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A Conversation with Zack Hample and Neil Lanctot

Presented by Free Library of Philadelphia - Parkway Central Library at Free Library of Philadelphia - Parkway Central Library

July 26, 2011

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Zack Hample is best known for snagging more than 4600 baseballs from the stands at major league stadiums. He is also the author of How to Snag Major League Baseballs and Watching Baseball Smarter—the baseball bible for armchair professionals. At all times, he carries a folded cheat sheet with a single statement written in more than thirty languages: “Please throw me a ball.” He has appeared on dozens of TV shows. In a story for Sports Illustrated, writer Rick Reilly dubbed Hample’s baseball glove trick—involving a marker, a rubber band, and twenty-five feet of string—the “ZackTrap". In The Baseball, Hample shares anecdotes, trivia, ballpark lore, and tips for snagging baseballs. Nicetown’s Roy “Campy” Campanella was a three-time MVP with the immortal Dodger teams of the 1940s and 1950s and the first African American catcher in the twentieth century in the major leagues. He became a baseball pioneer when Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey recruited him as part of the “Great Experiment” alongside Jackie Robinson. But his career and life changed drastically in 1958 when his car crashed and he was paralyzed from the neck down. After challenging physical therapy and a reckoning with his paralysis, Campy became an inspiration to athletes and handicapped people around the world, as baseball historian Neil Lanctot (Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution) makes clear in a book that Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News calls, "A thorough portrait, rich in detail, shimmering with warmth."