The Ball Hawker’s Wife
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By Angela Saylor
I’m drowning in baseballs. They clutter every room of my house, except for the bathroom. A thousand in all.
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My husband, Jim, is a ball hawker, which means he spends seven hours every Pirate game, trying to catch baseballs.
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When Jim and I arrive at PNC Park, we join about thirty fans at Centerfield gate. These are Season Ticketholders, who pay for themselves and one guest to view batting practice. We line up against the wall, overlooking center and left fields.
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Jim stays at the end of the wall. His buddies, Eric and Nick – who are in their thirties, half Jim’s age – wait at the other end.
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“Up here,” the fans beg the outfielder who catches the baseball just hit by his teammate.
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The outfielder walks to the wall and hands the ball to a pretty, young girl.
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Occasionally, balls are left on the field. That’s when Jim springs into action, using his invention: a long telescoping light bulb changer to snag the prizes off the red warning track, along the perimeter of the field. This eighteen-foot patch alerts players, running backward, that they’re close to the wall, so they don’t collide with it. My husband never uses his ball grabber on the grass which might get “messed up.” That would be sacrilegious. Even ball hawkers have a code of conduct.
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After batting practice, Jim and I head to our usual seats. A video on the Jumbo Tron acknowledges Jim as the #1 game-time homerun catcher at PNC Park.
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When the game begins, a ball flies near us. I cover my head and duck. Opposites attract, right? Ball-grabbing becomes very intense: I have a right to worry.
At a game I didn’t attend, Jim had an experience that he describes, like this: “A Pirate threw a warm-up toss in my direction. When I reached over to catch it, it hit the heel of my glove, then bounced and hit me on the bridge of my nose. Blood poured all over my yellow rain jacket.”
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Jim continues. “Some people escorted me to the walkway and set me on a bench. Medics brought me paper towels and ice in a bag.
Meanwhile, some lady picked up the ball that hit me and kept it.
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I washed off in the bathroom and returned to my seat. A nice guy bought a baseball, traded it with the lady for the ball that bounced off my glove, and gave it to me. He said, ‘Here’s the ball that hit you in the face.’”
After Jim came home, I marked the blood-splattered ball with game statistics, as I do with much of his so-called “library.” So, I enable this hawking habit.
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As a kid, Jim played sandlot baseball and as an adult, he played with an organized group. In 1984, he caught his first ball – a home run – from Kenny Houston, of the Houston Astros, at Three Rivers Stadium.
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Jim eventually graduated to a Season Ticketholder. His average haul doubled to one hundred twenty balls per season. Thank goodness, he gives many balls away.
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Hawkers of Jim’s ilk are a small but growing community. His buddy, Eric, founded the Ball hawk League, an interactive website allowing members to keep track of the balls they’ve snagged at Major League games.
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The leader of the pack is forty-year-old New Yorker, Zack Hample. While traveling to fifty-one stadiums, he’s caught over ten thousand balls.
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Although hawking is exciting, Jim gave up his Season Ticket this year. It’s not because he’s disappointed in the Pirates or that he’s too old, but as he explains, “I want to pursue other interests, like birding and camping. By the way, we need a new tent.”
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Recently, we shopped for a tent, bird food, and miscellaneous items.
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Now, the garage is filled with camping gear and the basement, with birding equipment. Every place in the house is cluttered, except for the bathroom.
I’m hoping that our last bastion of order will remain sacred. I start to wonder, though, when Jim and I watch Zack Hample’s video of his bathroom. He’s wallpapered every inch of it with business cards that he’s picked up along the way. My husband won’t decorate the bathroom walls with baseball cards, will he? He does have limits, doesn’t he? Well, if not, I sure do.