I will never forget this evening—so here, in the words of the man himself, let Charlie Russell explain how it happened.
This past summer [2019], it was a day like any other, yet quite a hot one for the Bay Area. Some friends and I were going to the A’s game against the Seattle Mariners. I left the house with my giant green overcoat since that was the only green piece of clothing that I had to match the teams colors, along with my baseball mitt from when I was a kid so I could hopefully fulfill my childhood dream of catching a foul ball. As we got on the train to take us to the coliseum, we were welcomed by the familiar scent of piss and dirt that is the aromatic staple of Bay Area Rapid Transportation or BART for short. When we got to the stadium, we walked through the tunnel toward the stadium that’s always lined with people trying to desperately sell off-brand merchandise, bacon wrapped hot dogs and luke warm beers. After going through security, we made our way to our seats. Even though the tickets said that we were supposed to sit on the second deck of the stadium, we thought we could try and sneak our way to the front couple of rows behind Mariners dugout so we can heckle them. Unfortunately, the security guard at the section didn't believe that we lost our tickets and sent us away. So we settled with the second deck seats behind the plate and watched the game proceed. During one of the later innings in the game, one of my more beloved players, Matt Chapman, went up to bat. The pitcher threw a howler of a ball and Matt swung. The ball cracked up and instead of flying out of the park like they usually go, the ball shot backwards, over the cage and towards our seats. I jumped up and over the row in front of us to the railing of the second deck. I knew this was gonna be it, the ball was coming right towards me. As it came hurtling down it whizzed right passed my glove that was outstretched over the railing. I was disappointed for the moment, but I didn't realize that the ball had bounced off the stairs on the deck 20 feet below me and floated back up to the second deck and dropped right in my glove. In pure bewilderment on how I made the catch, I ran up and down the row in a childish craze celebrating with my friends. I was congratulated by the fans around us and in my high horse state of mind, I cashed out 14 dollars on a foot long corn dog from one of the vendors who was at our row right after I caught the ball. Still riding off the adrenaline rush, I was filled with euphoria knowing that I finally accomplished this aspiration that I’ve carried in my mind for the past 18 years. As the innings went by the game finished with an A’s win over the Brewers followed by everyone in the coliseum moving down the classic firework show put on by the stadium.
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Sitting on the field!
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