A casual ballhawk

We live in a cozy brick ranch on the west side of Des Moines that was built in 1954, the same year I was put together. From the street, you’d never suspect it’s big enough to include a ballroom. But it does. Some might call it a mancave, but I detest that term. Or an office, but the desk is so cluttered that whenever I have something to do on my laptop, like pay bills or this, I bring it to the dining room table. No, I call this former bedroom a ballroom because it brims with balls. Baseballs and golf balls mostly. I used to gather them pointlessly, compulsively. But now they’re my stock in trade. You see, I’ve become a side hustler. Maybe you’re one, too.

According to CivicScience, 26% of U.S. adults in the workforce have a side hustle in 2024. Self Financial reports that 45% of working Americans have a side hustle, and Marketwatch says more than half of Americans have taken on a side hustle in the last year to supplement their primary income.

Here comes our daughter now, who swells her cash flow by dog-sitting. Besides extra moolah, it scratches the itch she’s had since leaving a job she loved at a vet’s office to work for a Fortune 500 company so she could get some tangible fringe benefits.  

There’s a former and (gulp) potential POTUS who’s a renowned side hustler. Steaks, Bibles, golden sneakers, vanity trading cards, possibly state secrets; you name it, he peddles it to pad his primary income, which derives from political campaigning, i.e. panhandling. If he’s king of nothing else (please, God), he may go down as King of the Side Hustlers. While the overall birth rate in America is down, it appears to have risen substantially from the baseline of one per minute in at least one subgroup: suckers.

Speaking of kings, how about Pete (Hit King) Rose? After earning the nickname Charlie Hustle during his baseball career by routinely busting his ass on the field, he was banned from the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for betting on games. So, he sets up an autograph booth there every summer when others are being inducted. It’s a lucrative side hustle for Charlie, er Pete, who sort of turns lemons into a lemonade stand.

As for my baseball sideline, it’s just getting off the ground. For many years, I’ve been what I would describe as a casual ballhawk — someone who chases foul balls and homeruns at ballgames. It started when I saw the Wrigley Field ballhawks in action on the street outside that hallowed ballpark. They’re the subject of the documentary “Ballhawks” (narrated by Bill Murray), which I got to see the Chicago premiere of years ago. I’ve only ever snagged a few batting practice homers at the corner of Waveland and Kenmore in Chicago, but I began ballhawking in earnest locally at Iowa Cubs games when I retired a few years ago. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs (a retriever of some sort, apparently), I am conditioned to give chase when a baseball passes by. It’s the name of the game, after all, literally the very object of it. I’d accumulated many hundreds of them by the time I stumbled upon the realization that there’s a market for used baseballs owing to the proliferation of semi-pro youth teams that barnstorm regional tournament circuits long after their Little League and/or school seasons have ended. They play so many games and practice so much that they need lots of balls. And new ones are costly in quantity. So, I sifted through my I-Cubs batting practice models (all of which are official Major League Baseball specimens) and culled the most experienced ones. They practically sell themselves.

And the golf balls? Early every morning, I go for long walks. The routes used to vary. Occasionally, they’d shortcut across the golf course near our home. If I occasionally found a ball or two, I’d bring them home. Some I stashed for my own use. Others I tossed into a bucket for donation to First Tee, an organization that introduces underprivileged kids to the game. Then I discovered Facebook Marketplace, where I sometimes browse like a virtual garage sale. I test listed a couple batches of “used like new” balls, and they were snapped up. Now, my daily walks always include the golf course, and I bring bread bags along for the berries I pick. My forearms are bloodstained from scratches sustained foraging in the rough, but, so far, no broken bones or sprains from falls on the creek bed rocks or brushes with poison ivy in the woods. Golf’s not a cheap sport to play. Greens fees, clubs AND balls are expensive. Depending on a golfer’s preference, new balls can retail for more than $5 apiece. And many get lost before they ever complete a round. Those are where I come in. Finders/sellers. Let’s make a deal.

The ball biz requires no startup capital. All I had to invest was time and effort to acquire inventory and turn a hobby and my exercise into an enterprise that puts a little walking around loot in my pocket and gas in my car. Plus, it’s seasonal. I take the winters off. But wait! Might there be an untapped demand for snowballs?

Finally, and best of all, there’s this. The occasional freelance gig yields my favorite kind of cash. I’ve written and self-published four books, the most recent of which, “A Scavenger’s Digest,” was inspired by my penchant for wandering about in search of, well, whatever’s to be found. But that was nickel and dime stuff: cans/bottles, petty cash, etc. (I logged my findings in that category over the course of a full year. They came to $49.90.) The monetization since then has been dramatic. Maybe it’s time for a sequel. Except I haven’t got the time. I’m too busy harvesting and curating batches of merchandise for which the demand is greater than it was for the original volume. 

Who remembers the heyday of Steve Martin’s standup career? It was way back in the mid-70s, when “The Hustle” topped the charts and was all the rage in American discos. I wasn’t doin’ it then, but I am now. 

Yeah, this is kinda like that. n