The Catch

I wrote in a previous post about the memory, and how it changes events. Things you thought, just were not so. Just the other night, I was talking to a teammate about the '68 World Series; he's from Detroit and I am from St. Louis. The Tigers and Cardinals played in the World Series that year. My memory is seeing the game that put the Cardinals up three games to one in that Series and then they blew it and lost the next three games. He insisted that that game was in Detroit, so unless I traveled to Michigan, that was not the game I saw. I do remember that Bob Gibson pitched the first game, and set a Series record with 17 strikeouts. We were supposed to go to that game but it was on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jews. We spent the morning in synagogue, and came home and watched it on TV. Instead we must have gone to Game Two, which the Cardinals lost 8-1, as I found out when I looked it up. So there you have it, I don't have a single memory of the one World Series game I ever experienced in person.

Which gives a pinch of salt to the following. Some of it may be true some may be not. Here is the story: I also remember that my dad caught a foul ball sometime in the 50s at Sportsman Park, the original St Louis baseball venue that later became known as Busch Stadium. In those days they gave you an actual scroll when you caught one; I clearly remember seeing it. Eventually he gave me the ball. But a ten year old has no appreciation for history and the rarity of events. As soon as I was a ball short to play with in the street, and it was the only one available, I started playing with it. I used it until the cover was coming off, and then one day, someone overthrew it, and it rolled down the street, across the intersection, and into the sewer. Gone.

Later I felt guilty about it. I mean, that ball should have been on the mantle and I just simply disrespected it.

Another time, I have a vague memory, when I was really young, of attending a game with my father, mother and my sister. I was only eight or ten at the most. At some point in the game, they all three got up to go to the bathroom. Being a FAN, I moved from the farthest seat from home plate to the nearest in our group of four. I mean, how unfair was it that my sister got to sit closer? And before they got back, my mind has this happening...a towering foul ball goes up, and it drifts closer and closer, and I can't seem to track it, and it hits the seat that I had vacated.

I don't know how much of any of this is true; I hold them to be true regardless.

But here is what I know is true: Today, I caught a foul ball at an Oakland A's game at the Coliseum. I finally got one after all these years.

My friend Don helped me with some woodwork repair (he is a wood artist), and I happened to pick up the board he fixed for me yesterday. While I was there, a friend of his called him up and offered him his box seats for today's A's game. Later that night Don called and asked if I wanted to go. Of course! Who wouldn't?

We had seats in the sixth row behind the visitors' dugout. They were fabulous. I was late, we didn't get there until the bottom of the second. He gave me my ticket, it was the aisle seat and he had seat two. I thought of giving him the aisle seat, but something held me back.

Before we got there, the A's had made a couple of errors, and given up a run, and then the next time Seattle was up they hit a couple of bombs, and by the seventh the A's had five hits to the Mariners' three, but were trailing 4-1. It seemed at that point that it was a waste of great seats. The good guys were going to lose, and I even kind of lost focus on the game.

And then in the bottom of the seventh up strode Derek Norris, the A's rookie catcher. I don't even remember how many outs there were or what the count was. But then he hit this flare foul, and it was coming our way. Time slowed down, and seemed to stop completely. No one moved, except me. I just slid out of my seat, and got under it in the aisle, and it just floated and floated, and I reached up and speared it one handed. And it stuck in my palm. Everyone around cheered. Guys were giving me high fives, everyone was telling me nice grab. One guy, who was actually sitting closer to it on the other side of the aisle, left when the A's still trailed in the eighth (!), and on the way out said "Great Catch."

It was what we all dream of when we go to the games. And here's the thing: The A's got one back in the eighth, a game tying two run homer in the bottom of the ninth by Josh Donaldson, and a three run walk-off  by Brandon Moss, after he saved the game in the top of the ninth with a great defensive dive. They won 7-4 in a critical game for their pennant chances.

I'm not saying I turned the game around; I had nothing to do with the A's coming back. These are just the facts. But I have to say that the game changed after that catch, especially for me.

When I got home, I called every teammate that I know is an A's fan to see if they saw it. And every single one seemed to have the same experience, they were doing other stuff or flipping back and forth to the dismal Cal football game or they were out and forgot to record it. They all seemed to start watching in the eighth, and saw the incredible ending. No one saw the amazing play I made.

But Don, he was there. Don doesn't want to be too complimentary, but here is what he said: "It was legitimate." High praise, and I will take it any time.

So I dedicate the ball and the catch to you, Dad. You deserved a son who could respect what you did in your time. And now I have matched you, and I will savor the ball until the end of my time.

p.s. Eventually I found a friend who had a feed from somewhere that recorded all A's games (that's where these pictures came from). I was able to see exactly what was happening at the time of the foul ball that I caught. It turns out that the count had been 2-2 on the previous pitch. Norris swung and missed the 2-2 pitch. The umpire ruled that Norris had foul tipped the ball and it had hit the dirt, so he got another pitch, which he hit to me. However the replay showed that in fact, Norris did NOT foul tip the pitch, and even if he had, the catcher caught it before it hit the ground. So he should have been out in two different ways, but instead he got another chance and so did I. Some things are just meant to be.