It Was The Devil 1, Conscience 0 As A Foul Ball Sailed Near The Author

Snaring a foul ball is among a baseball fan's fondest dreams. From the 8-year-old who holds up his mitt and implores each batter to "hit one over here," to the businessman in the three-piece suit whose season box is deductible, to the little old lady with the home-team jacket and cap, there is hardly a fan who wouldn't love to go home with a major league baseball as a souvenir.

In the 35 years I've been going to ball games, I've witnessed all manner of catches and misses by people in the stands. The classiest catch I've ever seen was made by a fellow who was returning to his seat in the first row of the second deck behind home plate at the Oakland Coliseum. While clutching a full, jumbo-sized beer cup in his left hand, he was sidestepping down the row, carefully inching along with his back to the field, when a ball was fouled straight back toward him. Just as he reached his seat he turned, saw the ball, nonchalantly stuck out his right hand and made the catch. He pocketed the ball and casually sat down in his seat—all this without spilling a drop of beer!

More characteristic, though, is the fan who has the ball in hand, or worse yet, in mitt, only to see it go squirting out, gone forever. Rarely is a person who fails to make a clean catch able to regain possession in the ensuing scuffle, where anything short of outright assault is fair play, and for every fan like the man with the beer, there are perhaps a dozen who let the moment slip through their hands.

Over the years I'd often wondered how I would fare if given a chance to make a play on a foul ball. I've always thought of myself as a pretty good fielder with quick, sure hands, but there was still that secret doubt, a lurking fear that if and when the time came I might just muff it.

Until last season I usually brought my mitt to games. I knew that if I had it, the chances of my dropping a ball would be almost nil. But it was also a matter of self-preservation—the idea of fielding one of those screaming line drives bare-handed was never very appealing to me. Then for some reason I stopped taking my glove with me. Maybe it had something to do with turning 40—I mean, does a 40-year-old man really need to take a mitt along to a ball game?

Mittless, I worried more than ever: If a foul ball were hit to me, would I be able to make the clutch catch, or would I choke and blow the chance of a lifetime?

The closest a foul ball ever came to me was when I was at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. I was about 10 that time. My dad and I had our lunch spread out on our laps and were enjoying the sandwiches when a ball was cracked our way. It landed a few rows below us and clattered around the empty wooden seats in our sparsely populated rightfield section. By the time we could get the food off our laps to go hunt for the ball, someone else had grabbed it.

I have acquired a few balls in another way. As a free-lance writer working on baseball stories, I've asked such major league notables as Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson, Earl Weaver, Harmon Killebrew, Damaso Garcia and Steve Boros to autograph balls for me or one of my kids.

The evening I finally got my chance at a foul ball, last April 22, I had two other official American League balls with me, tucked away in my day pack. One had been signed for me a few hours earlier by Oakland Centerfielder Dwayne Murphy, whom I was interviewing for the A's fan magazine. The second ball was one I'd picked up last winter while covering the A's training camp. It was torn and scuffed and of little use to the ball club, so I took it and planned to have it autographed when the occasion arose—perhaps tonight. After talking to Murphy, I made my way over to the seats behind first base to join an old friend who has season tickets behind the visiting dugout.

The game started off as a pitchers' duel with very little real action. In the bottom of the fourth Carney Lansford led off for the A's. A righthanded hitter, Lansford fouled off the first pitch into the upper deck behind us. On the second he hit a slicing line drive, which at first didn't seem headed my way but, because of the slice on the ball, began quickly to hurtle closer and closer. The four seats between me and the aisle were empty, so I got up and moved down the row. It was now obvious that the ball was hit directly at the fellow in the aisle seat of the row behind me. As I slid along, my eye on the ball, I noticed him in my peripheral vision, cupping his hands in preparation, poised for the catch.