on it.

That was it for batting practice.   Amy and I went up to the club level and ate, and made our way back down to the outfield for the beginning of the game.  Our seats were on the Clemente wall.

Before the game started, I meandered into the center field seats, but came up empty on the first inning toss up ball.  It went to the folks in the second row.

Also, in the first inning, a ballhawk named Harold who has snagged 1,000 baseballs in 30 years had a prime opportunity to catch a home run ball off the bat of Garrett Jones.  He completely muffed it, and the ball fell back on the field.  Harold was booed mercilessly.  His botched catch caused the umpires to look at the replay and rule what should’ve been a home run a ground rule double.

Here’s Harold:

In the top of the second inning, Jones warmed up, turned, and fired me his warm up ball.  It was ball # 6 on the day.

#6, rubbed up, an ex-gamer:

After that, Amy and I left to go have some time to ourselves as we have a busy week ahead of us.

Here are today’s baseballs:

Sweet spots:

STATISTICS:
Game:  6 balls (2 hit, 1 thrown, 1 device, 2 found)
Season:  97 balls (35 hit, 26 thrown, 22 device, 13 found)
Games: 16 games
Average:  6.06 balls per game
Career:  1,219 balls
Attendance: 11,373