The Rules of the Baseball Press Box

I heard a few cheers, from the press box and the stands just below.

For a moment, I thought about bringing the ball home to my children, or giving it as a gag gift to my Times colleague Ben Shpigel, a big Verlander fan. But then I remembered another rule of the press box: Give the ball to a kid.

I’ve gotten other foul balls over the years — always scooping them up on a bounce — and the exercise of giving the ball to a fan is always fun.

In many ballparks, like Houston’s, the fans are so close to the press box that it’s not much of a drop. You can pretty much select which fan gets the ball and toss it right there.

Players, if they choose, can go through a similar exercise every day. Fans always want something from them — an autograph, a ball, a selfie or just a hello — so they always have the power to make someone’s night.

Fans usually don’t want anything from writers — we’re just part of the background scene. But giving away a foul ball made me feel good, since I remembered how desperately I wanted a ball every time I sat in the stands as a kid.

I looked out at the seats just below my perch where a few dozen fans were pleading for the ball. I spotted a girl in an orange Astros T-shirt who was maybe 10 years old, like my youngest daughter. I pointed in her direction — to make sure folks knew I had a specific target — and tossed it to her mom. Cool moment.

Then I went back to the laptop to do what we do these days — check the tweets. Kaplan had tweeted about my catch, as had Susan Slusser of The San Francisco Chronicle and the radio broadcasters for both teams. I tweeted about it, too, of course.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/insider/foul-ball-baseball-press-box-rules.html?partner=rss&emc=rss