Someone caught a signed home run ball!

This verbatim (with the exception of one word) from philly.com:

"A volunteer umpire of a youth baseball tournament in Cooperstown, N. Y., thought it was his lucky day earlier this month when he spotted 350-game winner Greg Maddux in the stands. He asked the future Hall of Famer to autograph a ball for him and Maddux, who was with his son, obliged.

The ump was pretty happy until he mistakenly reached into his ball bag and threw it to the pitcher. But he figured it was no big deal, that he'd (I use a lot of slang on this site but this in a publication? CC) just switch it out after the first pitch. Except that it never got to the catcher. Instead, the batter drilled it into the crowded left field (this word spelled wrong in the article and I am helping them out a bit. CC) bleachers for a home run."

Great story. It could be better though if someone with a very legible autograph like Hank Aaron had signed it and the person who caught the ball could easily read it and then start looking for Hank Aaron in the crowd wondering just what the heck is going on. In this case, Greg Maddux has a notoriously illegible autograph as you can see above and the person who caught that ball probably just said to the person sitting next to him/her, "Look I just caught a ball with writing on it. They use old balls here."