Rickey Henderson, baseball’s greatest base-stealer, stole a foul ball out of the hands of babes. Okay, maybe not stole… he caught the foul ball outright, but he didn’t give it to a young fan nearby. Selfish? Mean? Ridiculous? Maybe a little. The man has more baseball memorabilia to his credit than the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as a team, but the one thing that apparently eluded him was a foul ball caught in the stands. No doubt, it’s a desire he’s had since he himself was a young fan of the game, so it was a dream fulfilled. But should he have fulfilled the dream of the kid next to him?
This conversation usually comes up whenever my friends and I find ourselves sitting in the hot zone for fouls. We scan the crowd around us to see if there are any kids we would be required to give the ball to. If so, we act altruistic and vow to ourselves to hand the ball over if it lands in our vicinity. If not, then we secretly hope that a piece of baseball history will end up on a dusty Ikea bookshelf at home.
But then there are always the “what if’s.” What if you bare-hand it? What if the ball was fouled off Big Papi’s bat or Bonds’? What if the ball actually maims you? Then are you entitled to keep the foul treasure? If the answer is yes to all of these, then what do you do if the crowd is yelling at you to give it the kid next to you? Can you handle the pressure of thousands of fans booing you?
I’m lucky enough to have a foul ball in my personal collection, and I didn’t have to make that tough choice about giving it to a kid. It was from a minor league game at the home stadium of the Salem Avalanche in Southwest Virginia. My friend and I were sitting down the first base line in an empty section when a ball careened towards us. It bounced one row below us and popped back two rows behind us. We both scrambled out of our seats to retrieve the ball, though there was no one around to give us a run for our money. We decided that I would have sole custody of the ball after my friend showed it to her boyfriend, and I’ve still got it on display to this day.
And it’s precisely because I still have that ball on display that I have to question the call to give a foul ball to a child. I don’t think kids really appreciate the value of the moment. That ball will end up in the back of the kid’s closet or in a Little League ball bag unless an adult intervenes and holds onto it until the kid can really understand. And if that ends up happening, then in essence you’ve just given the ball to another adult and the kid probably won’t have any memory of the exchange anyway.
Is it a little ridiculous for a star player to covet a foul ball? Maybe. But the kid didn’t go away empty-handed. He ended up with something better… a baseball signed by a man bound for Cooperstown. Who would pick a scrubby foul ball in a random game over a valuable piece of sports history? You know who would? Rickey Henderson. For all of the memorabilia he has, for all of his records, the one thing he wanted ever since he was a kid was a foul ball.
The thing of it is… you have to be an adult to appreciate fulfilling that childhood dream.
2 comments:
*sigh* I remeber that game...
I was actually thinking about it reading while reading your blog. I am glad you still have the ball! With the number of times I have moved the past 10 years or so, it probably would've left my possesion long ago.
Thanks for the memories:)
If you know the game, if you are more than 12 years old, you are required to hand off a ball batted out-of-play to the nearest kid who looks like he or she still needs 1st Baseball Communion.
It is your duty as a convert to prostelytize (sp?) and spread the joy of the Anywhere Game. You have a credit card to eBay that kinda shit if you really need a Youk dinger.
A child is looking all around, bewildered by the majesty of the ballpark. The central-nervous system overload of the smells, the deafening, the lights, the depth of field, the kinetic mob energy, the community, and the proximity of the sacred.
Not the team, but the purity and purposefulness the team symbolizes.
That child will never forget the moment you handed her the ball and knocked the brim of her cap over her eyes. It's just that kind of imprint this game has the power to impart.
If you love the game--you love its effects and affects--you pass it on.
Even better if you fumble the ball into her hands and make it seem as if she caught it herself. She'll remember that moment the rest of her life. The Great Scorekeeper In the Sky'll reward you with a soul's basehit instead of apathy's fielder's choice.
And baseball molts to succor another generation.
Post a Comment