E.K. NATION

It's not often you have a chance to get killed while chasing down a baseball. But I took such a chance last Thursday evening.

Geoff and I get off the MAX train just beyond the centerfield wall at PGE Park. We step onto the sidewalk and we're heading towards the gate around the corner past the left field bleachers. I can see down into the park and the Fresno Grizzlies, the Giants' AAA farm team, is taking batting practice. Somebody's up there hitting, and I think, hey, if this guy hits a home run it could get out into the street here and I could get it.

Seven seconds and two pitches later, BOOM.

Here it comes.

I get that sudden feeling in my gut whenever a baseball comes my way. Oh-ohhhh-ohhhh-ohhhhh!

It looks like it's going to be a foul ball, but still could bounce off the concrete walkway next to the one row of bleacher seats, through the bars on the iron gate and onto the street. So I start moving towards it. And sure enough, it does.

I see it ricochet into the street. By this time I have already reached a full sprinting speed, and I'm trying to negotiate the path the other dude who sees the ball and who's blocking my way. There's a long bike-rack looking piece of metal separating me from the street and I have to run perpendicular to the street to get around it before I can dart into the street. The guy sees me coming and I guess he decided, well, this guy wants it more than I do and I'm certainly not going to get killed, either by a car or by this nutcase sprinting at me, so he abandons his brief prusuit of the ball.

Now, I was ready. I had already looked around and taken note of any cars or MAX trains that could possibly be in my way if I were to dart out into the street. There is no immediate danger, I know this from my survey, so I dart onto 18th Street. And then suddenly there is a car turning the corner towards me. Geoff knows I'm always eager to get a souvenir and he figures I could be in immediate peril, so he starts to shout out, "Dude, don't get killed, look out!" But he winds up saying only, "Dude--" and then I'm sure I heard him mutter, "Whatever will be will be."

The ball hits the curb on the other side of the street, and I look at the car coming at me, and the driver has seen me and has not accelerated, so for now, I am safe. The ball has stopped on the MAX tracks. My peripheral vision and memory of my quick street survey lets me know there is no MAX train coming. I pick up the ball, wave at the driver who stopped, and head back towards Geoff, who is shaking his head in utter disgust. "You coulda died, dude."

I say, "I know."

Then I say,

"But it was a baseball."

You know what I'm talking about right?

A week before, we were sitting in the beer garden down the right field line in the rain, and the Portland Beavers' Rico Washington hits a ball that bounces off the net protecting the spectators from the players--or perhaps, the players from the drunk-asses--and rolled to Omaha Royals' second baseman Rick Short, who tossed the ball just over my head. Geoff tried to catch but it bounced off his hand and landed at my feet, so I got it.

So that makes two souvenirs in the span of a week. On average my wait between baseballs is three or four years. Well, let's see how many I have now...

• Ball #1: A foul ball at PGE Park, which was then known as Civic Stadium, circa 1983. I have no idea who hit. This fact has bothered me for years. Also, I lost it, after playing with it in the yard and getting it all dirty. This fact kills me.

• Ball #2: With the Minnesota Twins in town for a parent/farm-team game in 1988, Brian Harper launches a ball during the home run contest into the left-field stands. Two guys to my right go for it, knock it straight up into the air, and I grab it.

• Ball #3: Tony Perezchica of the Phoenix Firebirds, hits a ball into my empty section in 1990. I need to expend no effort to get it and am never in danger of getting run over by a car, or a person, or anything. Between games of the doubleheader, I go down to the dugout and get him to autograph it.

• Ball #4: Sitting in the center-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium in the summer of 1996, I turn to my friend Nels and say, "Mike Piazza's up. Think he'll hit one this way?" He does indeed, less than a minute later. I get out of my front-row seat and step onto the staircase in front of the bleachers. This ball is a missile, I'm beginning to discover, as speeds towards me like a comet, bounces off my hand, and goes down the stairs. I race after it, and since no one is underneath the stands, I pick it up effortlessly. A girl offers me $20 for it later. I say it's not for sale. I wouldn't have taken a thousand bucks for it. Got my own slow-motion highlight on a teaser on CNN Sports Tonight. Great stuff. Marvin Benard had climbed the wall and was watching me from eight feet away. Best souvenir of my life so far.

• Ball #5: Tommy Whitehurst of the Portland Rockies, the A-level farm team of the Colorado Rockies, brought in after the Portland Beavers are moved to Salt Lake City, knocks one into the stands for me.

• Ball #6: Phil Nevin, playing with the Beavers--who are back in town again--in a rehab stint in 2003, pops one into the beer garden. It bounces off a table and onto a staircase leading up to the stands, where, inconceivably, an usher grabs it with one hand at the precise moment I grab it with two. I am lying on the stairs, and he tells me to calm down. I tell him I am calm, now that I have the ball, and you're an usher, what are you doing? He says dude, if you let go, I will give you the ball. I say, Dude, if you let go, you will have given me the ball, so let's cut out the middle transaction here. Besides, I thought, he's going to give it to some punk kid if I let go. So finally he gives up, and lets go, and I have my baseball. Then he calls out to me telling me I need to change my attitude, and I say, Dude, I'm just going after a foul ball. Everything is fine now. Don't hassle me, please.

• Ball #7: Rico Washington's foul grounder.

• Ball #8: The 18th-Street-MAX-Train Horsehide Orb of Death. My eagle-eye noted, prior to the ball heading my way, that the batter was wearing uniform #7. I checked later. I think it was Brian Dallimore, but major league transcation records have him being sent down to Fresno a day later. Oh well. He's a good player. I'll just say it was him.

So that's eight souvenir baseballs and one near-death in twenty-six years of going to professional baseball games. Not bad.