Going into this day, I was somewhat upset over the fact that I had just waited an unexpected extra 48 hours along with the 5 very long months of offseason from the one thing that makes me truly happy in life, that of course being ball hawking. The Railriders were scheduled to play their first home game on Tuesday the 2nd, but Mother Nature wouldn’t have it. Same for Wednesday the 3rd.

At the same time, however, I was also extremely excited to finally get back at it from where I left off last year. I didn’t have any big goals, besides maybe snagging the first PNC Field home run of 2024. (FORESHADOWING…) The forecast seemed promising, and sure enough, it stayed that way the entire day.

Let’s get down to business. Syracuse Mets @ Railriders. This was the first sight to my eyes upon arrival:

My first thought was, “Damn, did I miss this.”

After I got checked out and scanned my ticket, my first thought was to go straight for right field in case they had taken batting practice earlier. Along the way, I got my first glimpse at the new safety netting. I shared my opinion on that in both an earlier blog post and the YouTube video from this game, so check those out to hear my thoughts. Seeing it in person only made me hate it more, and it’d prove to be an added difficulty for both myself and the players throughout the game.

Just as I thought I had struck out in right, a very friendly usher flagged me down on my way to the bullpens and let me choose 1 of the 5 balls he had collected from BP. Met with an obvious choice, I took the “oddball” out of the 5:

I still have no clue why exactly the Railriders use Florida State League balls, but I’m more than happy to start my season with one.

Not long after, the pitchers and players of both teams began to warm up. At that point I had thought that it’d be packed. But, to my surprise…

Empty…emptier than I had ever seen it. The whole game would continue to be that way.

My next ball was tossed up by Mets starting pitcher Christian Scott. He didn’t hear my initial request, but happily hooked it up after I repeated myself a bit louder. First MLB ball of the year.

By the time he had finished, both sets of position players had already finished throwing, so I just decided to head to my seat. This was my view:

The next few innings would go by rather slow, not much action whatsoever other than snagging my 3rd ball of the day, a 3rd out ball that ended the top of the 1st. Remember what I said about the net? Both Railriders 3rd baseman Josh Groshans and I had trouble with it on this ball. His first attempt to make it over was too low and caught the tippy top of it, and I was positioned too far back on the 2nd. Guess it’s still a new thing for everyone to get used to…

Besides that, I literally just wandered around a bit and ended up grabbing some food to satisfy my cravings. It was the bottom of the 4th when literally right as I was finishing my last bite…

Everson Pereira blasted one to left field. Oh course, right as I had just left that area…it would have been such an easy catch too. That ball ended up bouncing off the concourse and down below to behind the bullpens.

I immediately dropped everything I was doing and raced to get over there with my retrieval device. Didn’t even think I had a chance on it. Upon arriving, I quickly realized that there were 3 balls in a similar spot. The first two looked like brand new pearls, and the third seemed like it might be the one. A groundskeeper then appeared out of nowhere and tossed up the first two up to the swarm of people next to me. The third went to you guessed it:

Sure enough, mine was rubbed with mud like all game balls are, and had some very convincing scuffs and marks. Right next to the middle “Official” stamp was a nice scuff from where it had hit the concourse, and right above that was a dirt mark from where it landed below. It HAD to be the one. And everyone I showed it to seemed to agree. Completely unexpected, but I had just achieved my goal of the day.

So triumphantly, I returned to my seat, where not long after I sat down, it began to rain again. Then rain became snow, then snow became sleet. And considering it was a school night, my parents and I decided that it’d be best to end the night there. So, we did just that. 4 was a respectable total considering the conditions, especially considering the game HR at the end.

STATS FOR THIS GAME:

#1: Usher pregame RF Berm

#2: Toss up pregame LF bullpen Christian Scott warm-up

#3: Toss up 3rd base side Josh Groshans 3rd out top of 1st

#4: Game home run LF bullpen Everson Pereira bottom of 4th tossed up by groundskeeper

LIFETIME TOTAL: 247