Alright, the Twins open their gates 2 hours and 10 minutes early for weekend games.  However, they were playing a 3:10 game following a night game so I didn’t know if any BP was going to be held. 

I decided to gamble and showed up at 12:45.  I was among the first in the stadium at 1:00 and the first one to enter the left field seating bowl.  I literally had the whole thing to myself for 1 whole minute.  That doesn’t seem like much, but I was shocked.  I was excited to see my Twins in the cage and batting practice in full swing.

Each stairway in left field had an usher in it looking up and down the aisles making sure that they got every last ball.  The ushers, some more than others, seem to relish combing the aisles for every Easter Egg and either pocketing them or tossing them back on the field.  There is a guy that is an uber fan of the Twins named nicknamed “Waldo” and the ushers HATE him.  They have even gotten him banned from the dome for a time. He is almost always the first one to run into the left-centerfield seats.  I asked one of the cool ushers once why they go through the stands with such fervor scouting for balls prior to the fans arrival and he flat out told me that it was to keep Waldo from getting them. 

From time to time, the sections well into foul territory along the left field line will yield an Easter Egg since the ushers don’t really look there since it is kind of rare that a ball will end up that far foul with the BP cage up.

As I am searching for Easter Eggs, I hear the “thump” of a BP homer hitting the seats.  I am still the only fan in the place!!  My heart jumped.  An uncontested ball at the Dome??  I couldn’t believe it.  I didn’t see where it landed, but I had an idea of the vicinity due to the sound.

As I headed over there hurriedly to claim my prize, I was seen by this fat, worthless, ugly, piece of white trash usher.  She saw me on the move and starting running down the stairs to ace me out of the ball.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was shocked.  We started looking for the ball at the same time, but she had seen where it landed and pocketed it about 10 feet from me.  As she was running around looking for the ball I said something along the lines of “Hey, what are you doing?  There are paying customers in the house now.  The obsese bizzatch just grinned like a cat that had gotten into the cream.  

I have talked to this gutter dwelling fatso before and she has a thing against adults getting baseballs.  I asked her if she was going to throw the ball back on the field and she said she was going to give it to a kid.  She than proceeded to tell me I had enough baseballs. Can you believe that?  An usher racing a fan to claim a BP homer?  What a low life piece of garbage. I am half tempted to call her big boss and tell him about her antics.

On the plus side, right after my interaction with Rosie O’ Donnell, I walked about another 15 feet across a stairway and a fresh commemorative ball was slowly rolling down the stairs right to me.  The ball hadn’t been an Easter Egg nor had it gotten freshly hit into the stands.  I saw a nice usher walking up the stairs.  He had to have seen his trailer park hussy of a co-worker ace me out and decided to roll me a gimme ball.  That made me whole and put me on the board.

As I posted in my last blog, I went to a charity dinner with the Twins and sat at a table with rookie hurler Brian Duensing.  I was hoping he would recognize me.  I congratulated him on his great performance last night and he gave me a quick thanks.  I didn’t get the impression that he recognized me as the bald idiot that he had broken bread with six weeks ago.  So, I told him ever since we had dinner, he has been on fire.  Then it dawned on him who I was and he became more friendly.  He said how great the dinner was and made a little small talk.  Nothing much, but at least an acknowledgement.  The next time a ball came to him, he turned around and picked me out of a group of rotten kids and threw me a strike for ball #2 on the day.

I then moved around to the right field side where I was quickly able to get a Tigers pitcher to toss me his beat up warm up ball for ball #3.

All in all not a bad day at the dome that was capped by a thrilling come from behind victory,  I am now at 76 balls for the year with 4 games left, including 2 at Kansas City.  I should hit 80 for the year and 100 for a career.  I go to meet a young man named Casey at the tilt who is a protege of the the Happy Youngster.  Always nice to meet people with similar interests. 

Well,  I haven’t really been ballhawking in earnest for awhile, but tonight I decided I would try my luck.  I hadn’t given up on ballhawking, I just had other stuff going on and needed a bit of a breather.

On Friday nights the ballpark opens at 5 for a 7:10 game.  That allows for fans to actually catch a bit of Twins BP.  I was hoping that the crowd would be thin since the Twins are all but out of the race.  The crowd was a little lighter than normal.  I got in right away and started scouring for Easter Eggs.  No eggs for Big Glove Bob.  I then thought I would try some traditional ballhawking in the left field stands since thing were a bit light.

