Early last week I was watching the San Francisco Giants host the San Diego Padres. One of my favorite pitchers Madison Bumgarner was on the hill and facing top prospect Fernando Tatis Jr. Bumgarner beamed Tatis and my immediate thought was “I Want THAT ball!”

So I fired off an email to a contact, but the email went unanswered. I thought less of the situation as the week went on, knowing that I already had tickets for Sunday’s game against the Rockies. I figured I’d check when I got to the park, and if it was gone then it was out of my control.

Sunday was “Youth League Day” (aka Little League Day) and my family headed to the game and eventually got settled in our seats. I then told them I wanted to go look at the game-used balls. Just a few minutes later, I got a gander at what was left … among them were a handful of pitches to Tatis, all prices sort of high considering there was no contact.

But hidden in the back row was possibly the ball I inquired about. It was labeled as “Bumgarner to Tatis Jr. – Hit By Pitch.”

I snatched the ball up, and moments later it was officially mine. I don’t recall in what inning I saw the Bumgarner-Tatis Jr. HBP on television; and as it turned out Bumgarner hit the prospect TWICE that night.

This ball is from the seventh inning, the second HBP of the night. And as it turns out, the two times Tatis was hit in this game were the first two times during his MLB career that he was hit.

So now I own Tatis Jr’s second career HBP. And while it wasn’t as cheap as the common balls, it does feel like a decent bargain given that balls thrown in the dirt during Tatis Jr at-bats weren’t all that much cheaper. On a related note, this was MadBum’s 54th career thrown HBP.

And to make things even more satisfying is that there is a picture on Getty Images showing the moment Tatis got hit by THIS ball.

This entry was posted on April 15, 2019 at 7:47 am and is filed under HBP Collection with tags baseball, game used baseball, game-used, HBP Collection, Hit By Pitch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.