I never catch foul balls at baseball games. Sure, I've wound up with them before, gifts that shank off the doughy paws of the guy in front of me or red-seamed pinballs that ricochet around vacant bleachers. But snag one on the fly? Only done it once.

It was 1988, at a University of Arizona baseball game, and I fought off a fearsome hoard of fellow bloodthirsty 10-year-olds to make a lucky one-handed grab. "Official Ball, Pacific 10 Conference," it read in gaudy green letters.

	Zinter

After the game, I assumed my traditional autograph position as the rest of the Arizona team filed out of the clubhouse. Trevor Hoffman. Scott Erickson. J.T. Snow. (How stacked was that team?) But I was after one guy only -- the one who had hit the foul ball. I spotted him, still wearing his catcher's armor, metal cleats clacking on the asphalt, and ran up to him. "Mr. Zinter, will you sign this?" The notion of calling a college kid 'Mister' seemed perfectly normal at the time, me being a fifth-grader and all. And this was Alan Zinter -- Arizona catcher, college All-American, future first-round pick -- certifiable 'Mister' status if anyone ever deserved it.

So I got Alan Zinter's autograph, right on the sweet spot, adjacent to the scuff his potent bat had made innings earlier. I took that autograph and turned heel on the likes of Hoffman, Erickson and Snow -- I got the guy that really mattered.

Months later, Alan Zinter would be a first-round pick of the New York Mets (24th overall) in the 1989 draft, ahead of Erickson (fourth round by the Twins), Snow (fifth round by the Yankees) and Hoffman (11th by the Reds). At his press conference, he said he hoped to be in the majors within two years. So I followed his career avidly as he made what I assumed would be a phoenix-like rise through the Mets farm system. I knew that with that ball tucked away in the closet, I would have a fine piece of memorabilia forever -- or at least something that could command a few bucks at the card shop should Dad ever lose the mortgage.

By the time I hit high school -- about the time I stopped reading the comics every morning -- I also quit checking Alan Zinter's stats. I had come to believe the modern Alan Zinter, the one who was batting in the low .200s in Double-A for five years, was a different guy, a doppelganger, not the near-legend who had signed my baseball. Snow, Erickson and Hoffman had become bonafide pros; Zinter dallied in places like Port St. Lucie and Pawtucket. I soon passed from college into pseudo-adulthood. Alan Zinter became a memory. The ball became fodder for weekend games at the park.

	“	You play in cathedral ballparks and use white balls for batting practice. ”
		— Alan Zinter, on what it's like playing in the major leagues

But last Sunday, while taking in the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., a mild tremor on the MLB transaction radar shook the cobwebs out of my skull -- the Houston Astros had called up a 34-year-old minor-league lifer named Alan Zinter. After 14 tours of duty in the bush leagues (and even a stint in Japan), Zinter was finally getting his cup of coffee in the bigs.

So far, the java is still hot and a gleeful Zinter has welts all over from continually pinching himself in his first major-league series at Milwaukee's Miller Park. He laughs when I tell him about our history back in Tucson.

"When I think back to those days at Arizona, it doesn't seem like that long ago," he says. "Now that I've been called up, my career seems like it's gone by in a flash."

From 1989 until last Sunday, Zinter bounced around from Williamsport to Toledo to Seibu, Japan and finally to Triple-A New Orleans (after signing a minor-league contract with the Astros in November 2000). That's where Zinter was playing on Sunday, when his manager yanked him in a sixth-inning double-switch and told him to pack his bags. Of course, Zinter was used to hearing this (he had been cut from 10 big-league spring trainings in his career)‚ but in this case, Zinter was packing for a promotion. Joyous teammates began pounding him on the back and whooping it up, "like I had just won the game," Zinter says. Zinter's dad was in the stands, but was talking to a friend and missed the outburst. So after the game, Zinter put on his best straight face and asked pops if he wanted to watch the Astros game on TV the next day. Sure, Dad said. "Or you could just drive up there with me," said Zinter, no longer able to mask his smile. "I just got called up." Not a bad Father's Day gift.

He's the real-life version of Crash Davis from Bull Durham, so it's no surprise that Zinter mimics Kevin Costner's line when illustrating the differences between The Show and the minors: "You play in cathedral ballparks and use white balls for batting practice," he recites proudly.

But no matter how unblemished the baseballs look, Zinter will always be a minor-leaguer at heart (a lifetime of endless bus rides and Red Roof Inns help with that). Teammate Wade Miller recently got a kick out of seeing the rookie shining his spikes in the clubhouse. "You know," Miller laughed, "people do that for you up here."

In his three-day major-league career, the saucer-eyed Zinter has gotten to the park about the same time as the groundskeepers -- "just to put on the uniform," he says. He takes extra hitting every day, marveling at BP homers that bounce off shiny seats rather than into empty parking lots.

Zinter's roster spot is hardly etched in stone. In fact, as the third catcher behind Brad Ausmus and Gregg Zaun, it could be written in invisible ink. "I don't know if my major-league career is going to last one more day or four more years," says Zinter, who's gone hitless in two pinch-hit appearances. "But I'm enjoying it."

For the record, I'm enjoying it too. It's kind of fun to follow the career of Alan Zinter again.

Andy Latack covers baseball for ESPN The Magazine.