Second thoughts

Zack Hample (right) shakes hands with Arizona’s Didi Gregorius after the Diamondbacks’ 6-2 victory over the New York Yankees. Hample caught Gregorius’ home run in the third inning and another home run by the Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli in the ninth. It marked the second time Hample has caught two home run balls in a game. Hample has caught 29 home run balls in all.
Zack Hample (right) shakes hands with Arizona’s Didi Gregorius after the Diamondbacks’ 6-2 victory over the New York Yankees. Hample caught Gregorius’ home run in the third inning and another home run by the Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli in the ninth. It marked the second time Hample has caught two home run balls in a game. Hample has caught 29 home run balls in all.

Just keep eye out for strike

Forget tough pitching match ups, the Valencia (Calif.) West Ranch High baseball team has much bigger problems.

Like rattlesnakes.

Apparently, the West Ranch field is full of them. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, the team has discovered 11 rattlesnakes on or near the team’s diamond since school started in August. That’s more than one a month, a significant increase from the grand total of 17 that had been discovered in the general vicinity over the past seven years.

The snakes have been so prevalent that West Ranch’s coaches, brothers Casey and Brady Burrill, have become impromptu experts at removing them from the scene while protecting their athletes.

“We’ve had them on the field, in the dugouts, on campus,” Casey Burrill told the Times. “The strategy is sneak up behind with a long landscape rake, pin him and the other gets the head with a shovel. It’s definitely a two-person event.”

For their part, the Burrill brothers are finding clever ways to make sure that the school district doesn’t forget about the snakes on the field, even adding a rattlesnake counter on the team’s website.

Two for one

It was a good day for Diamondbacks rookie Didi Gregorius.

It might have been an even better day for Zack Hample, a fan and home run ball collector who was in attendance at the Diamondbacks-Yankees game Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.

Gregorius homered on the first pitch he saw in a D-backs uniform in the third inning, a drive into the right-field seats that was caught by Hample, wearing a Sedona red Arizona hat among a sea of New York fans. And Hample wasn’t done yet.

In the ninth inning, with the Diamondbacks leading 2-1, closer J.J. Putz gave up a gametying home run to the Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli into the first row in left field.

Hample, author of the book How to Snag Major League Baseballs, was there to make the grab, making Thursday night’s game the second in which he’d caught two home run balls. The 35-year-old New Yorker also caught Barry Bonds’ 724th home run in 2006 and snagged Mike Trout’s first career long ball in 2011.

Hample said he has caught 29 home runs balls.

“It’s a little bit of luck, obviously. I move all over the place constantly,” Hample told The Associated Press after the game.

“People don’t notice the seven games I’ve been to this year and didn’t catch a home run.” Crowded house

Major League Baseball says more stringent security measures will be in place at ballparks, so fans may need to arrive earlier as the league tries to guard against terrorist attacks on big crowds.

Wrote Janice Hough of leftcoastsportsbabe.com: “Well, at least Marlins fans are safe.”

Quote of the day

“So you’ll see the best of Arkansas on both sides of the ball going at it in that phase of the game. It will be move the ball.” Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema on today’s spring football game

Sports, Pages 22 on 04/20/2013

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