Kopp Snags First Career Gamer
Clean Catch of Nick Markakis Homer is Ballhawk's First Home Run Snag
by Alan Schuster, August 22, 2012The Markakis home run ball was a commemorative Camden Yards ball.In the baseball world, the name Nick Markakis is very well known, at least for reasonably well-informed fans. Munenori Kawasaki? Not so much. But when ballhawk Alex Kopp ventured into the flag court in right field at Camden Yards on August 8, his goal was to to snag a homer off the bat of Kawasaki. Sitting on zero career homers, Kawasaki's first big league home run would be huge for whoever snagged it. Unfortunately Kawasaki's first career dinger didn't happen, but Kopp's first career home run snag did, courtesy of Nick Markakis. "I got a good jump on the ball, ran about 20 feet to my left, leaped and made the catch on the fly," he said. "It all happened so fast, I wasn't even sure I had it. The first thing I did was look down at my glove to see if the ball was in there." It was a clean catch in the middle of a densely-populated crowd, and the atmosphere in the flag court was electric after Markakis delivered the big home run. "After I caught it I jumped up and down and high-fived what seemed like 100 people," he said. "It was a really awesome experience particularly because it was my first game home run ball. For that moment I really felt like part of the game." Watch Alex Kopp's first career home run snag on MLB.com