Zack Hample, for those of you who don’t know, is the self-appointed savior of baseball and fun. He goes to every game he can and tries to catch every foul ball/home run/BP hit/player toss into the stands. He will then give some of the balls to kids at the end of the game. Then, he’ll talk about it until the end of the world, to make sure you know how noble and nice and amazing he is.

Hample is a jackass at best, a narcissistic cancer in the stands at worst. He allowed his own ego to blind him to legitimate issues with using the Fort Bragg game, saved for soliders and their families, to further his bullshit. He even made most logical people side with Marlins Man, a walking highlighter of self-obsession.

Hample’s act is far from new, but he brought his ego-maniacal bullshit to Citizens Bank Park last month and detailed it in a video and blog post.

In the gif above – taken from the video – Hample rushes and takes a ball from a guy the ball actually struck, as it fell under his seat. No one else was rushing for the ball – because no one cared, and also because it hit the dude – but Hample doesn’t care. Yet in his blog post he turned his victim complex up to 11:

Somehow this guy found me later on Twitter and accused me of “stealing” the ball from him. Maybe he got pissed when I celebrated?

Seriously, though, he didn’t seem the least bit bothered at the time, and anyway, there’s no rule that grants ownership just because a ball happens to land on your seat. Fans regularly scramble for baseballs, sometimes to the point of engaging in aggressive Tug Of War matches. I never get involved with crap like that, and as you can see, there’s video evidence to prove that I didn’t “steal” this one. (I should travel with a videographer all the time, huh? It would certainly help disprove false accusations.)

What’s the saying? If everyone around you seems to be going crazy, maybe you’re actually losing your mind, something like that? If everyone around Zack Hample is accusing him of being an asshole and he sees himself as the victim, they’re probably right and he’s probably wrong.

Look at Hample’s reaction to a woman catching a ball earlier in the game. She’s very happy. He’s experienced this feeling, by his own claim, 9,189 times. Yet, he’s still got a whiny little shit look on his face. Why? Because now he won’t be able to use that ball to further boost his own ego.

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In his blog post he says he talked to her about catching the ball, but can’t let the tidbit go by without patting himself on the back:

It was a sweet grab, and I congratulated her on it. She told me that she plays softball and that it was no big deal. Her name is Lexi, and she actually recognized me from YouTube.

Oh, she recognized you? Did she recognize you as “foul ball guy” and laugh at you like other people do?

Watch this:

Watch that again. Hample has received criticism in the past for plowing through people to get the balls he wants. They say doesn’t care about other people. Here, you can see he comes very close to running right through a CBP employee because his precious ball is near her. He barely stops himself from knocking her over, and she looks incredibly uncomfortable with Hample running around her with such intensity. Most people would see that and say “Dude, chill.” Hample sees it as a beautiful act of his nobility, m’lady:

When you watch the video (which I will link to at the end of this entry), pay close to attention to how I expertly avoided bumping into the woman in the light blue shirt. (She worked there, so she was simply trying not to get hit by the ball.) This is a prime example of how I *don’t* knock people over, even when it’s crowded and they get right in my way and I really want the ball.

“I expertly avoid,” aka barely stop myself from coming into physical contact with a bystander and really don’t go out of my way to avoid it, knocking over a person who got in my way for a baseball, one of nearly 10,000 I’ve gotten. What a fucking gentleman.

Now, how will he be able to give the balls to a kid (a kid who maybe could have gotten the ball from their dad or brother or mom or sister of friend who caught it at the game if Hample didn’t) and boost his own fragile ego? His god complex is showing, and sweet shit is it a bad look.

Hample is what happens when people are relatively timid about catching balls that come to them. He has no “off” button. That ball is his…I mean, some kid’s. So the next time you’re at the ballpark and a ball rolls your way, and Zack Hample is right on its tail, show him the same bullshit intensity he shows everyone else, and see how he likes it. (Spoiler: He doesn’t.)