Nowhere is the anticipation of Bonds plate appearance as high than the right field bleacher seats. Even though left field is known for Barry's fans, that is where Barry plays defense, right field belongs to the homerun junkies that wait with much anxiety for every swing.
The $10 standing room is home to many fans. This standing room is the only thing that separates the green grass from the blue waters. With every fan hoping that the ball lands perfectly in between the two. For the few minutes that Bonds is up, it is like spending time at the casino. Like a game of craps, it is a roll of the dice. Should the ball catch the ever so small sweet spot and fly into a lucky fan's hands between the grass and sea where the $10 standing claims it's spot.
The feeling that shoots through you after being the chosen one is what everybody comes for. One fan in particular, Jerry Baral has come to the park to pursue this feeling. Jerry puts his feelings into words for us, "Sometime in between the passage of the ball from the sweet spot of the bat to your outstretched mitt or hand, you get the feeling that it is coming to you. All of these 40,000 fans in the park, it is coming to you, like an airborne shot of adrenaline aimed at your jugular" (Baral), he describes (Bean, Court TV).
But on this night this feeling went to not just one fan, but two. As shown on tape by an NBC cameraman, the ball was caught by one fan and taken away by another. This is where all the extreme controversy comes in. With fans raising suggestions like Anthony Perez's, "I think the person that caught the ball should keep it" (Perez). But with other fans saying, "It's not over till it's over" (Berra). That quote becoming famous by the Yankee great Yogi Berra. That is not where it ends, with other suggestions being just what is a catch? This is something that Popov and Hayashi's lawyers are expected to work out during the trial.
