No one has a bigger passion for baseballs than Zack Hample. He is what we call a ballhawk - someone that goes to baseball games with the intent to get as many baseballs as possible. Having attended over 1,500 games lifetime, Zack has snagged over 10,000 baseballs. Zack documents these games with his videographer and posts them to YouTube where he has almost 200,000 subscribers. Two of his most historic balls include Mike Trout’s first career home run and Alex Rodriguez’s 3,000th career hit. In The Baseball, he shares with us many tips and secrets to his ballhawking success and teaches us strategies to get our own balls at games. Along with that, Zack discusses many anecdotes and the history of the ball.
Hample divides this book into three main
…show more content…
Using a lengthy timeline of about 60 pages and starting from the year 1847, Zack describes how baseballs have evolved almost every year until 2011. Some of the notable things covered are origins, designs, trade wars among manufacturers, and the increase of balls being used over time. This leads to one of the most interesting parts of the book, which is a tour of the Rawlings Baseball Factory in Costa Rica, where the balls are made and individually hand stitched. Zack goes over every single detail of the ball, from the small pill in the center of the ball to the cowhide. Approximately 20,000 cows are needed for the 1 million square feet of hide used for balls in a season. Hample presents very detailed information on what goes into the making of these pearls, that are often taken for granted by fans and players. After the balls are inspected and tested, they are then shipped to the …show more content…
This part is all about the knowledge he has learned about ball hawking over the years. He shares with us strategies to get balls before games, during games, and after games. Zack also tells us how to address the players and umpires, where to sit during the game, how to dress, and how to position yourself during batting practice. One of his tricks to getting balls that he developed is called the glove trick, where you have a sharpie, a rubber band, and a string attached to your glove. The goal is the retrieve balls on the field, where you can’t reach, such as the warning track or bullpens. The most important tip of them all: bring a
If you get a hit three times out of ten when you are up there, you will be one of the most successful hitters in the game. Sports Science did an experiment to see if you blink will you
ELON-Eyes focused on the catcher’s signals, he winds up and releases the ball, watching it travel past the batter and into the glove of the player he knows better than any other. The pitcher-catcher relationship is arguably the strongest bond between two people and is unquestionably the strongest relationship in collegiate athletics. The pitchers and catcher of the Elon baseball team exemplify the importance of a tight-knit bond both on and off the field. Community, accountability, and trust are the driving factors behind a successful athlete relationship.
With today’s media coverage a wide array of outlets are covered, including sports. There are various amounts of sports television channels, websites and magazines all of which cover an abundance of sports. In baseball everything is broken down play by play and into statistical information. Two of the biggest outfielders in today’s game of baseball that draw an interesting comparison are Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees. Although they play for different teams in two different divisions I have discovered that they share their own similarities.
From being a below average hitter to an extraordinary hitter over years in the majors is nothing new to baseball but extraordinary doesn’t even come close to explaining how good of a batter Mark McGwire became after 10 years in the majors. Just to give a little look at how good of a hitter he had become, his first year he had three home runs with a .189 batting average and by his tenth year he had 52 home runs with .312 batting average. That doesn’t even fully explain the extent of McGwire 's hitting. In 1998 he broke the record for most homeruns in a single season, previously held by Roger Maris with 61, with 70. He profoundly made his mark in Mlb history.
During Evans’ presentation he discussed how baseball impacted his life. He emphasizes that being culturally diverse is something that must be learned and it does not come naturally to human beings. Throughout the presentation, Evans’ embraces the fundamental skills of baseball, as they can be connected to lessons of life. Evans’ also relates every base to important qualities to one’s self and one’s team, representing that without a powerful
Baseball. Most Americans know this word, most know what a bat and a mitt looks like, and chances are most have played or watched baseball. With the names Babe Ruth, Derek Jeter, Yogi Berra, it is likely that most have heard at least one of these famous former New York Yankee’s names and associate them with baseball. Baseball is a sport with unknown origins that is largely chalked up to be America’s “Nation Pastime”, but why is that? How did baseball turn into the household sport and children’s game that we know it as today?
