When Fans Won’t Play Ball

Tom Keysor, longtime Angel fan, pulls the brown-stained baseball out of his pocket and holds it teasingly in the air.

John Moynihan, longtime Angel official, looks up wearily.

“What do you want again?” Moynihan asks.

“I want one of Tim Salmon’s black bats, autographed with a white pen, personalized, and I want to meet him,” Keysor says.

Moynihan rubs his eyes.

Keysor dangles his ball.

The national pastime, circa 2000.

One minute, you are a middle-aged, bespectacled man sitting in the cheap seats in shorts and Ohio State cap and fanny pack.

The next minute you are a power broker.

One minute you are a millionaire baseball player creating a piece of personal history.

The next minute you are begging a stranger to let you keep it.

Our story begins Monday, in the first inning of a game between the Angels and Detroit Tigers at Edison Field.

Once upon a sweeter time, this is also where our story would have ended.

Tim Salmon hits a fastball from Tiger starter Dave Mlicki over the left-field fence for the 200th homer of his career.

It’s not only an impressive statistic, but a nice souvenir for a man who has spent eight years here without controversy or complaint.

Except Salmon only hit it.

It is Keysor, sitting in the family section in left field, who pockets it.

In an era in which memorabilia is valued more than the athletes who produce it, it is Keysor who owns the home run.

Amid a climate where fans distrust the players almost as much as players demean the fans, it is Keysor who is going to make Salmon run the bases.

Keysor is escorted to the press box after the Angels’ 10-4 victory.

Moynihan, a large and jovial security official who has been with the organization since its inception, meets him there.

Moynihan hears the request, picks up the press box phone, calls downstairs to a clubhouse where Salmon is changing.

Moments later, Moynihan pulls the phone away from his ear and shakes his head.

“Tim will be in the trainer’s room for an hour, it will be nearly midnight when he gets out,” Moynihan says politely.

“I’ll wait,” Keysor says.

“He’s tired, we should just let him go home to his family.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I promise, you can meet him the next time you’re here, you’ve got my word.”

“Then what about the bat?”

“The best we can do is a regular bat with a black autograph.”

“I want a black bat.”

“He doesn’t own any black bats.”

“He used one tonight.’

“Listen, he says he can give you a white bat, autographed, and you can meet him next time you’re here.”

“I don’t know.”

“Take it or leave it, we can’t stay here all night.”

“I’ve got to think.”

The ball is still in the longtime fan’s enclosed right hand, peeking out like a red-stitched jewel, close enough to grab.

The longtime Angel official looks at it and shakes his head.

*

“People are trying to make me feel bad, like I’m the greedy one. Give me a break!”

This is Tom Keysor talking.

He is 58, a Fullerton real estate broker, a former full-time season-ticket holder who cut back to 21 games this year because the organization has fallen so badly.

He speaks in measured tones, as if he had just picked up escrow papers instead of a toy.

“These players are making millions. We help pay those salaries. Lots of fans ask for tickets or money in exchange for balls. I’m only asking for an autographed bat. How hard is that?”

Turns out, probably not as hard as it was for Keysor to obtain the home run ball in the first place.

First, he has to leave his ticketed seats in right field and sneak into the left-field seats just before the hit.

“I knew Salmon’s next homer would be his 200th, and I knew that’s where he usually hit them,” he says.

Second, he never actually catches the ball. The homer dropped into the Tiger bullpen and was picked up by coach Lance Parrish.

Keysor doesn’t obtain the ball with his glove, but his mouth.

“I looked up and there was this guy shouting at me to throw him the ball,” Parrish says. “I figure, what the heck, and I throw it to him.”

The minute the ball leaves Parrish’s hands, his bullpen mates start shouting at him.

“Somebody says, ‘That was Salmon’s 200th homer you just gave away!’ ” Parrish recalls. “I thought, ‘Oh no.’ But then I thought it wouldn’t be a problem getting it back and giving it to Tim.”

This being our national pastime circa 2000, Parrish thought wrong.

He offers Keysor another ball. Keysor refuses.

“He yells back to me, ‘I know what I’ve got, I’ve got something valuable,’ ” Parrish says.

Then Angel equipment workers run down and offer him a bat belonging to baseball’s hottest hitter, Darin Erstad.

Keysor refuses, saying he wants only a Salmon bat.

So they bring him a Salmon bat.

“But it was broken,’ Keysor says. “And it wasn’t autographed.”

By now, the red-faced Tiger relievers begin scolding him.

“You’re setting a great example in the family section!” shouts one.

“How many millions are you making?” Keysor shouts back.

“You are disgusting!” shouts another one.

Keysor ignores him, and eventually makes his way to the press box for the postgame negotiations.

While downstairs, Parrish is still wondering.

“It would be different if he caught the ball, but I caught the ball,” Parrish says.

Parrish shakes his head. Virtually everyone interviewed for this story from fans to players shakes their heads.

“There is just so much emphasis on memorabilia today, you see all the stuff being sold on TV, I guess everybody wants something,” Parrish says.

Upstairs, Keysor is still thinking.

Should he take the white bat when he wanted a black bat? Should he agree to postpone a meeting with Salmon? Isn’t this ball worth it to them?

Keysor recalls another landmark home run ball he caught, this one in 1993 off the bat of Ty Van Burkleo.

It was his first.

“He gave me an autographed bat right away,” Keysor says.

Good thing, because it was Van Burkleo’s only home run.

In a trend fueled by the big money paid in 1998 for record-setting homers by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, everything in today’s relationship between players and fans has a price.

This includes, apparently, courtesy and common sense.

“You don’t want to argue, because the customer is always right,” Moynihan says. “But before, fans would just offer the balls back, and get another ball in return, and that would be that.”

Today, Moynihan says, “It’s almost where, before giving the ball back, the fans want legal advice. They want a contract.”

Keysor ultimately decides he wants neither. The longtime fan inside of him finally overpowers the collector.

He hands over the ball.

“I’ll take the regular bat,” he says, and moments later it is in his hands, with Salmon’s sweeping signature across the barrel.

It is not personalized, and Keysor has yet to actually meet the player, but, well, the Angels promised.

“I’ll be back soon for that meeting,” he says, walking away.

“I’ll be right here to take care of you,” Moynihan says, smiling.

Downstairs, shortly before midnight, Tim Salmon steps slowly out of the training room, exhausted.

“I really don’t have a black bat, I was using Garret Anderson’s bat,” he says. “Did he want me to sign Garret Anderson’s bat?”

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

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‘Going Once, Going Twice . . .’

The most coveted sports memorabilia goes up for auction. Here’s what some top items fetched recently:

$2.7 million: Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball.

$18,4000: 1927 World Series ball, signed by the New York Yankees.

$551,844: The basketball Wilt Chamberlain used to score his record 100 points in a game.

$129,000: A handmade baseball that once belonged to Alexander Cartwright is believed to be the oldest baseball in existence.