Nothing of note came close.  I decided to head over to right field were my homie Jose Mijares was shagging before the Twins portion of BP was over.  As I walked around to right field I heard someone yell “Bob” a couple of times pretty loud.  I looked and it was an A’s player in the middle of the whole team stretching and getting ready for BP.  I waved hi and a few players motioned for me to heave down the big mitt.  I did.  I got to thinking, the guy had to have yelled something besides “Bob” that sounded like “Bob” or maybe an usher saw him trying to get my attention and told him my name.  Who knows.  Well, the A’s had a little fun with the big mitt and then tossed it back to me.

I didn’t ask for a ball and was packing up to head over to right field when an A’s player tossed me a ball.  I thanked him for the pelota and he got a kick out of my speaking spanish.

I then got over to right field where I was basically alone.  I saw that Joe Nathan had just fielded a ball and asked him for it.  A little over a month ago I went to an event called Hanging with the Majors at Majors.  Majors is a sports cafe in Bloomington.  Twelve Twins players showed up.  For a $100 a plate you get to sit in a private room and have dinner with the Twins.  Each table seats 8 people, 7 of us bums and a Twins player.  Actually, depending on the Twins player you got to sit with, there could be 8 bums at the table.

When the players came into the dinner, they picked a number at random to determine which table to sit at.  You could get a quality player like Cuddyer, Nathan, or Jason Kubel or you could get a stiff like Jesse Crain.  My table got one of the booby prizes in rookie hurler Brian Duensing.  Actually he was a great guy who had just had his major league debut start the night before.  The guy didn’t put on any airs and was cool to joke with.  It shouldn’t have surprised me for a rookie that he was down to earth.

After about 15 minutes of eating people starting milling about the room getting autographs and pictures from the other Twins in the house.  I decided to have a little fun with Joe Nathan.  I told him how I was sitting with Duensing and complimented him on his attitude.  I told him that Duensing was telling us how he had been working with him and helping him on things in the bullpen and what good student he was.

Nathan’s tone changed.  He was confused.  He needed clarification. The rookie was sitting at our dinner table telling us the HE is helping the ALL STAR JOE NATHAN with his pitching???  I confirmed that he heard me right.  I told Joe that the rookie was telling us that he (Joe) had been tipping off his pitches and that he (the rookie) was doing some drills with him to to break him of the habit.

Joe shifted in his chair and indignantly said Duensing is over there telling you that he is helping ME out on MY pitching??  I told him yes, he was correct.  Finally when I got the feeling that the rookie would be in big trouble I told Joe that I was just giving him a hard time and that Duensing hadn’t said anything of the like.

When I went back to the table and told Duensing the story, he got worried, real worried.  I told him that I just let Joe off the hook and told him that it was all a joke.

Later on, I took and picture with Joe and some people near him came over and said you are the guy with the big glove.  Joe said yeah, you are Luis Ayala’s buddy with the worldiest heaviest mitt.  I told Joe how Luis had stiffed me and asked him if he had Luis’s number.  He laughed and said that he would call him.

Surprisingly a few of the players and quite a few of the attendees recognized me as the idiot with the big glove.

Back to tonight.  I thought maybe since Joe had met me, he might hook me up with a ball.  Nothing doing.  He is probably still smarting from me pulling his chain.  He tossed the ball back to the bucket.

A few minutes passed by and a ball bounced off the folded down football seats and rolled back towards the infield with big Jose Mijares giving chase.  Jose grabbed it in very shallow right field and I yelled at him.  True to form Big Jose turned and dealt.  It was sailing to my back hand side (which is the hardest catch with the big mitt)  I leaned over the railing and looked the ball right into my mitt for a nice clean catch.

I then moved over the Twins dugout to see if I could get a ball from a player leaving the field after BP.  I noticed that Justin Morneau had a ball with him.  I called down for it and surprisingly he flung it on up to me for my third and final ball of the day. 

The A’s are stacked with lefties so their portion of BP wasn’t fruitful as their balls bounced off the folding up football seats.  Hardly anything was hit to left.  I was happy with a 3 ball outing.

I had a better night than the Twins who got spanked by the lowly A’s.