Baseball Great is a series of novels written by Tim Green the children's sports author that has made a name for himself writing several sports fiction novels. The series which debuted with Baseball Great published in 2009 features Josh a player with the Titans baseball team that plays in a minor baseball league. His novels have all made national bestseller lists with several making the top 30 of the New York Times bestselling lists. In addition to writing children's sports fiction he is the author of A Man and his Mother: An Adopted Son's Search which was a memoir that was featured on ABC Prime Time, Entertainment Tonight, and in People Magazine. He first got into writing when he attended the Syracuse University where he got acquainted with
The scent of hot dogs, the crack of the ball off the bat, and umpires hollering “strike” are just a few memories one will have after attending a baseball game. America’s game is filled with many sensory details, which is why it is so appealing to many spectators, as well as players. The massive fences in the outfield seem daunting up close; the players seem to whip the ball effortlessly, but with extraordinary speed. Spectator’s noses will be filled with baseball smells such as sunflowers seeds, which everyone seems to be chewing, or the perfume of fresh cut outfield grass. The home fans will be cheering with optimism despite the score.
According to Jonathan Mahler, "These include the millions of boys and girls who join thousands of youth, scholastic, collegiate and American Legion baseball teams, along with the men and women who play baseball and softball in industrial and semiprofessional urban and rural leagues, and the continuing interest in the history and cultural meaning of baseball, as measured by the sale of baseball books, the popularity of baseball films like “The
For most of my childhood, the sport of baseball was the one activity I loved above anything else. Nothing could compare to the exhilarating freedom and satisfaction of bolting full speed around the bases, determined to steal 2nd, beating the "Throwdown" by a fraction of a second. The massive dust cloud kicked up by my cleats and the thunderous boom of the umpire shouting, "Safe!" made me feel empowered. It was in moments like those, when I was in control of my own fate, choosing whether to stay or to run, whether to play it safe or to risk failure, that I learned one of the most important lessons of my life.
In his essay “Gil’s Sportsplex”, Gil Fried states that Gil Giles is always obsessed with softball and thus, he tends to invest a sportsplex after he retired (1). Fried introduces Gil’s backgrounds that he is a former police officer without any experiences in running a sports facility (2). Elsewhere, Fried demonstrates various industry analyses about sportaplex, for example, the definition of sportsplex is a facility offering multiple indoor and outdoor sports (2), and the “Sportsplex Operators and Developers Association (SODA)” propose some guidelines for implementing a sportsplex, such as “developing a needs assessment, feasibility study and preliminary design”(2). In addition, Fried cites CT sportsplex information, which includes the location, population, the charging fees, sponsorship packages, and the competing component research, as a frame example for Gil’s sportsplex (3-4).
Baseball, America’s greatest pastime, has been documented in thousands of movies; however The Sandlot and The Bad News Bears capture the most memorable aspects and cruel realities of little league and backyard baseball before the sport became a hollywood enterprise. The Sandlot shows baseball in its purest form, a group of neighborhood boys playing a never ending game and playing for the love of the game. The Bad News Bears represents the pains of little league baseball, from learning what a baseball is, to finding a select few athletes who take over the team to win at all costs. Both movies are classics in the baseball genre of film and are alike, yet so different that they are entertaining for all.
But my course in life has switched courses. Along the way, I dropped off the other sports and continued on with America’s Favorite Past time: Baseball. Since my size dictated my playing time, according to the coaches, it affected my devotion to the game because it is heartbreaking to be told you cannot do something. Over that period of time I realized how influential coaches are to their player, so I decided to become a coach to instill the never quit attitude in younger player’s minds. I have been coaching with Boca Raton Little League Baseball since my sophomore year, teaching the fundamental skills of baseball
We then watch carefully the opposing team’s pitcher as she warms up. As a lead off hitter, it is my job to do anything possible to get on base. By working the count I am frisking with the pitcher to get into her head. I then get exactly what I want, a pitch that could change the outcome of the entire game. Once I take a swing at the perfect pitch you can hear the crack of the bat forcefully pushing the ball to get a base hit.
Koprince, Susan. " Baseball as History and Myth in August Wilson's "Fences.." African American Review, vol. 40, no. 2, Summer2006, pp.