Self-proclaimed ballhawk Zack Hample, who is notorious for catching Alex Rodriguez’s 3,000th hit and refusing to return the souvenir, did something uncharacteristic Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
He dropped a home run ball. Not once, but twice.
Hample complained on Twitter that Brian McCann’s game-tying home run in the ninth inning hit him in the face after bouncing off of another fan’s glove, and to add insult to injury, Didi Gregorius’ walk-off home run fell out of Hample’s glove after he was “body-slammed” by another fan in the front row of the right-field bleachers.
Hample’s bloopers were preserved on video — he’s the one wearing the blue T-shirt.
Turns out, the man who turned catching and collecting baseballs from a hobby into a competitive sport, the art of which he has shilled in three books, is a bit of a sore loser. He’ll just have to settle for 9,000 baseballs instead of 9,002.