I should preface this article by stating that I am a huge baseball fan.  I enjoy the finer elements of the game, such as balks, pinch-runners, and show-bunting.  I also appreciate what Hoyt Wilhelm did for baseball (especially relief pitchers), for if not for him, commentators wouldn't be fawning all over closers the way they do (thanks, save statistics).  I like throwback jerseys, including the old Milwaukee Brewers gear and St.Louis Browns Rogers Hornsby jerseys.

OK,  that said, one would think that I would practically live at the ballpark.  Nope.  In fact, the last Major League game I saw was nearly four years ago at Shea Stadium (Brewers beat the Mets 5-4, thanks to five, yes, five, home-run-robbing catches by Geoff Jenkins).  I have been to the local minor-league stadium once in the past twelve years or so.

Today marked the second time I saw the minor leaguers in action.  For those of you unfamiliar with this, minor league ball games differ in several aspects from the major league game in many areas.  First, the pace of the game is faster, second, fewer pitching changes occur (thanks in part to the focus on developing players skills to help the major league team rather than the minor league team's record), and third, minor league games feature more inter-inning promotions to keep the game fan-friendly as well as entertaining and affordable.  However, some aspects remain as tantalizing as watching the major league game.

The chance to get an autograph from a professional baseball player or to catch a foul ball or homer beckons to even the neophyte fan in us all.  And that bothers me.  While getting an autograph isn't a problem in my view, I find that the lengths that people go through to obtain an errant ball is sickening.  Watch black-and-white film from past years and see if you can see a scrum when a ball enters the seats.  Then look at it today.  People will literally fight to obtain a baseball worth no more than $2.   Foul balls also prove to be as elusive to obtain as the Holy Grail. 

The lengths people will go to grasp a ball can -and do- get them removed from ballparks.  Is it worth getting kicked out of a park because you fell over a railing trying to reach a screaming grounder coming bouncing around the dirt near the wall?  To these people I must dispense some wisdom: if you had the ability to grab the liner, pop fly, or grounder coming to you at great speed, you'd be out in the field getting paid to do so.  It's amazing how many outstretched limbs interfere with the path of the ball because fans can't go to the souvenir shop in the stadium and buy a duplicate ball as the one in use.  Instead, they'd rather fight with each other for a ball or run the risk of getting hurt obtaining one.  However, I will say that it is interesting to watch these buffoons exert energy to bend over and swipe at a ball that is instantaneously passing them.  It's exactly the same mentality when you toss a ball to a dog, I think.

      "Well, $2 isn't that much, but you can't beat the convenience. 
   Besides, what are the odds something bad will happen from this?"


These fans are apparently under the belief that this nation is undergoing a baseball shortage.  I think the logo on the ball is cool. too.  But I know that there is a souvenir shop somewhere in the concourse selling balls with the same logo on it.  You paid to watch athletes field balls, not other spectators or yourself perform that magic.  And I know the Washington Nationals are terrible, but their scouts aren't looking for fans to fill their roster. 

So, American baseball fans, do the actual die-hard fans of this nation a service and please do as the adage says about a sleeping dog: leave it where it lies.