Adults share all of the same traits as do the kids he glorifies. The only difference is we don't find it cute when some 45 year old balding man with a 54 inch beer gut pouts or is extremely happy that he caught a ball.

You can give a kid a twinkie or take one away and you'll see the same range of emotions.

The thrill is still there for kids, I guess, but it's gotta be somewhat devalued if it's just a case of a de facto perk passed out by the ballboy in return for your Dad's buying you a front row box seat. It can't possibly compare to the thrill of actually catching a foul ball yourself, or even to the thrill of your friend's distracting the ball boy's attention while you pilfer a ball out of the ball bag.

Randy Levine would have these kids caught and hung up by their Buster Browns.

I have yet to catch a foul ball on the fly, due to lack of good opportunity, but I am forever ready. (No mitt, however.) I have gotten two balls that I scrambled for and picked up off the ground. The last one, which I got last season, I had signed by three people: my season ticket buddy, Fran the beer lady, and John the Saags sausage guy.

Adults share all of the same traits as do the kids he glorifies. The only difference is we don't find it cute when some 45 year old balding man with a 54 inch beer gut pouts or is extremely happy that he caught a ball.

...or when he snatches it away from a kid, gloats over it, and then gives the finger to the fans who get on his case for not letting the kid get it, which happened at a ball game at Five County earlier this season.

-- MWE

Had a foul ball bounce right to me once. I looked around for a kid and gave the ball to him. The section around me broke into spontaneous applause. You would thought I had donated a kidney or something.

On the flip side, I just saw this great compilation of douchiness over foul balls. Really makes you lost faith in hmanity.

As fun as it is to catch or pick up a foul ball, the feeling does not compare to catching, picking up a home run ball.

One foul ball I have (a Adam Kennedy foul ball over and well back of the 3rd base side on deck circle at Co. Stadium), bounced off a couple pairs of hands, missed swipes and trickled down the steps of two rows and came to a rest in my empty nacho basket. I simply picked it up under my seat and tried to be invisible. Lots of groans.

I've caught 2 balls so far. One when I was about 13 and had my glove with me, first row upper deck, old YS. Jerry Kenney foul ball off of Wilbur Wood. Line shot right to my glove sode, caught it clean. So focused I didn't hear the lady next to me letting out a blood-curdling scream because she thought she was going to die. I turned to my Dad, showed him the ball and looked around to see people laughing their asses off. Apparently that woman could really project. Great day: Yankees swept, bat day, foul ball, doubleheader, Mike Kekich pitched a 1 hitter (a Mike Andrews HR) in game 2.

The other one was in RF, OYS, homer to right, lower deck. A line drive that skipped across the crowd like a rock on a lake until it got to me and I plucked it out of midair. I was about 19 and gave it immediately to a kid in a wheelchair (Before handicao access, his dad carried him in and out) who we had been talking to all game. Same reaction, the kidney donation thing. That was one smiling kid. I have no idea who hit it.

Thanks Reuben Berman

Foul balls: Marquis Grissom, Dmitri Young, Adam Kennedy, some minor league dude can't remember.
Home Run: Richie Sexson

I caught a foul ball on the fly, in my hat. Pitched by Pedro, fouled by Vernon Wells. I kept it. My son has it now, and he regularly uses it like he would any other baseball.

I've caught 2 balls so far. One when I was about 13 and had my glove with me, first row upper deck, old YS. Jerry Kenney foul ball off of Wilbur Wood.

Let's see, if you were 13 when you caught a ball hit off Wilbur Wood, that would make you, what, like a million years old now?

About a million on the head actually. I still remember it vividly.

Mike Royko's memory (scroll down) of catching a foul ball may just be the best ever.

Edited for coding.

Mike Royko's memory (scroll down) of catching a foul ball may just be the best ever.

You sure got that right. Great story.

Only one, and it probably needs an asterisk. Mike Jorgensen as a member of the Mets vs. the White Sox at Doubleday Field during the 1982 Hall of Fame game. The ball went crashing through a tree and I picked it up. Me and some other kids later chased one that landed on top of the bagging cages nearby, but the owner shooed us away before we could climb across the netting.

I don't know where it is now, but I suspect my son has done with it what vi's boy has, if my hole-in-one golf balls are an indication.

I've caught 2 balls so far. One when I was about 13 and had my glove with me, first row upper deck, old YS. Jerry Kenney foul ball off of Wilbur Wood. Line shot right to my glove sode, caught it clean. .. Great day: Yankees swept, bat day, foul ball, doubleheader, Mike Kekich pitched a 1 hitter (a Mike Andrews HR) in game 2.

your memory is quite good

My only complaint about catching home run balls is when the fans team just gave up the lead with the home run, and the guy who caught the ball acts like he caught the last out of the WS. Your team is losing! Show some humility!

I have been to probably hundreds of Tigers games but have never caught a foul ball, meanwhile my friend Josh has probably been to twenty games and has three foul balls with about five more near misses. He is a magnet for foul balls and I have never seen anyone with such luck at grabbing them. I was at a game with him once where we were walking together along the concourse when the drink he was carrying just exploded in his hand and scared the crap out of both of us. We didn't know what happened until a ball ricocheted off the concrete wall bounced off a seat and landed right in his hand that used to have the drink in it. Had that ball been about 2 feet higher it probably would have brained one of us.

I had one close call though. A Laynce Nix screamer down the third base line at Comerica Park back in 2004. My friend jumped up to bare hand it and being the gangly uncoordinated mess that he is (I'm talking about a guy who probably has never walked through a doorway in his entire life without banging his elbow on the wall) the ball jammed all of his fingers. Of course since my friends hand had the misfortune of absorbing the balls impact it fell gently into my hands. I gave him a hard time about how easy it was to catch it while he sat there and rubbed his swollen bright pink hand (it seriously looked like in the cartoons when a character hits their hand with a hammer). This went on for a few innings before I thought he was going to throw a full fledged hissy fit and I gave him the ball back because, well he earned it.

Thanks JMac. It's amazing the things that you remember. Going into the game there was a lot of talk about Wood pitching both games for the Sox. It wound up he didn't but I still remember that. The Kekich one-hitter was the closest to a no-hitter I've ever seen. I think it was either just inside the short LF pole or it hit it. At least that's how I remember it.