Season in Review

Part one of a three part series on my transition between seasons.

Lets jump right into it, shall we?

I came out of 2012 with 19 games attended at 7 different ballparks:

Now that the year is officially over, I'd like to examine how I did on my list of goals I compiled before the season.

I thought of these way back in February. I didn't have all my plans together at that time, so it ended up being a very generic, neutral list. Nothing going on during the season influenced me. That's not a bad thing, either. It was almost like someone else thought of them for me, since it wasn't a "write them down as you go" sort of thing.


Bold denotes the goal was achieved:

2012 BALLHAWK GOALS

• Average 1 ball at Wrigley and 2 balls at other parks in which I FULLY attend BP

I never, ever thought this was possible, but my average at Wrigley was HIGHER than at other parks. I capitalized on my chances the few times I was in the Bleachers, and kept my head above water every other game at home. Eight games at Wrigley gave me 14 balls (1.75 average per game), and six games elsewhere gave me 8 balls (1.33 average per game). 

If you did the math, that only adds to 14 games. Obviously, I neglected to include some in the count. I wasn't going to bring my glove to Duffy Bass Field and yell at fellow students to throw me a ball. The same goes for Boomer's Stadium. Major League games are the only time I actually try for balls (with maybe a few rare exceptions from time to time).

Once my longest streak was broken in Milwaukee on July 5th, I stopped caring so much about streaks and being so critical about getting a ball. That's when I really thought about what that 'FULLY' meant. (And yes, I did have that clause in February). 

I was in a difficult spot at Yankee Stadium. I spent a total of about 15 minutes standing in the outfield seats at three different locations before the first game of the weekend. That's not enough time to say I failed....or enough time to say anything, really. But if I did get a ball, I sure as hell would have counted it. These are the kinds of situations that I want to avoid, because they fall in a  very grey area.

That said, I'm going to be fair. I won't fudge the numbers in my favor whenever I get the chance. If I cheat like that, it takes away from the achievement. I'm glad I didn't get one that day, actually. I don't plan for this issue to come up that often; this was a rare, special case.

• Catch game used foul ball

This is really, really hard to do. In my mind I pictured I would be in a ready position at all times. The seats I had in the upper deck at Wrigley were very close to one of the best foul tip areas in the league. The middle cross aisle between the box and reserved seats is heaven. I was thinking I would spy out some seats in the front row of the 500 sections, or last row of the 400's, and get a jump on any ball that came within 50 feet of me.

I found out the game turns into a chore when I have to be concentrating for 5 hours straight. My companion(s) at games did enough for me by coming extra early, anyway. I didn't want to run them around for all that time, either. Although, that is what I would like to do until I can finally check this off.

• Catch BP homer on the fly

Yes, it's half bolded. I had to make the ball from the 'Gallardo Compromise' unique somehow.

• Successfully pull off the glove trick

An absolute victory. I squeezed all five successes together within 25 hours of one another in St.Louis, but I'm still thrilled about it.  This is the one goal I wanted to accomplish the most. It's the one thing that would make me stick out from all the other fans on any given day.

• Get a ball using Spanish

Just...no. Mostly everyone speaks English anyway. I think I tried this three times. I was barley a C student in Spanish, and if you mix that with my loud, shaky voice inside the stadium, it just sounds ridiculous. There are plenty of other languages out there to learn, though!

• Get a ball using connections (Marshall, Ziegler, Cotts, Accardo)

Briefly: The parents of Sean Marshall's wife live on the same block as a friend of my mom's, Brad Ziegler played for the Flyers, and Neal Cotts and Jeremy Accardo were former Redbirds.

Marshall is the only one I ran into. I got some dialog going, too. I just couldn't bring myself to ask him for a ball. It was truly a sleazy thing to do. Cotts and Accardo aren't on active rosters, and there was only one chance to see Ziegler with the D'Backs this year. 

All in all, it's really hard to find these links. I'll search for more of them (and stronger ones) during the winter. If I find some and are persistent in trying, I know I'll catch a break one time.

• Attend 15 games

It was pretty difficult to set the number for this one. In 2010, I barley made it to 10, and I did NOT want to think about adding another one at the time. Last year I got up to 12, and I felt like that was pushing it just a tiny bit too far. After that, I knew there would be a fine line between being happy and miserable at a game. I would like for the number to get bigger and bigger, but there comes a point where I wish I saved my money and picked up an extra shift at work.

However, when you fit two back to back sets of games and go with so many different people, it's still very enjoyable. Since the Cubs were so bad, the games were almost a medium to hang out with friends. I wanted to include every BaseBlog reader in an entry. They would see, first hand, my process of catching balls, and putting the game experience into words.

****

Three and a half isn't so bad for a list that had some challenging items on it. Goals are good; they drive and motivate you to do your best. A couple of these will roll over to next year, but I'll decide on that later.

Now for the best part; the final count of balls:

• 22 balls total this season
• 5 consecutive games with a ball (while avidly Ballhawking)
• 10 consecutive games with a ball in Chicago
• 32 lifetime balls

If you had showed me that in March, I would have been pretty excited about it. I doubled my 2011 (and career) total. How much better could I possibly have done?

Yet, I'm still just contempt. I know that number could have been higher with just a little more luck. I want to try to be in the right place at the right time even more. If I'm concentrating and putting so much effort into this, I really want to dominate and snag every ball I feel I'm capable of snagging.

****

And now, to tie up some loose ends.

First, I lied about getting up to a rooftop. It was still early in the year when I mentioned it, and I thought there was going to be ONE chance, especially when I was going to be looking for interesting things to post on here. I was almost certain Dad would bring me up there for when I turned 21, but his idea was a lot better.

Next, I was a tease in my first New York entry (from that Friday). If you recall, I sent Zack Hample an email to see if there was any chance we could meet up. He replied that he would be doing a writing group in Central Park on Saturday, and invited me to stop by. I enthusiastically replied with an affirmation, and was hoping to get a more specific response about time and location. 

I saw the following Sunday night at the airport, sent at 7:32 PM on Saturday:

Yo!

I'm still here. Still alive. Just swamped beyond words. Sorry for the slow reply.

Were you at the stadium today? How was it?

I ended up pushing my writing group meeting back a week -- to Sunday the 12th.

I'm actually contemplating going to the stadium tomorrow, but I probably won't, for a variety of reasons. So now what?

-Zack

Well. That doesn't do me a whole ton of good now, does it?

I replied with a "No big deal" and a little more to try to keep the conversation going. I mentioned he should have gotten back to me sooner since we had the extra ticket for the Delta Suite, and brought this day (from last season) to his attention:

Best birthday gift ever.

I finally thanked him for signing my book and a ball.

I asked if there were any foreseeable instances where he would find himself anywhere in the Midwest. He wasn't planning for 2013 yet, so he couldn't tell me either way. He left me with a "We need to find a way to connect in person". Hey, better than nothing, right?

If there are any other of these 'loose ends' you're wondering about that I completely blanked on and want explained, PLEASE remind/ask me. I love to talk about BaseBlog, especially when I don't force it into a conversation.

****

Next up, a message from the heart.