Historical And Factual Stuff By Zack Hample

No one has a bigger passion for baseballs than Zack Hample. He is what we call a ballhawk - someone that goes to baseball games with the intent to get as many baseballs as possible. Having attended over 1,500 games lifetime, Zack has snagged over 10,000 baseballs. Zack documents these games with his videographer and posts them to YouTube where he has almost 200,000 subscribers. Two of his most historic balls include Mike Trout’s first career home run and Alex Rodriguez’s 3,000th career hit. In The Baseball, he shares with us many tips and secrets to his ballhawking success and teaches us strategies to get our own balls at games. Along with that, Zack discusses many anecdotes and the history of the ball.
Hample divides this book into three main

Using a lengthy timeline of about 60 pages and starting from the year 1847, Zack describes how baseballs have evolved almost every year until 2011. Some of the notable things covered are origins, designs, trade wars among manufacturers, and the increase of balls being used over time. This leads to one of the most interesting parts of the book, which is a tour of the Rawlings Baseball Factory in Costa Rica, where the balls are made and individually hand stitched. Zack goes over every single detail of the ball, from the small pill in the center of the ball to the cowhide. Approximately 20,000 cows are needed for the 1 million square feet of hide used for balls in a season. Hample presents very detailed information on what goes into the making of these pearls, that are often taken for granted by fans and players. After the balls are inspected and tested, they are then shipped to the

This part is all about the knowledge he has learned about ball hawking over the years. He shares with us strategies to get balls before games, during games, and after games. Zack also tells us how to address the players and umpires, where to sit during the game, how to dress, and how to position yourself during batting practice. One of his tricks to getting balls that he developed is called the glove trick, where you have a sharpie, a rubber band, and a string attached to your glove. The goal is the retrieve balls on the field, where you can’t reach, such as the warning track or bullpens. The most important tip of them all: bring a