Turning catching baseballs into a career

Zack is crazy about baseball and he's also catching baseballs in major games for living.

Transcript

00:00Hey, my name is Zach Hample, and I am a full-time baseball YouTuber, a professional baseball

00:17nerd, and I have snagged more than 11,000 baseballs at major league stadiums.

00:30I remember watching baseball on TV when I was really little, seeing fans catching balls

00:38and going crazy like it was the best thing that ever happened, and I wanted to experience

00:42that joy as well.

00:47I make videos, I take people to games, and my whole living comes through baseball.

00:55I sell merch, I do shout-outs on Cameo, I've written three baseball books, and just anything

01:03that you can think of in the baseball world that involves other people and going to games,

01:07I'm the guy.

01:11Over the years, I've built up a pretty big following in the baseball world as a result of catching

01:18so many baseballs and also some historic balls.

01:22And there was one in particular, Alex Rodriguez's 3,000th career hit, which was a home run at

01:27Yankee Stadium that I got my hands on.

01:31And so that baseball really took me to the next level as far as getting media attention

01:36and having people recognize me.

01:38Two weeks later, I was back at Yankee Stadium for a press conference with A-Rod, and I gave

01:45him that baseball.

01:46The Yankees made a tremendous donation to my favorite children's baseball charity, and

01:51just the whole excitement of that is really worth more to me than having the physical baseball

01:59or the money from it.

02:03I have a storage unit filled with thousands of baseballs.

02:08I put the more valuable baseballs in plastic cubes, but when you have thousands and thousands

02:14of balls, sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.

02:19I feel like I have two different lives.

02:22There's baseball season, Zach, where pretty much all I do is go to games and travel around

02:27and make videos.

02:28It makes it hard to make other plans.

02:31It affects my dating life.

02:33You know, I can only see my friends at certain points during the year.

02:38For better or for worse, this passion, obsession, sickness of catching baseballs has completely

02:46taken over my life.