My friend caught a football today at the game, ball boy comes and whines wanting to know who had it. Ball boy leaves runs and gets a cop, tells my friend if he does no give the ball back he was gonna take him to jail. we spoke to several that said he should have been able to keep the ball. Should he complain?
The policy in the NFL at most stadiums used to be: you can keep the ball but you were automatically ejected if you did, in other words you had to leave the game if you wanted the ball. Legally, it's a tricky issue that I'm sure somebody has written law review articles about somewhere, probably more int he context of baseball, but it's their ball I think unless you go to an Arena league game where you're allowed/encouraged to keep them.
I found this link http://dailybeacon.utk.edu/issues/v82/n23/couch.23s.html Clearly this boy kept couch's football and I did not see the laws threaten him. Hmmmm my friend is a Psl holder of 3 seats...I think Im gonna tell him to argue this.
I caught a foul ball at a high school baseball playoff game once. Since I knew you weren't supposed to keep the balls and they had some old guy running around retreiving them, I quickly slipped into my pocket. The old guy comes to our section and starts looking up into the stands. Everybody was ignoring him and I thought I might get away with it until this little kid in the front row stood up and pointed at me. Stupid little rat-fink kid.
I watched a guy at a UT basketball game keep the ball. Everyone throws them back...not this guy. It was hilarious. No one messed with him. He acted like he knew what he was doing and it worked.
I don't know if complaining will do anything. The Arena League lets fans keep footballs that go into the stands. They even advertise that. Each NFL team may have a different policy, but unless a player hands you the ball, I don't think you're allowed to keep it.
Smokey and a few are right however here is an update on what happend.....(Rockets pay attention) The Customer service and reliant stadium and the Texans is now A+ in my books, they notified my friend and apologized to him about the cop making a threat. They told him that they normally do not let people keep the balls but in this case because the police officer made the uncalled for threats they would send him a signed ball from the team. They also said that this is not the first time this has happend so they will be getting security together and letting them know that it's not kosher to make threats to fans for keeping footballs. I told my friend he should have told them that he was so traumatized by the football incident that a signed authentic jersey would ease the pain
That is fantastic. I have a newfound respect for McNair and the boys up top after reading your friend's tale.
