McCallion
Quest

Finders Keepers Or.....where's the video evidence?

by:   Corina Kibsey and Sarah Neely
     

Imagine standing up in the bleachers of a baseball game, seeing Barry Bond's 73rd home-run ball, a world record, coming straight towards you. You stretch out your arm and you hear the "thump" of the ball landing in your mitt. You are overjoyed and filled with elation. Suddenly you are mobbed and pushed down to the cement as crazy baseball fans try to wrestle the ball from your grip. You don't know who has the ball now, but you see a man emerge from the crowd and sheepishly reveal the ball that was for one heavenly moment, yours. Your dreams are shattered. Welcome to the nightmare of Alex Popov.

Barry Bond's record-breaking 73rd home run of the season was hit at the ned of last season. The ball was...technically caught by Alex Popov, but as he brought his glove down, he became lost in the sea of humanity that mobbed him to wrestle the ball away from him. The ball, at the time, could have been worth as much as $1.5 million...so the loss was...considerable.

Patrick Hayashi, one of the people who mobbed Popov, emerged from the crowd of scrambling fans and sheepishly revealed the ball. Popov filed a lawsuit in San Fransisco Superior Court against Hayashi for attacking and assaulting him in order to wrestle the ball away from him. If testimony from eyewitnesses are truthful,  Popov should get the ball because, after all, he caught it first! Not only did he catch it, but he held it for awhile, albeit short,  before he was mobbed and thrown to the ground. A KNTV video clearly showed Popov catching the ball before tumbling into a sea of humanity and ending up at the bottom of a crowd of rabid, scrambling fans.

Also, Popov was attacked and assaulted as others tried to wrestle the ball away from him. Popov, himself, witnessed Hayashi biting another individual's leg to get the ball. Security people frantically had to remove people from the pile of humans. This is completely crazy! Popov says: "The ball goes right in the webbing of my glove and I'm filled with elation. Immediately I'm thrown to the cement, I get a gouge in my nose from the bridge on my glasses and the dream turns into a nightmare".

As previously mentioned, the ball caught by Alex Popov may someday be worth over 1.5 million dollars. In our opinion, we believe that it was Popov who caught the ball and Popov who should keep it. Popov claims after successfully catching the ball somebody reached into his glove and removed the ball. He also claims Patrick Hayashi bit somebody in the leg and footage shows Hayashi with his face to somebody's leg. Hayashi's Lawyer, Don Tamaki says that Popov never caught the ball, however, there is a tape showing Popov catch the ball and Popov's Lawyer Martin Triano claimed the Popov had the ball in his possession for over 45 sec. Therefore Tamaki's claim is false.

The video clearly shows Hayashi reach down and pull up a ball, and  place it in his pocket. As the crowd still struggled to find where the ball had gone, moments later the footage shows Hayashi revealing the ball to the crowd with a grin on his face. "Alex caught the all. Then got mugged," said Popov's attorney Martin Triano. "His dream of catching a piece of baseball history turned into a nightmare."

In conclusion, Hayashi's actions of attacking and assaulting someone for a baseball is extremely inappropriate and unacceptable. Give the ball back to its rightful owner...the one that actually made the catch...Give the ball back to Popov!