carter 300 ticket

Bleacher ticket stub

 

I caught Gary Carter’s 300th home run on August 11, 1988 at Wrigley Field. I have been to hundreds of Cubs games in the bleachers and this is the only homer that I ever caught. I was standing against the left field bleacher fence with my brother when the ball came towards me. The ball went over everybody’s heads and hit the top of the fence. It then bounced on the ground and I jumped on it. I must of had 10 guys pile on me. I was drenched in beer and I broke my new sunglasses. I finally emerged from the pile and stood on top of the last bleacher seat waving the ball in the air. I kind of taunted the crowd for a little while because I had about 30,000 people chanting “throw it back”. Being a die hard Cubs fan, I never thought twice about keeping the ball. I whipped it as hard as I could and made it on to the infield. I must of shook hundreds of hands that night. I did not pay for a drink the rest of the night after the game.

 

I have been following his every move since then and met him a couple of times to talk about that day. He was a genuinely nice guy to me and said he was grateful that I threw his home run ball back!

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