He came, He grabbed, They conquered

This is my first post to the mlblogs.com website. I opted to start a blog because after spending a few months reading Zack Hample's, it seemed like to fun and interesting thing to do. First a little background. My name is Scott Sweeney, I am a 29 year old Cub fan from Woodridge, Illinois. Along with my friend, Chad, we spend most of our days either playing baseball, contimplating how to get baseballs from professional players, or working (and while we work, discuss more options for getting baseballs). In my free time, I hang out on the Northside of Chicago, write rock and roll songs, watch the Cubs / Bears / Bulls, and do normal 29 year old dude stuff. This blog will basically just follow our exploits as we attempts to become world famous ballhawks, like our ballhawking idol, Zack Hample (HA!) -- In addition, I'll post Cubs stats, and basically anything else I feel like. Sooo, I guess enjoy?

Yesterday Chad and Jeff went to the Cubs game, which of course we all know they lost 3-2. Security is super tight on weekend games. This was a FOX start time, 12:05 cst, so The Cubs didn't take any BP. With a million screaming kids the odds of getting a ball seemed slim but by doing good research, Chad came up with a ball from new Cub Scott Moore. Moore was warming up and threw it right to him after Chad called him by first name. Nice work.

I am watching today's Cub's game while at work on MLB.com. Their streaming site is pretty decent. Right now they are down 2-0 in the 7th inning. Offensively, there is not much doing. Wasted the only real chance they had when Theriot hit a smash that Petit caught. Soriano was on 2nd with a standup double with two outs. I love Soriano, but he definately watched the ball leave that bat like it was a homer. Come on bro, just put your head down and sprint. You might have had a triple.

Fergie Jenkins sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame and it was pretty poor. I am honestly starting to get sick of the 'celebrity' singers. Sometimes, I don't even know who the heck they are. Lets just have the organ play it and move on, Harry has been dead for 9 years already.

Tomorrow we are ballhawking at US Cellular Field. Getting to BP about 5pm to ensure prime positions and real estate. White Sox are pretty unpopular these days, as Craigslist was just full of people trying to dish off tickets to a 7:11 Monday start. (yes, 7:11. Because the Sox sold the rights to their start times to the chain store 711. That is pretty lame) -- I am not a White Sox fan, in fact, I pretty much hate them. But a pro ball game is a pro ball game. And the Sox have the best deal in baseball. Monday night, upper deck tickets are only $8 dollars. You can't even go to semi-professional games that cheaply. Heck, you can't even purchase a Long Island in Chicago for 8 bucks. So they have one thing going for them. We also are going to try to get down to the left field bleachers. If any balls go into the pen, we have the Hample glove trick on standby.

On Friday, I am going to Cincinatti to catch the Cubs vs Reds at The Great American Ballpark. Should be exciting to ballhawk in a new stadium.

Last Weds Home Run Derby Results: (7-17-07. BHS Field)

Left: 325 Feet. Left Center: 360. Center: 388. Right Center: 360. Right: 331

Chad: 6 Home Runs (in Blue). Scott: 4 (in Red). Jeff: 1 (In White). According to Googleearth, Chads furthers was 391 feet. My furthest was 361 feet. Jeffs was 349 feet. Good work!

Click on the photo to see the home run spots!