04/19/24
April 24, 2011
Fan Catches His 4,768th Baseball: On Thursday, Zack Hample caught the first Major League home run hit by New York Mets catcher Mike Nickeas and bartered it for a chance to meet him. On the Baseball Collector blog, Hample tells the story of this encounter and how he's caught 4,768 baseballs at 48 different major league stadiums since 1990. He writes, "I told him that I'd caught a lot of baseballs, including several historic home runs, but this was the first time that a player had actually wanted one of them back." (His explanation for his hobby: "I tend to get obsessed with things, and one of them happens to be snagging baseballs at major league games. Someone has to be insane about it. Might as well be me.")
Is it just me or does he look like an ad for a Scream movie when he catches the home run ball.
And I too was impressed once I read the blog
posted by Folkways at 06:10 PM on April 24, 2011
Really cool link. Thanks for posting rcade.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 10:15 PM on April 24, 2011
Very cool. But I, personally, would not include batting practice balls in my total.
posted by holden at 10:25 PM on April 24, 2011
Read his FAQ page. This is a very interesting guy. I am so glad he is into baseball instead of weaponry.
posted by beaverboard at 12:42 AM on April 25, 2011
Pretty cool article. Would agree that batting practice balls probably shouldn't be counted, especially if they're marked like the ones Houston uses. Though even during batting practice there always seem to be dozens of kids trying to snag a ball, so his consecutive game streaks are pretty impressive.
posted by dviking at 01:22 AM on April 25, 2011
I want to know where he got the Joy Fund to pay for tickets to that many games.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:51 PM on April 25, 2011
In his FAQ, he said that a season typically costs <$1000 since he purchases cheap seats. That doesn't account for the money when he was a kid, but then again, parents can easily spend $1000k+ in other gifts/trips throughout the year. Plus it sounds like he worked at his family's bookstore, so income from there.
posted by jmd82 at 02:48 PM on April 25, 2011
I was about to make some snide comments about "getting a life" and things like that. Instead, I read the blog post and was very impressed. He's a nice guy and seems to have his head on straight (except for the baseball-catching-obsession).