As equally bad as adults reaching in front of kids for end of inning balls is their behavior during batting practice. Camped in left or right field, they block out children with their height and their baseball gloves. Pathetic. I guess it's gratifying to deprive a ten year-old of a batting practice home run ball. Then there was what happened at the last game I attended: fly ball and a couple of adults knocked over a kid so that they could land the ball. Kid was shaken up pretty good.
It’s one thing to give kids baseballs, but another to get kids to use them.
So instead of a souvenir to a kid with a seat behind the dugout, toss a baseball to a kid in the cheap(er) seats in the outfield.
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For the past several years, we've usually bought seats in the area above the home field dugout. Towards the middle of each inning, when it was 2 outs and the visiting team's batter had 2 strikes, my kids would move to the edge of the aisle in anticipation of a strikeout. If the batter struck out, the kids would hurry to the bottom of the aisle, just above the dugout entrance, where the catcher would usually soft-toss the ball to them. It was a highlight of every game. I'm in support of the protective nets, but am also glad that my boys got to enjoy this ritual and connection with the players before the nets went up.
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