#Shortstops: Ball magnet attracts attention

Baseball fans constantly seem to be coming up with ingenious ways to show their devotion to the American pastime…or, at the very least, their devotion to bringing home souvenirs from the game to show all their friends and family! One such fan expressed his love for baseball by putting his thinking cap on and coming up with an invention to snatch up foul balls left on the field during batting practice, resulting in one of the oddest artifacts in our collection.

For some fans, batting practice can sometimes pale in comparison to the activity and atmosphere of the game itself. However, for one San Francisco Giants fan back in the early 1990s, batting practice was the place to be after a co-worker turned him on to the fact that you could snag some foul balls to take home and show off. He was hooked. He took it upon himself to try to prove to the rest of his baseball fan brethren just “how much [sic] batting practice can really be.”

Pairing his newfound devotion to the sport with his desire to turn heads, this fan came up with the Ball Magnet. Not “the baseball retriever”, as a well-meaning Hall of Fame employee called it when getting in touch to complete the donation process (and was promptly, but politely, corrected). This homemade product could be lowered over the wall on a string and dropped down to retrieve the unprotected baseball, unaware of its imminent snatching. Instructions for use are pretty self-explanatory but the most helpful piece of advice from its maker for using the Ball Magnet is “if the cup is right over the ball it’s in the bag.”

This resourceful fan was also kind enough to include photos of the Ball Magnet in action at Candlestick Park, with “an assist from the guy in the blue and black shirt.” In a more charitable twist, the Ball Magnet’s final days in use were spent salvaging batting practice baseballs to give away to young children who “now that the new bleachers were installed don’t have much of a chance of going home with a ball.”

After spending some time with this unusual artifact in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s collection, we have to agree with Steve Avery of the Atlanta Braves who, after seeing the Ball Magnet in action, said to the inventor, “Hey, that cup you have is All Right!”

Kayla Shypski is the collections coordinator at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum