Foul balls and giving them to kids

[Vice honcho room temperature]

I say if it just rolls to you and you pick it up sure cause that's no achievement but if you catch it you keep that. Does that make me selfish?

Home Runs might be different depending on the significance. (like don't be an idiot and give Derek Jeter his HR ball back for nothing. He can afford to pay you nicely )

[Fundertaker]

Selfish? Why? There's no rule or societal pressure telling you to give it to a kid. If you want to give it, that's your prerogative.

Heck, I'm planning on going to a professional baseball game in a couple of months. It will be my first, and will be the only one for quite a while. If I catch a ball there, I sure as hell intend to keep it.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

We have access to seats right behind the opponents dugout at Fenway Park I'd say in the 50 or so games I've gone to over the past 15 years myself or whomever I went to the game with have gotten about 20 balls. Most of them are tossed in from the player on the other team km their way back to the dugout. I still have my first one, I've given all the others say, even the one my wife caught (thankfully since she's kind of an unathletic klutz) that was a pop up foul.

[BRV]

My thought process has always been if you're older than 18 and there's a young child within reaching distance of you, you give the child the ball. I was at Sunday afternoon's Red Sox game and there was a little kid seated two seats over from me and it was a consensus agreement among my group that if any of us caught a foul ball, we'd give it to him. Because normally in these situations, when a ball is dropping from the sky and people are jostling for it, the six-year-old isn't big enough to have a chance at it, yet if he gets that foul ball, he'll remember it forever.

I'd rather help to create a memory for a kid and make him a baseball fan forever than hog a baseball for myself which would just collect dust as soon as I got home.

EDIT - That being said, historic home runs are a different story. If I'm in the bleachers and a record-breaking home run is coming my way, I'm turning into Ronnie Lott circa 1986 and laying people out. If there's serious money to be made, I don't care about decorum.

[Deleted]

If I got one, I wouldn't give it to a kid nearby. I'm walking up the aisle and handing it to one who doesn't have good seats.

(Helps if the child has a cute mom.)

[Seth Drakin of Monster Crap]

It's a ball to me. If I ever have the chance to catch one, I'm taking my picture with it and then giving it to a kid. They will definitely have more appreciation for the damn thing than I would.

[Reflecto]

If you catch it, barehanded, without leaving your seat, for your first time catching a foul ball...then it's undisputedly yours.

Of the others:

If it's not your first time catching a foul ball, give it to a kid (or at least to someone at the game with you.) You've been there before, they haven't.

If you left your seat to get the ball, give it to a kid who was closer to the ball being hit than you.

If you brought a glove to the game and catch a foul ball using the glove, give it to a kid in your row or close by you. (Because seriously, you're one of those people who brings a glove to the game?)

If it wasn't an actual, hit ball in play, and a player threw the ball into the stands- give it to a kid. No matter how hard you have to look- even if you have to leave your section to do it. The player probably intended for a kid to get it anyway.


The only other side of this:

If a kid is obnoxious about it and says "You have to give it to me because I'm a kid!", if they try playing a guilt trip on you to get you to give them the ball...you're perfectly right to say "Nope, I would have given the ball to you, but now I'm keeping it." (And if you're giving it to a DIFFERENT kid and another kid pulls the same thing on you...no. Just, no.)

[fw91]

Give to a kid

[arrogantmodel]

I loved that video a few years back where they guy caught a foul ball and the little kid started crying. People booed him and shit cause he kept it. Then the parents spoke up and said, "No, that guy did nothing wrong. Our son needs to learn that nobody is going to just hand you everything in life."

If I catch a ball and want to keep it, too damn bad...I'm keeping it. Or I can go home and give it to one of my nephews. This is another one of baseball's bullshit unwritten rules. I'm a fan, it's exciting for me too, and I'm not there to make somebody else's kid happy.

Just keeping it 100. 😊

[MiLB Fan]

[Cyno]

While I'm not going to be that guy who jumps in front of a kid to catch it, because that's a dick move, if it comes to me and I catch it, I got mine. To hell with the children. You want it? You gotta earn it, buddy boy.