Souvenir Baseballs — Baseball Bench Coach

July 7, 2018, one of the happiest days of my life. 2016 World Series MVP Ben Zobrist hit a foul ball off his fists right at me in Section 313, row 8, seat 1, at Wrigley Field. And I made the catch, the first time ever! I was absolutely thrilled. One of my daughters posted the event on Facebook, and another on Instagram. I was a hero, yes admittedly, maybe just for only 15 minutes. The baseball remains in my collection at home as a keepsake of this wonderful memory. Let’s take a look at the history of souvenir baseballs.

While I was able to keep my baseball six years ago, that wasn’t the case in the early 1900s. MLB teams considered baseballs to be club property, and ushers were ordered to retrieve them from the fans. Some teams either took or threatened legal action against those who wouldn’t return them. In 1905 a Cubs fan, Samuel Scott, was arrested for larceny. In 1915, a New York Giants fan, Guy Clarke, who caught a foul ball at the Polo Grounds, was told by a judge that he had no more right to the ball than he did to the judge’s watch. The tide started to turn when new Cubs owner, Charles Weeghman, in 1916, let fans keep foul balls as a marketing ploy. Baseball Magazine reported: “The charm of novelty, of possible gain, might lure far more spectators than enough to pay for the lost balls.”

Entering the 1920s though no team other than the Cubs allowed the fans to keep souvenir baseballs. You see, the period from 1900 to 1920 in baseball is often referred to as the “Dead Ball Era”. Runs per game, batting averages, and home runs were all at their lowest point due to a variety of reasons. The ballparks were spacious limiting hitting for power, pitchers were allowed to scuff and adulterate the ball, and the baseball itself was “dead” by design, and indeed by overuse. Teams only had six or eight new baseballs available for each game.

The Dead Ball Era ended abruptly after the 1920 season. Offenses began scoring 40% more runs and HRs were hit four times as much as in the decade before. Some say that baseball owes it all to Reuben Berman, a 31-year old stockbroker who was a fan of the New York Giants. In a May 1921 game at the Polo Grounds, he caught a foul ball and then tossed it backwards into the crowd. Berman was kicked out of the ballpark, so he followed suit with one of his own. The case was tried, and Berman was awarded $100 for his poor treatment at the ballpark. The Giants and the other MLB teams relented. It was time to allow fans to keep souvenir baseballs. The “Live-Ball” era of 1920s baseball began.

Decades later a new twist to coveting souvenir baseballs began In Chicago – throwing them back! Story has it that in an August 1970 game at Wrigley Field a disgruntled bartender who had been slighted by Hank Aaron the year before, threw an Aaron home run ball from the Wrigley Field bleachers back onto the field. It just so happens that the Aaron HR was his 521st, tying Ted Williams at the time. Today, the Wrigley crowd revels in the chant “Throw it Back” when a visiting player’s home run reaches the bleachers. The Wrigley tradition was mimicked in the 2017 World Series when an Astros fan at Minute Maid Park threw back an HR hit by the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig. MLB discourages the practice for safety reasons.

Sometimes a fan’s desire for a souvenir baseball is controversial. In Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS, a 12-year old boy, Jeffrey Maier, reached over the outfield wall to catch a ball hit by Derek Jeter, resulting in an upheld HR and launching New York to a series win over Baltimore. The most controversial one, of course, was in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS between the Marlins and the Cubs at Wrigley. The Cubs, up 3 games to 2 in the series, held a 3-0 lead in the eighth inning. Marlins batter Luis Castillo hit a ball into foul territory as Cubs left fielder Moises Alou reached into the stands but could not make the play. The ball was deflected by lifelong Cubs fan, Steve Bartman, leading to a Marlins’ rally and win of the series. It was an unfortunate moment in Cubs’ history as Bartman became the subject of much ire by Cubs’ fans in the aftermath. As a gesture of recompensation, Cubs management delivered to Bartman a 2016 World Series championship ring.

Foul balls can reach the stands in an alarming speed, sometimes 100 mph, often causing harm to individuals. In 2018, a woman celebrating her 79th birthday at Dodgers Stadium died as a result of being struck in the head with a foul ball. The next year at Minute Maid Park, a ball hit by Cubs outfielder Albert Almora struck a 2 ½ year old Astros fan in the head. She was treated for seizures after the incident. An NBC investigation found at least 808 reports of injuries to fans from baseballs from 2012 and 2019, including injuries of concussions and permanent vision loss. MLB teams responded by extending netting down the foul lines in all 30 ballparks in 2020.

So what’s the big deal about MLB baseballs anyway? They have always been safeguarded prior to being used in the game. The earliest account is that of Cubs corporate secretary, Margaret Donahue, storing game balls in a cabinet in her office in the 1920s. We’ve come a long way from that practice. In 2022 MLB established standard procedures for handling baseballs in a memo, “Updates to Baseball Storage and Handling”, to general managers and clubhouse managers. Every team is required to ready a minimum of 13 dozen baseballs for each game. Prior to game use, each baseball must be stored in a humidor for at least 14 days. Each ball needs to be muddied within three hours of all other balls being used in the game. After muddying, the balls are placed back in Rawlings boxes in the humidor. Balls are taken from the humidor 15-30 minutes prior to the start of the game. As you can see, souvenir baseballs are quite the treasure!

With every tale of catching a baseball at a game comes several other tales of near misses. Oh my, do I have many of those. One such instance comes to mind when I attended a Reds game at Crosley Field with my parents and brother. We invited our next door neighbor that night to go with us. Unbelievable to me, our guest was not much of a baseball fan. We had great seats in prime, foul ball territory. As our guest was looking down and enjoying an ice cream cup, a foul ball went right over his head into the seats behind us. Back then, my thought was not how concerning it would have been if it would have hit him, but rather envy toward the fan in the row behind us who retrieved the ball. It’s an obsession.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach