While Brandon and I tried to carefully and 'scientifically' calculate when Barry would smack Home Run #756 a few months ago, it was really sheer dumb luck that we happened to purchase tickets for the August 7th homestand against the Nationals. Laura and Ching came along with us, and we got a pretty good deal for $15 bleacher seats.
MY GOD IT WAS WORTH IT!
To recap - Bonds had a good feel that night and was 2-for-2 by the time he stood at plate for the 3rd and soon-to-be-legendary appearance. All of us but Ching had our gloves out - me with my good ol' Mizuno, Laura borrowed my old infield glove, and Brandon borrowed some poor excuse for an oven mitt from his friend. Seriously, it was the size of a ski glove. Anyways, I had glove on one hand and my dad's camera in the other since I left my own in my condo. Because of this, I really didn't know how to operate it and more importantly, didn't know how to capture in movie-mode.
Washington's Bacsik pitched a 3-2 fastball and with a *crack* I immediate saw the ball sail towards our section.
"Holy shit!" was pretty much the the instant thought that went through the section and I suddenly didn't know whether snap photos or whether or not I actually had a chance to make a snag. But about a second after the crack the wind picked the ball and pushed it towards the Cove and away from my direction, but towards Brandon's side. Laura just stood there, I was furiously trying to learn to switch the camera to movie-mode, with Ching successfully filming the ensuing chaos as the ball landed about 3 rows to the front of us and 6 or 8 seats to our left.
All I saw were hands and gloves in the air as the ball made its landing - which I think first bounced off the bare hands of a blond guy in a black hoodie and onto the ground. This ball was now fair game. Brandon who was "closest" ran into the mob and I just stood there not knowing what to do when suddenly I felt bodies begin pushing at my back.
The next several seconds was a virtual concert mosh pit as people from other sections tried to get involved in the melee and I started bracing myself against the bleachers, trying to get a better look of the scrum. Someone was pulling on Laura's hair to get her out of the way and Brandon was nowhere to be seen. I remember that I was sitting next to a dad and 2 sons that probably weren't more than 8 years-old, and I glanced at him hugging the kids to his chest to protect them from the onslaught. At the same time, I remembered that there was a baseball game somewhere out there and that I had completely missed Barry running the bases, high-fiving his teammates, and the fireworks show. When I finally focused my attention to the field, Barry was already mid-speech and some crazy dude had apparently run on to the field from the stands and was already tackled and cuffed by security.
Back to the chaos, about 7 policemen were already in the dogpile literally just picking apart the crowd and trying to plow their way to the middle to secure the lucky guy. Creating a halo around the middle I saw a head peek out wearing a jersey with a larger-than-normal sized neckhole (people in the pile were grabbing him and everything). Some official-looking guy was there as well, I later realized he authenticated the ball right on the spot, and police were giving way for this guy, who I now saw the 'Reyes' on the back and realized it was a Mets jersey (fuck!) and as he was being escorted out was yelling "I'm Matt Murphy! I'm from New York!" (double fuck!) a couple of times.
People slowly started settling down, and I surveyed the mess that was our section. All the food and drink was spilled and strewn about - there was no way anyone would want to sit down in this filth again. Hank Aaron made an appearance on the jumbotron and some of us watched while the rest of us began making/receiving phone calls/texts. I got alot of texts from you guys; sorry I couldn't send much back, you can imagine the number of people using their cells and the network turned to shit.
So about 20min. later the ceremonies were complete, Barry was pulled, but no one in our section was in the mood to watch the game anymore. Our adrenaline was still going, and people from around the stadium started coming into our area wanting to take a picture or ask for stories from those of us around it. Alot of other people immediately headed for the gift shops to purchase programs and souvenirs that were dated on this historic night. Brandon wanted to look for a program too, and so we left after the 7th inning, satisfied with the night's outcome and a story (and video, thanks to Ching) to tell for a long time.
