Erik Jabs is a Spanish teacher at Steel Valley High School. Photo submitted by Eric Jabs.
Erik Jabs has caught 2,887 baseballs in 17 different stadiums since 2007.
Recently, luck was on the 33-year-old’s side again, but this time instead of a baseball, he landed a ticket to Game 1 of the World Series in Boston for free.
Jabs, a Spanish teacher at Steel Valley High School, started looking for tickets on StubHub after the Boston Red Sox won the American League Championship. On Oct. 21, he saw a ticket listed for $6 and quickly bought it before anyone else could. A Pittsburgh Pirates fan and Jefferson Hills native, Jabs wanted to see the St. Louis Cardinals lose.
“I thought somebody made a mistake in listing it,” Jabs said. “Looking at the price, I thought the seller was extremely generous and wanted to give the ticket away for almost nothing.”
After getting an email confirmation from StubHub, Jabs printed out the ticket and posted a photo of his winnings on Twitter.
Media outlets, such as Deadspin, caught wind of the purchase and posted stories about the purchase of the ticket that night. Jabs’ story quickly went viral.
But hours after his purchase, Jabs received an email and voicemail saying the seller committed fraud on the price of the ticket. He was going to get his $6 back thanks to StubHub’s Fan Protect Guarantee.
Jabs called StubHub’s customer service hoping to get a ticket of comparable value, but no tickets in Fenway Park costs $6. He got a $50 account credit from them.
The next day his story went national, and StubHub caved from the pressure of negative publicity for its ticket service. It decided to give him the chance to sit anywhere in the ballpark for Game 1.
For the second time in his life, Erik Jabs was going to the World Series. He went to Game 4 of last year’s World Series and watched the San Francisco Giants defeat the Detroit Tigers in four games.
“He shouldn’t have fell for the fraudulent tickets,” said Alex Mitro, a former student in his Spanish class. “However, that lucky mistake ended up being a lifetime experience, so I’m happy for him.”
When he bought the ticket, his original seat was Section 97 Row WW. Jabs decided that it would be greedy to go somewhere else in the ballpark and decided to stay in the same section and move up to Row CC. His seats were located just past first base.
“If the story had never gone public, I probably would have never gone to the game,” said Jabs.
He flew out to Boston on the day of the game and made it in time for the St. Louis Cardinals batting practice.
He wanted to see if he could get any baseballs, so he started searching for them in the crowded center field bleachers. Jabs later moved to the left field stands because there were fewer people there.
Dressed like a Cardinals fan, Jabs tried for 20 minutes to get a ball from a Cardinals player.
He got one from Tyler Lyons, a player who didn’t make the Cardinals postseason roster.
Later, Jabs changed into the team’s colors of the Boston Red Sox, the team he was cheering for that night. Finally, when the Cardinals hit a ground-rule double, he got his second ball of the game.
“I only got two [baseballs] that night because there was a sell-out crowd. It’s well below my average of 6.7 balls per game,” he said.
Jabs is a “ballhawk,” or someone who goes to MLB games to collect as many baseballs as possible. He’s been doing this since 2007, amassing a total of 2,887 baseballs, including 731 this year. He collected a majority of them at PNC Park, home of his favorite baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“His hobby is unique,” said Jamie Fleck, Jab’s friend and a former Spanish teacher at Steel Valley. “He’s the best at it, and believe it or not, there are other people who do the same thing.”
Jabs knows where a left or right handed batter’s power side is and makes sure he has at least one row to his left and his right empty, so his range is not affected by people standing around him. He dresses like the fan of the home or visiting team so the team throws baseballs at him.
“It really works when a team from the West Coast comes to play the Pirates at home,” Jabs said. “It would be hard for fans in a city like San Diego, to fly 3,000 miles to watch them play baseball.”
His antics sparked a friendship with Pirates bullpen coach Euclides Rojas and bullpen catcher Heberto Andrade. They throw him baseballs, whenever they see him, whether on the road or in Pittsburgh.
Brandon Kintzler, a relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers saw through his tricks last summer and teased him when he came to town. They shook hands and Kintzler said to him, “It was fun messing with you all summer.”
“It’s nice having relationships with players and coaches,” Jabs said.
Jabs visited 17 major league stadiums and hopes to visit all 30 stadiums within the next two or three years with his wife Amy and two children, Olivia, 2, and EJ, his 6-month-old son.
He went to 108 games this year. In addition to attending games at PNC Park, he visited Comerica Park in Detroit, Progressive Field in Cleveland, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Marlins Park in Miami, and Safeco Field in Seattle.
He has also been to other playoff games than the World Series. He attended every Pirates home playoff game this year, as well as this year’s American League wildcard game in Cleveland, one game of the American League championship series in Detroit and the 2010 National League division series in Cincinnati.
Jabs plans to use his baseballs for batting practice with his kids.
“My family loves to travel,” he said. “In fact, we are quite bored now that it’s the offseason.”
Jabs claims the reason he manages to catch so many baseballs is because he follows the wisdom of the famous president of the Brooklyn Dodgers Branch Rickey who once said, “Luck is the residue of design.”