
The Rules of the Baseball Press Box - rmason
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/insider/foul-ball-baseball-press-box-rules.html
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joshmn
Good read.

Like the author, I was also the kid at ball games who always wanted a ball. I
frequent my hometown team's games as a season-ticket holder. I don't always
get a foul ball, but when I do, I give it to a kid.

When I don't get a ball naturally, I go to the vendor that sells authentic
merchandise (see: genuine) and buy a used game ball. It runs me about $30. It
comes with a sticker on it to verify its authenticity. I peel sticker off and
rub away the residue. I'll then find a kid who's been working for a foul ball
all game and toss them the ball.

They'll celebrate as if they won the lottery. Their parent will usually come
find me and say how I didn't have to do that, that their kid is so happy; I
joke to them "in 15 years, tell them I bought the ball to give it to them
because I knew how badly they wanted the ball."

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gadders
Cricket players catch balls with their bare hands all the time, and they don't
seem particularly softer than baseballs. Is there something that makes
baseballs more painful? Do they get hit faster?

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ubernostrum
This might be a useful table for you:

[https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard)

The "Exit Velocity" section lists recorded speeds of batted balls broken down
by batter, showing their maximum and average speeds. Notice there are a lot of
players for whom the _average_ ball they hit comes off the bat at 90+ mph. The
"Hard Hit" column lists how many times each player has hit a ball that came
off the bat at 95+ mph.

Keep in mind also that balls are also _thrown_ quite hard in baseball, and an
important part of a fielder's job is catching balls thrown by teammates.

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remarkEon
What a fun read. If my career had taken a different direction I imagine myself
working in Baseball in some capacity. There’s a decent community of folks who
do amateur sabermetrics stuff for fun. I imagine a good amount of those folks
will make Baseball Journalism a full time thing when they retire.

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ajb257
Final rule: write a whole article bragging about it! :P

