Home Run Catches

Ryan Howard's appearance on Heiss the Fan's MLB.com show at 11:30 this morning is inspired by a sad display of family business.

It happened during the Phillies home opener last spring. Erik Heiss and his father, Frank Heiss Jr., were in the left field stands. The slugger was up.

And there it went, the first of Howard's Phillies record-breaking 58 homers that season, headed right for them. Dad went for it. Thought it had it. Didn't.

At work the next day - Erik's job is at MLB.com - he hunted down the video of the game, wondering if he'd see the homer on TV. What he saw was bad.

He writes by e-mail:

'This dope has his eyes closed and hands closed."

This dope being his dad, age 52, of West Deptford, N.J.

The remedy:

Erik Heiss invited the Big Guy onto his MLB.com show, Heiss the Fan, where Howard gives a clinic in how-to-catch-home-run-balls - useful stuff for baseball fans around the league and Japan. It's streaming video from Heiss's weekly spot. The pieces stay up on the site after, so you can watch it at any time.

Basically, the art boils down to this (almost) money quote from Howard:

"If you can keep your hands open, keep your eye on the ball, be a little relaxed, act like you know what your doing, than there's a good chance of trying to catch the home run ball."

Heiss we met in this space in September, 2005.  A recap of how he wound up with his gig:

Erik Heiss, 26, was a Philly sports nut, working in Manhattan for MLB.com, writing copy for announcer Casey Stern, acting his usual reserved self at work - former class clown, he graduated to being the mascot at West Deptford High School (an eagle) then at Monmouth University (a hawk).

The two guys would give each other endless grief - Stern's a Mets fan, Heiss rises and falls with the Phillies. "I guess growing up in South Jersey," he says, "if you don't follow the local teams, you get beat up. That is the way we roll."

Stern figured there had to be some way to bottle this essence of Philly fanaticism.

Which is the back story to the weekly video blog you can see ... at MLB.com, where the goateed goofball in a backward Phillies ballcap is (slightly) transformed into Heiss the Fan, which means fan of all things Philadelphian.

Friday, another segment airs. That one's about why it is that Mayor Street has trouble with the MVP's name.