My First Foul Ball

Friday night my wife and I attended the Astros-Cardinals game at Minute Maid Park. We had nice seats down the third base side low in Section 107 which is about where the stands curve to meet the foul line. We were on the aisle on the home plate side of the section. Prime foul ball territory no doubt. When we sat down I told my wife to be sure to be paying attention, we were in the line of fire.

Sure enough Astros' catcher Chris Snyder ripped the second pitch of the bottom of the second inning. And I do mean 'ripped'. I know because I saw the replay later that night, and therein lies the problem. When he hit the ball I was texting my son. I never saw it coming. My wife said she saw Snyder swing but couldn't follow the ball. Luckily (and I'm not even sure of the physics involved here) instead of killing someone in the vicinity the ball clipped the edge of the aisle seat in front of me, inches from my knee. It ricocheted off my wife's ankle rattled around under our seats and came to rest between our feet. How it passed over (or through!) the folks to our right yet hit so low on the side of that seat I'll never know. I had no idea what was coming or, when it hit, what was happening. It happened just that fast.

Didn't take long for my wife's ankle to swell a bit so we got her looked at by a medical tech called by an usher supervisor. All that was required was a bag of ice and we enjoyed the rest of the game. She had a nice bump and bruise by the next morning.

The Astros ended up winning the game so the 60% or so of the crowd that was rooting for them was happy. I   used the MLB-TV replays to get a couple of screen caps of the whole thing. Not gonna post them because my wife hates the pics.::shrug:: 

The Houston crew showed our section as we settled back down. The Cardinal broadcast stayed with Snyder. Looked to me like he took a glance to see if he'd killed anyone. Chris, if you're reading this, we're fine but next time try not to knock out any fellow Houston alumni. 

I gave the ball to a kid behind us. I've been to a lot of games but that was the first time I've gotten a batted ball. I had a few tossed to me as a kid and had a Willie McCovey foul hit an armrest in front of me in the Astrodome and whistle past my head.

Obviously that's a 2011 Topps Chris Snyder card up there. It's the only one I have of him. Don't know if there is one of him as an Astro.