[evanjacobs]

This reminds me of a story I heard as a kid while listening to a baseball game on the radio.

During a game one night, one of the non-starting pitchers was bored in the dugout and started doodling on the baseballs that would be periodically brought out to the umpire (to replace balls that are hit out of play or that are scuffed on the dirt). He happened to know that it was the home plate umpire's birthday that day and so on one ball he wrote "Happy Birthday Dave" (or whatever the umpire's name was). At one point, that ball was brought out to the umpire by the bat boy along with a few other balls and was put into play by the umpire who didn't notice the inscription.

The batter happened to hit that ball foul into the stands where it was caught by a guy named Dave who was also celebrating his birthday that day.