I was 6. Maybe 7. I was the first one awake. I wandered into the kitchen and saw it on the counter. I’m 44 now and can still remember the feelings. I can still feel the feelings.
It began with disbelief: No way that’s an actual baseball from an actual Major League Baseball game, inside my own home. But I allowed myself to get cautiously giddy. My dad, after all, had gone to the Cardinals game the night before. And this ball looked official. Heck, it even had the commissioner’s signature printed upon it. And while the ball was just beautiful, it was also a bit weathered.
It was then that the exhilaration creeping inside my body suddenly seized me. This must be a baseball that was held by a big league pitcher, hit by a big league batter and somehow ended up in the hands of my father.
And then, it was a whole different feeling of disbelief — as in: Can you believe I’m the one who gets to feel these feelings?
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A foul ball. It’s one of the coolest aspects of baseball — a souvenir unlike any other in sports.
“I think it probably goes back to a person’s innate sense of reverence,†said Cardinals pitcher Miles Mikolas, who attended ºüÀêÊÓƵ spring training games as a boy in Jupiter, Fla. “So when you get this thing, there is that little bit of connection (to the game you’re watching). I think it’s something people can really hold on to for a long time. ... You feel very lucky that it’s bestowed upon you, that this ball should fly through the air and land in your lap or in your popcorn. There’s that neat bit of mystique and that energy.â€
Many ºüÀêÊÓƵans have stories about catching or getting a foul ball. Or have stories about someone they know. Yet many other ºüÀêÊÓƵans have never touched a ball from a big league game. So many have never experienced the foul-ball rush. It’s like a club they cannot become join. And it’s not a club you can buy your way into. Foul balls are rather random — spherical, soaring lottery tickets or globe-shaped golden tickets from Willie but, say, Mays or McGee and not Wonka.
“I’ve been going to ballparks since 1976, I’ve been to hundreds of games, 19 stadiums,†said Marlon Taylor, a ºüÀêÊÓƵ native who now lives in San Diego. “And I’ve never caught a foul ball. It’s become a running joke amongst me and my friends. At games, I tell them they can just enjoy the scenery of the ballpark because a ball won’t be coming our way.â€
With apologies to Marlon Taylor, foul balls really are fascinating. Think about it this way: The game revolves around the ball — baseball can’t be played without a baseball. It’s the center of attention for the eyes of the players, managers, coaches and fans — and, suddenly, you’re holding it. You. A dude in Section 212. An All-Star pitcher was holding it seven seconds prior and now you’re hoisting it proudly toward the heavens.
“It’s as if you go back to the olden days, and it’s like, ‘This cup was held by the King,’†Mikolas said. “Or if someone is antiquing, they want to hear in the store, ‘Oh, this medicine cabinet belonged to the medicine man of the whole village!’â€
Another way of looking at foul balls: It’s as if there’s an invisible barrier between the field and the stands. On one side of the barrier, the superhumans, on the other side sit the everymen and everywomen. In a flash, a ball breaks through the constructs of the game. And as a fan catches it or retrieves it, it’s as if they’re holding an item that somehow arrived from another world. Might as well be a moon rock.
Foul balls are a specific baseball phenomenon — this doesn’t happen in football or basketball. I suppose it sort of happens in hockey, but it’s not the same — it’s rare and often off some lightning-quick deflection, so you don’t necessarily know who hit it your way in the first place.
But a foul ball? It’s properly documented and accounted for — you can denote the pitcher, the batter, the count, the score and even the exit velocity as it approached your trembling hands.
In July, a fellow named Jeremy Fiveash and his family visited ºüÀêÊÓƵ from Mississippi. It was his kids’ first MLB game, so he bought a souvenir from the in-stadium authentics shop — a game-used foul ball from that very evening, pitched by Sonny Gray and hit by Nationals All-Star CJ Abrams. It cost $50.
They went the next night, too.
“So we’re talking and all of a sudden, we see a foul ball,†Fiveash said. “I was like — that looks like it’s getting really close. So I stand up and realize — it’s coming straight to me! It was pretty amazing. ... As it happens, it’s coming in a little hotter than then you think it is.â€
The batter? CJ Abrams.
Incidentally, Fiveash’s catch was extraordinary — he caught it down the left field line with one outstretched hand. A “Web Gem†except that his webbing was his palm.
Sometimes, foul ball catches are amazing. Sometimes, they’re sloppy. Sometimes, the official scorer has to call it an error. Sometimes it’s in a glove, other times a hat or even a beer cup. Sometimes, Ferris Bueller makes the catch; other times, Steve Bartman doesn’t. Each foul ball is its own moment.
“My earliest memory from a Cardinals game, we were sitting about 15-20 rows behind home plate,†Cardinals fan Jeremy Kovarik said. “My dad jumped back into the row behind us to catch me a foul ball. He even spilled a guy’s beer — and happily bought him a replacement. I don’t think I processed how amazing this was until much later. I’m in my 30s now and am preparing to take my own little guy to his first game. Hopefully I can do for him what my dad did for me.â€
At the home opener in 2023, I went to the stands briefly to sit next to my wife. Suddenly, Paul Goldschmidt fouled back a screamer. No way. It was sailing right toward me. Or, right above me. Should I jump up to catch it? With my luck, it would hit me in the face — “Is that the Post-Dispatch guy bleeding over there?†Before I could commit to any strategy — pfffffft! — the ball sailed right over my head and hit under the seat behind me.
I pounced over my own seat and grabbed it. No, I didn’t catch it like my dad did when I was a kid. But I was holding a foul ball.
For a fleeting second, I felt 6 (maybe 7).
I gave the foul ball to my wife, who brought it home for our young daughter.