Have you ever caught a home run ball at an MLB park?

[bmp1971]

I caught David Hulse's lone homer in 1994. The Ballpark at Arlington just opened and my friend and I went up for Yankee game. We were a few rows up from the field in the right field porch. Top of the first, Mattingly hit one that went right over us and landed 6 or 8 rows behind us. We had been talking all day about how homer friendly the park was supposed to be, especially the somewhat short RF porch with the low wall. Then in the bottom of the inning David Hulse hit one. It was right on a line to us, but I thought it would also pass over us. We stood up and I could see the arc dropping sharply so I just reached my hand up and caught it with my thumb and first two fingers. It didn't hurt, just dropped right into my fingers. I remember thinking it would pop out of my fingers or the crowd would fall on me or something, but nothing happened. Just a long, quiet moment of disbelief while the ball was just sitting there pinched between my fingers, then the roar of the crowd.

That's amazing. Thanks for sharing.

How did it not hurt though??? Are your hands especially strong or what?

 

[smapdi]

Sure let's go with that. I mean, it just barely made it maybe 330 feet from home, and dropping from maybe 50 feet in the air. I would bet a physicist could tell you what the kinetic energy or whatever is at that point, but it was almost completely expended. I was more amazed it didn't spin off my fingers.