I'm in the fraternity

I'm in my 50th year of going to baseball games and on Wednesday night I had a first.

I got a home run ball!

I was standing near the center field hitters backdrop at Carolina Stadium in Columbia during the first inning of the Winthrop-South Carolina game.

South Carolina center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a home run over the edge of the USC bullpen and into the dirt area between the outfield wall and the center field plaza.

The ball landed in a small bush about a foot inside a restraining fence about four or five feet to my left. Bob Uecker's advice on how to catch a knuckle ball worked perfectly for the homer: I waited until it stopped rolling, then walked over and picked it up.

The homer came right about the time I was receiving a text scoring update on the NJCAA Region X Tournament. I was looking at my phone, and didn't pick up the flight of the ball until it had cleared the outfield wall.

It was such a surprise that I posted the score I'd just received backward in my blog/Twitter updates for this site.

At least that's my excuse for messing up the score.

I believe Bradley has the potential to play in the majors, so getting a ball he hit was a treat for me. I got him to autograph it after the game as a souvenir.

I'd never come even remotely close to getting a home run ball in an organized game before.

Twice, I came close to getting foul balls in Atlanta. My wife, pregnant with our son in 1977, was sitting to my left in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium when a ball landed about two or three seats to her left and bounced away. Had I been sitting to her left, I could have had it. Being to her right, I had no shot.

A few years ago at Turner Field, we were on one of the first few rows of one of the upper decks when a foul ball went about three or four feet over my head. Again, close, but no cigar.

Back in 1961 or 1962, when the Greenville Spinners minor league team played at Meadowbrook Park, my older brother bought a ball from one of the kids at the stadium. I don't know if it was from batting practice or a game, but it set my brother back 39 cents to get it.

Several years ago at Sarge Frye Field, an LSU or USC batter hit a foul ball that bounced off the concrete wall behind the first-base seats and came right to me for a one-handed catch.

Other than that, my luck at stadiums has been nothing short of lousy.

Until Wednesday night.